Good morning, everyone.
Today is February 10th, 2020. The council briefing will come to order.
It is 930 a.m.
We are perfectly on time.
I am Teresa Mosqueda, President Pro Tem of the Council for today.
I'm joined today by Councilmember Sawant, Councilmember Andrew Lewis, Councilmember Alex Peterson, and I know that we will soon be joined by Councilmember Tammy Morales, And potentially some others.
Thank you all for joining us.
Good.
Good morning and welcome councilmember Dan Strauss We are happy to have our office of internal governmental relations at the table with us director Lily Wilson Codega Robin Koski Quinn Majewski okay, and Cheryl swab and we are gonna let you guys go ahead with your presentation first and then we are gonna go into a each individual's report here from the council in terms of what's coming up on this week's agenda, and I will provide an overview of what's on today's full council agenda in addition to what's coming up in my Finance and Housing Committee after you do the presentation.
Thank you, Council President Mosqueda.
Council members, good morning.
Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
This week, we are heading into the fifth week of the short 60-day legislative session, and we have recently passed the first major milestone of this session, the House of Origin policy cutoff as of last Friday.
There's been significant activity and press attention over the last week on Representative Macri's progressive revenue proposal.
Council President Mosqueda has asked that we hold that discussion towards the end, so we're happy to review that, the status of that legislation towards the end of your briefing today.
We also have relayed to the Prime Sponsor, Committee Chair, and other legislators leading on this issue the concerns around preemption that the Council has made clear to us, and we'll continue to do that as the bill moves forward in the House.
I am going to first turn it over to Cheryl Schwab, who's going to begin with education.
Good morning, Councilmembers.
The comprehensive sexual health education bill, we've talked about this, this would expand comprehensive...
Gerald, could you pull it just a little bit closer to you?
Okay.
Thank you.
To expand comprehensive sex education curriculum to all grades 6 to 12 schools across the state, phased in over several years.
The bill would also phase in age-appropriate curriculum for K through 5 grades.
There are two bills.
The Senate bill passed out of the Senate on January 22nd and is now in House education awaiting hearing.
It has until 228 to be heard in Policy Committee.
The House bill passed out of House Education on February 3rd and was referred to Appropriations.
It has until the 11th to be heard and passed out of Committee.
A number of amendments were added in House Education, several of which are of some concern.
One which requires additional reporting requirements for schools and was opposed by OSPI.
So we'll keep you posted on that.
Both chambers seem intent on having their bill be the vehicle and it remains to be seen how they will reconcile their differences.
And my next one is the Fair Start for Kids Act.
This bill was heard in the House Appropriations on Thursday, February 6. It's a comprehensive omnibus early learning package.
The bill does not include a funding source right now, but a capital gains tax proposal to fund the early learning system is expected to be released soon.
So I'll keep you updated on that.
Thank you, Cheryl.
And moving on to Quinn, who is going to cover the legislation in the environment section.
Good morning, council members.
A few updates for you on bills related to the environment.
I have a couple new ones.
First, I want to flag 2311 regarding greenhouse gas emissions.
This amends the state greenhouse gas emissions limits to adopt the most recent available and updated assessment of client change science.
The impacts are primarily further out and generally it's more related to goals and targets, but this is a positive bill that we are supporting.
It was voted out of the Appropriations Committee this weekend and is now headed to the full House floor.
Thank you.
Sorry, a few more.
Reported Last week on 2892, which is being referred to as the Authority Bill.
This is the bill that restores the Department of Ecology's authority to regulate emissions that are indirect or mobile.
So these are primarily distribution of transportation fuels.
This bill, the House version, was voted out of environment and is now headed to the floor.
The Senate version is in appropriations and will need to receive a vote by Tuesday.
So the bills are continuing to move.
There is some divergence in the policy, so that will need to be addressed moving forward.
And then finally, an update on beneficial electrification, House Bill 2586. Amendments were adopted in committee, and it's now headed to the House floor as well.
Those amendments should address some of the concerns related to the impacts to utilities.
It will require that beneficial electrification plans demonstrate a positive benefit to rate payers, and also requires that the switch to electricity be demonstrated to be clean electricity, cleaner than natural gas.
No problem for our greenest utilities in the city of Seattle, but will help assuage some concerns of the environmental community.
Thank you, Quinn.
And moving on to Cheryl, who will cover general government.
So we've added three bills at the request of Councilmember Gonzalez's office.
These are related to what they call the cottage food industries.
Under the state cottage food program, a person may produce certain food products that are not potentially hazardous in a home kitchen for direct sales to a customer.
House Bill 2217 would remove the requirement for cottage food businesses to place their business address on the product labels, and instead requires inclusion of the cottage food permit number.
2218 would increase the cap on gross sales for cottage food products from $25,000 to $50,000.
If the gross sales of a cottage food business exceed the cap, then the business must either acquire a food processor's license from WSDA or cease operations.
Both bills are now in rules.
An additional one is the micro-enterprise home kitchens.
This also addresses home-based food enterprises.
Ventures, a Seattle nonprofit that supports communities of color, immigrant communities, and low-income communities in the creation of businesses, is leading the effort to pass this legislation.
This authorizes micro-scale food operations and home kitchens, creates a permitting process for a new business model.
This is for a food facility that is operated by a person and the person's primary domestic residence where food is stored, handled, prepared, and may be served to consumers.
The bill is scheduled for executive session or was in executive session on February 7th.
Thank you, Cheryl.
And moving on to healthcare, I'm going to turn it over to Robin.
First, I wanted to brief you on the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Senate Bill 6128 that you had asked about last week, Council Member Mosqueda.
This bill would extend postpartum Apple health coverage from 60 days to 12 months, and that would have the same eligibility standards as the current program.
The Maternal Mortality Review Panel found that 30% of all pregnancy-related maternal deaths and the majority of suicides and accidental overdoses occur 43 to 365 days after delivery.
And we also know that there are significant racial disparities in maternal mortality rates.
So the Senate bill was heard on January 20th and voted out of the Senate Health and Long-Term Care Committee unanimously and then had a hearing in Ways and Means last Tuesday, February 4th, and it must be voted out of the Fiscal Committee this week by the 11th, so it is coming up on a deadline.
The House bill is actually not open as a vehicle, so it's the only bill that's live as the Senate bill.
While no one is opposed to the policy, the bill without a federal match has a hefty price tag.
So advocates are meeting with the health care authority, the Senate fiscal staff, and the prime sponsor to consider options that could trim the fiscal impact in order to get the policy in place and take advantage of a bump that would come from a federal match.
Okay.
Thank you so much, colleagues.
I thought this was an important one to add to our legislative agenda.
You know, the United States has some of the highest rates of maternal mortality.
And I understand also that there's a concern from the healthcare authority that they wouldn't be able to implement until 2022. I think it would just be important in our future communications with the folks in Olympia to remind people how many lives are at risk if we delay this another year out.
Again, appreciate you adding it to the agenda and as the conversation continues, continuing to try to encourage or amend the bills so that the implementation date, sorry, don't amend the bill, so that the implementation date remains 2021 as it's currently written in the bill.
Appreciate that.
Absolutely, we will make sure to communicate that.
Robin, can I jump in?
I missed one, I realized.
Can I go back to page three?
I'm sorry, I meant to report on 6152 foreign national ownership campaigns.
This deals with foreign interest in elections.
This bill would require that certain campaign finance reports contain certifications from each entity making a contribution that the entity's ownership is less than 50% foreign.
And only corporations who certify that less than 50% of its stock is owned by foreign nationals can make political contributions.
The legislation is similar in concept to campaign finance legislation passed by the city council earlier this year.
The council legislation banned political donations in local elections from companies with at least 5% foreign ownership.
So there's a significant difference there.
The 6152 bill was heard in the Senate State Government on January 17th, a substitute bill which will apply to all entities, not just corporations, was passed out of committee on the 29th and is now in rules.
So we're tracking this one.
Thank you, Cheryl.
And if there's nothing left in the healthcare section, do you want to move on to housing?
Yes, and I'm actually going to also go back.
We're sorry we're doing a little bit of hopping around, but this bill sort of falls into both the environment and the housing portfolios.
It is Substitute House Bill 2405, the C.
Pacer Bill on page two.
This bill was very near and dear to Barb Graff, and it would create a commercial property-assessed clean energy and resiliency program for financing.
Barb Graff was particularly interested in it because it would allow us to give us a tool to address some of our unreinforced masonry buildings.
And this bill, luckily, a member of the Appropriations Committee contacted us.
They had some questions about the constitutionality of the bill and what impacts were fiscally.
And so we are working with Ben Noble and our budget office to get some information to the committee so hopefully we can get the bill moving before the cutoff date on the 11th.
And then moving on to the more general housing bills, as I was alluding to at the beginning of the committee meeting, there are still quite a few housing bills that are very live.
The one bill that Councilmember Herbold was particularly interested in, House Bill 2732, which would create a landlord mitigation fund for survivors.
of domestic violence is made it into the Rules Committee and is apparently moving along quite nicely.
The Just Cause Eviction Bill, House Bill 2453, is also moving along.
The Senate Bill is dead, but the House has been sort of chosen as the vehicle by leadership, so you shouldn't assume anything by the Senate Bill being dead.
And then, of course, the multifamily tax exemption bill, the governor proposed two pieces of legislation, one that most significantly for Seattle would allow for an extension to address expiring units.
It also includes some density provisions, and it expands the multifamily tax exemption program to some additional communities around the state.
That bill is scheduled to move out of finance today and is being heard in the Ways and Means Committee with an executive session scheduled for tomorrow.
There is some significant conversation about the bill with advocates, labor, and other cities to try and come to a negotiated agreement that serves everyone and that can move forward.
Thank you, Robin.
And beginning on the middle of page 7 under public safety, we saw two casualties of the first cutoff as neither the governor and attorney general request legislation to ban assault weapons or the bill repealing the statute preempting local governments from regulating firearms were voted out of their respective policy committees by the 7th.
So those bills are no longer moving forward.
We continue to see, however, momentum on many of the council's other gun responsibility priorities.
including Representative Hansen's background check bill on the bottom of page 7, Governor and Attorney General request legislation limiting high-capacity magazines listed on the top of page 8, a proposal to establish the Office of Firearm Prevention, and Senator Dingra's felony DUI firearm restriction bill.
Towards the top of page 9, under safety net and civil rights, legislation to eliminate the death penalty in statute passed the Senate 28 to 18 and has been referred to public safety in the House.
The policy modeled on Council President Mosqueda's Domestic Worker Bill of Rights, Senate Bill 6247. passed out of Senate Labor.
And several voter access bills survived policy committee cutoff, including Senate Bill 6228 on the top of page 9 that would restore voting rights to those with felony convictions who are continuing to serve out their community custody, as well as Senate Bill 6313, a proposal listed towards the middle of page 9 that would authorize 17-year-olds to vote in the primary if they will be 18 by the general election.
And I will now turn it over to Quinn, who will cover transportation towards the middle of page nine.
Before we move on, the statewide secure scheduling bill, is that still alive?
I believe it is still alive.
I know there are some challenges that are being negotiated between labor partners at the moment, but I do believe the bill is still alive, and we can follow up with you on that.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Lily.
In terms of transportation, there will be some movement and action This afternoon, in the Senate Transportation Committee, there will be a hearing on the Local Transportation Revenue Options Bill, which would provide additional resources for cities to raise funds to support transportation projects and programs.
The chair of the Senate and House Transportation Committee both have publicly stated that they view this as connected to a broader statewide transportation revenue package, which the negotiations on that and discussions on that are ongoing and expected to last into next session.
So while a hearing is a positive step for this piece of legislation, it's not expected to move forward this session.
But we will be emphasizing the benefits to the city of Seattle for new local transportation revenue options.
The Senate Transportation Committee will also be voting on our automated traffic safety camera legislation related to blocking the box and transit lanes.
And we'll also be voting on Senator Lias's legislation around sound transit car tab valuation.
Just clarifying, Quinn, thank you for that update on block the box and the red light cameras.
So just to be clear, this is moving out of the House, the House is the vehicle.
I think at this point, this is the Senate moving the Senate version out of committee.
So while the House did already pass the legislation and it has been referred to Senate transportation, The Senate vehicle still has time to move, and so at this point, just to keep our options open, we are advancing both bills.
Wonderful.
But the House bill has gone further.
And it seemed like there were some concerns when I testified in the Senate committee.
Have some of those concerns been relieved?
Yeah, so we've been working closely with our stakeholder partners, and I believe the issues around transit operators and ATU have been resolved.
The questions with the Trucking Association have been addressed.
I don't believe they're going to be supporting the bill, but they no longer have concerns.
And we're continuing to work with the ACLU.
I believe we have made progress and have a tentative agreement, but I don't want to overstate anything at this point.
Great.
Just please let me know anything that I can do to help support the bill.
Thank you so much.
And I think that concludes our report for today, except for the progressive revenue discussion that I think you...
So we know that there was some action taken on Friday.
Before we move on to that, may I ask a question about another bill?
Oh, please.
Another bill that I've been tracking, and I thought we may have talked about it last time you guys were here with us, but I might be mistaken.
The PACER bill for URMs, financing mechanism for URMs.
Yes, that bill is the one that I mentioned.
Barb Graff.
House Bill 2405. There were some questions about it.
It was heard on Saturday.
The city submitted a letter in support of it and thankfully Representative Pollack contacted me to ask some questions and we are working to resolve those questions in the hopes that we can help the bill move out of the Appropriations Committee.
All right, thank you.
I understand that the treasurers are still opposed, but it doesn't sound like that opposition is, at this point, a major roadblock.
If there's something I can do to assist, it's a high priority bill for me.
Okay, thank you very much for that, Councilmember Herbold.
I will let you know.
Any other bills that folks would like to call out or ask questions about today?
Okay.
So we asked our director to provide an update on the Progressive Revenue Bill, House Bill 2907, at the end, because I know that this is a bill many of us have been tracking.
And some action was taken on Friday.
Looking forward to having an update on that now.
So House Bill 2907 that I know everyone is following closely was heard on Friday and passed out of committee, I believe it was eight to four.
So that is moving forward.
There was one amendment put forward by Representative Orwell that has to do with just regional representation on the advisory committee, but there is no preemption language included in the vehicle that moved forward.
So I'm gonna actually ask Robin who's been our lead on this issue to fill in some additional context around the bill and the hearing.
I mean, I think the endorsement of the bill was very positive on Friday night.
And I think that one of the things that the prime sponsors have been communicating is that we shouldn't make any assumptions by what happened in the committee vote.
They felt it was really important to make sure the bill moved on Friday night.
And now Representative Macri and Representative Springer are going to be hosting negotiations around the bill.
I believe that's going to begin with talking with the business community early this week.
Just a question about the amendment when I looked online this morning.
I didn't see an amendment posted online It looked like it had been exact out as is because it didn't it didn't say substitute bill Was that amendment hung it was yes, and I'm happy to send the amendment to you as soon as we finish here Okay, sorry for the confusion colleagues.
I thought the bill was introduced as amended, but really the Or wall amendment is adding one additional representative to where
to an advisory committee that would, you know, be in charge of looking at how the money is spent in an accountability committee, essentially.
So no changes to the underlying bill?
No, no changes to the underlying bill.
Okay, Council Member Swan, I saw your hand and then anybody else.
Thank you, President Mosqueda.
You mentioned, I have several questions, I'll go ahead and ask them and then let you respond to them.
You mentioned that the prime sponsors including Representative Macri are going to start negotiations and meet with the business community.
It's extremely concerning to me that I'm not hearing anything about them meeting with ordinary people.
I mean, this is the preemption language.
I mean, we didn't think this up.
You know, this came up from the state legislators.
They've left the door open to this.
So, to your knowledge, what efforts are they making to engage with the hundreds of people who are actively fighting right now to tax big business at the city level, and the thousands of people who support doing that at the city level.
And certainly, I think we can safely say that Most people, even if they don't fall exactly in a given category, would prefer that the city has its ability to raise taxation.
So I just want to make clear that the problematic aspect about this is not the progressive revenues.
We all support progressive revenues.
That is not the point.
The point is the looming threat of preemption.
And so one is I want to know how much they're engaging, if at all, just regular people on the ground.
And then secondly, if you could run over some of the deadlines, I mean, it's very hard to keep track of what happens in the process of the state legislature.
You know, what are the upcoming House committee votes?
What are the Senate committee votes?
House floor vote?
Senate floor vote?
Reconciliation?
Like, what are the in your mind, what are the dates that we should be aware of as we go forward?
Because I think, I mean, we all know, any of us who has looked at the way the state legislature functions, I mean, this iteration of the bill doesn't have preemption, but a future iteration could have.
And so what are the dates we should keep in mind?
And also, if you could weigh in a little bit on what various legislators are saying, progressive legislators are saying on preemption.
Unfortunately, you know, this is quoting from Crosscut article.
I'm quoting from the article.
It says Macri didn't rule out including in later iterations and then quote from her saying one principle that I'm going to into this with is that I would seek to avoid where businesses could inadvertently be double taxed.
That concerns me because we are a state with the most regressive tax system, and I don't think that right now there is any such concept of double.
I mean, what would that even mean when they're not being taxed hardly at all?
And so I know Senator Joe Wynn has spoken about this, and maybe other legislators have that I'm not aware of.
If you could fill me in.
I'm going to start with I know that housing advocates had a lobby day in Olympia that I believe is the same day as the hearing on this legislation and we're prioritizing particularly the progressive revenue as a priority for them, particularly the focus on housing and behavioral health and reinforce the importance of the immediacy of that problem.
In terms of individual legislator conversations with other folks, I think we're happy to follow up on that for you.
The next big hurdle to keep in mind is the House of Origin fiscal committee cutoff.
So that is Tuesday.
And then we have the House of Origin floor cutoff when it has to pass the House on the 19th.
So those would be the next immediate.
when bills have to be, that are in the fiscal committees have to pass out and then off the floor of the House of Origin by the 19th.
And having spent a lot of years in Olympia with our friend, Director Kodega, as a lobbyist myself, I know that these dates are very confusing.
So one of the additions that I noticed that Director Kodega included in the bulletin that we receive weekly is the dates at the very front here.
This is a new addition, if I'm correct, from last year.
I don't remember seeing these upcoming dates.
That's helpful, but also I think the point is still well taken about when individual bills get scheduled and that is somewhat of a frustration as well I know because those bill hearing dates don't come out until the week before so I know that as you understand that this is a bill of interest to us as those hearing dates possibly come up on the I think it's Wednesday night or Thursday morning, then maybe let us know when those bills come up.
And that's true for any of the bills that you all are tracking, including Ban the Box and some of the other civil rights issues.
We will.
And just a note on that, as you have individually flagged priorities for your respective offices, we want to provide the most current updates as possible.
So I think many of you received a Friday night call from various members of our team just to let you know, given how high a priority we know progressive revenue is, we will keep you consistently updated as things move forward.
And while you have the cutoff dates, understanding there's a lot that happens in between that time, we'll make sure to keep everyone updated on council.
And one additional procedural update is just that the Senate bill will not be moving forward.
So it's only the House bill that's the vehicle.
Yes, no, yeah, the cutoff has passed and it did not move out of the yeah comes well actually it still could but we've been told That that it will only be the house bill that's moving forward
Council Member Lewis.
Right.
So this is, I guess, a little bit more of a kind of moving forward question.
So first off, you know, I'm very encouraged that regardless of the nature of the negotiations, that Representative Macri is the one conducting the negotiations gives me a lot of confidence.
I can't think of any elected official in the state of Washington that is more knowledgeable about housing, homelessness, public health than Representative Macri.
So I know that she has.
the interests of this council at heart and the interests of progressives everywhere at heart.
My question is also based on my personal conversations with Nicole Macri.
I do understand that there's going to be, the interests of cities will be considered as part of this negotiation, give and take, that Macri and Representative Springer are going to be.
that we are going to be hosting.
One of the things that we are probably going to do during this session today is send a letter expressing the interests of this council of what we would like to see factored into the negotiations on 2907. I understand that councils and mayors and city governments all over King County are sending similar communications as part of this process.
in the event that this council sends this letter, will the Office of Intergovernmental Relations make plain in these negotiations that the Seattle City Council, as manifested in this letter that was carefully crafted by a number of members here, wants to see these things incorporated?
And will that be communicated to inform the negotiations?
Yes, and Robin is our lead on this legislation in Olympia, and we'll make sure that your concerns and priorities are relayed to legislators as those negotiations move forward.
And council colleagues, I'll talk a little bit more about the letter that we have here for you to consider during my update after our friends from OIR finished their presentation, and I appreciate you flagging that, that there are a number of letters that are going in, and this would be a helpful way to elevate the voice of city municipalities.
Council Member Herbold.
Thank you.
I know there's been a lot of attention paid to the question of preemption in this bill.
I'm wondering, is there any discussion around the question of the rate and whether or not the rate is sufficient to meet our regional needs?
I think that's another issue of great importance to this council and should be of great importance to any elected official in this region.
And just wondering whether or not there are conversations around that as well.
Representative Macri has indicated that absolutely any and all provisions of this legislation are up for conversation so I think she wanted to be very clear about that and that was why efforts were made to move the bill as clean as possible out of the Finance Committee as a strong indication to everyone that you know all points of view were being considered very very strongly.
And I think those conversations should be informed by the best data that we have about our needs, as well as information that we have about our existing contribution to affordable housing, both in the city of Seattle and in King County and the amount that those dollars currently can leverage and the amount that they could leverage under this new taxation.
I think it's really important to be able to tell a story that this new tax mechanism can hit that goal, but I think we need to flush out a little bit about the contributions that we're currently making to affordable housing, both the city level and the county level, as well as the leverage and bonding capacity, so that we're not just shooting in the dark with a number.
Yes, point well taken, and hopefully I'm uniquely situated to talk about that, given my position at the Office of Housing.
Thank you for keeping me informed over the weekend as well.
Council members,
actually on the point about the amount of revenues that would be generated.
I think it is very much tied to the question of preemption actually because we're not in a universe where we're talking about the state or the county raising all the requisite revenues and in that context saying, well, let's not have cities do their own thing.
And in fact, I was, you know, because this has come up, I've been, my staff and I have been looking at a lot of the history of preemption and how it has been used.
And in fact, the earlier history of preemption nationwide, I'm not just talking about Washington State, actually was a progressive history where civil rights organizers used the concept of preemption at the state level in a good way, meaning to say that we want to have bare minimum standards for civil rights, you know, in public spaces and businesses and so on, and we don't want individual cities that might be more right-leaning carve out their own standards.
We want to maintain a certain standard.
But that time has long gone, and in fact since then if you, and I'm happy to send OIR and also my colleagues all this information, there's one study from the National Employment Law Project that shows that a long history now, the more recent history, last few decades, is actually preemption being a very standard tool used by the right wing, by big business in combination with the right wing, to push back against sick and safe time, minimum wage standards on even municipal to prevent cities from having municipal broadband.
I mean there's a whole, I mean the NELP review looks at a whole range of things that the right wing has used to attack using preemption.
And I think the concern with preemption is very much tied to, as you said, you know, the state is saying there's the immediacy of a problem, but then We have the McKinsey study showing $450 million to $1 billion every year, the current need, based on the current rents and everything.
And we know it's a moving target we're chasing.
So how is it that in this context, all we have is a bill that will create authority, which we support for King County to raise revenues.
The bill, the House bill itself, I mean, there's a lot of confusion about it.
The House bill itself does not raise revenues.
It creates an authority for King County to raise revenues at the maximum of $121 million.
That's the max that King County could do.
That still needs to, I mean, you know, that we haven't seen whether King County would be willing to do it.
But even at the max, even if the best case scenario happens, that's a fraction of what our region, of what King County and Seattle needs.
And so I just want to flag, I know others are doing this as well, but I want to flag how deeply damaging it would be, the idea of preemption.
It is in the context of a major unprecedented crisis in our society.
And I'm sorry, I don't agree with this idea that somebody can have progressive credentials and then allow themselves to play a role in something so historically damaging.
And I want to say, just for full disclosure, I have also communicated with Representative Macri, so I'm not saying anything here that I haven't communicated directly to her.
I'm very above board about all of this.
I do think that this is not negotiable.
You cannot leave the door open to preemption and say that that's a progressive thing.
We absolutely need every progressive elected official to say, at every level, to say, absolutely, I will oppose this.
But the prime sponsor has the main responsibility.
I mean, it's her bill.
It's not just her, but our colleagues, whoever is sponsoring it.
It's their bill.
It's important for them to say that I will not support this if I withdraw the support from my own bill if it contains preemption.
I think that that needs to be said.
Otherwise, it won't be, you know, otherwise very soon we'll see this.
I just wanted to also flag that the rent control ban was passed in 1981. 40 years later, new generations of us are fighting this still.
So if this preemption happens, I'm not, I don't think I'm exaggerating.
This, this will, it will stick and then what will we do about our region's crisis?
And I want to be I want to be clear to myself that I will have done everything in my power to have prevented this, regardless of what anybody else does.
And I strongly support the letter that President Mosqueda will be talking about in a few minutes, but I'm also bringing a resolution for a vote, as I'm sure you know, but not that it's relevant so much to OIR, but I just wanted to mention it in that context.
Thank you.
So any other additional council members have any comments or questions for our OIR team?
Okay, well, I really appreciate you providing us with the update.
We know things are moving quickly, and this is a short session, so it's moving even faster than usual.
Thank you for the information, and I know you're probably on your way to Olympia today, so thanks for popping in and providing us with these updates.
And we are going to leave you with a copy of the letter as well.
And look forward to having more conversations with you and really do appreciate all the time that you're spending down there.
I know how hectic it is.
I had my heat pad out and I would put it on my shoulders in the evening just to sort of decompress.
So thank you for all the work that you're doing.
Thank you.
Well, council colleagues, I want to just for the good of the order, make sure that we approve the minutes from last week.
I can't remember, Linda, if I did that earlier, so let me go ahead and do that.
If there's no objection, the minutes from the February 3rd, 2020 meeting of the council briefing will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.
All right.
So, council colleagues, thank you so much for all of the questions that you provided to our legislative team.
We know that there's a number of bills that are moving their way through from transportation to housing to civil rights, and the last conversation was just one element.
So, appreciate our OIR team.
As you have already heard today, there is a letter that I would love for the council to consider signing on to.
Our council colleague, Lisa Herbold, at the end of the table has the official copy that we can pass down for possible signature.
Council colleagues, I circulated this letter last Thursday for you to take a look at and ask for your consideration of a letter that would do two things.
Really, one is to be very clear about our ongoing desire to see more additional progressive revenue tools in this city.
and in this region and frankly in this state.
Ideally, this would be a state conversation about progressive revenue to right-side up our upside-down tax system.
What House Bill 2907 does is add another progressive potential tool to the region by allowing King County to have this authority.
And as it stands, as you just heard, the bill that moved out, even with this minor amendment that I was not capturing correctly before, it still keeps intact the progressive bill as introduced.
I think it's really important for us to be able to weigh in, as Council Member Lewis suggested.
As other cities and other municipalities are also weighing in, the voice of Seattle City Council should be also heard.
As other entities like labor and business and community partners are sending in letters with principles, I thought it was important for our principles to be recognized as well.
We know that this is the fifth year of the homelessness crisis here in our region, and we've declared a state of emergency in our city.
This bill potentially could make significant steps towards bringing in additional revenue.
If the state were to pass it and the county were to act, we could potentially see additional revenue coming in.
I don't want to sugarcoat it.
This is clearly not as much revenue as we all have talked about in the last few years needing, but it is a huge, huge improvement if we were able to get upwards of over 120 million, if potentially more.
What you see also in the letter is a desire that we are very clear in our principles that we would like there to be future conversations about increasing the total revenue authority.
That's clearly called out.
It's clearly called out as well that the City of Seattle is very concerned, has deep concerns with the preemption conversation as already articulated today and articulated last Monday.
There is also a desire that we stand on principle that the majority of funding be directed towards housing, that we use evidence-based intervention models.
That includes enhanced shelters, includes mental health services, but really puts a front-loaded amount into housing so there's an exit on the horizon.
And then lastly, that there is greater clarification for how the regional homeless authority will get funding compared to the county and the city.
I think a little bit more direction on that is very helpful.
As our central staff have outlined, it's important that we have clarity on that as we go in.
So these are the pieces that are called out as the principles that the city would like to continue to address.
Lastly, I think it goes without saying, much like the state legislative members, our King County Council colleagues, the regional City partners we here in the city have also been elected to serve our constituents and in order to do so We need every tool in our toolkit.
We want to be part of the conversations, especially around this bill We were elected with a duty to respond to those concerns And so it is a request a desire to be part of those discussions so that they are not just with one focus group but really include the city as well as the conversation moves forward and That's my intent with the circulating this letter today and again I want to underscore my appreciation for the sponsor, the sponsors of the bill that's who this letter is directed towards with their strong position that this is a starting place and they know that this is also not the whole funding solution but a starting place to help bring in additional progressive revenue sources so we don't have to constantly rely on I appreciate your consideration of that.
I also want to recognize for the good of the order that we are going to have our next finance and housing committee meeting on Wednesday, February 19 at 2 p.m.
That will be a special committee because we had to move it due to the holiday on Monday, so Wednesday at 2 p.m., where we will have a vote on the capital projects list for 2020, which we discussed last week, have council and mayoral appointments to the Domestic Worker Standards Board, and this time we will have a discussion on the future of work.
And then council colleagues, I'll let you walk through the preview of the agenda as you have many items on the agenda and if there aren't any Concerns, I'll just briefly highlight council bill one one nine seven two six is an ordinance relating to renters rights and evictions a resolution on good faith intent for future bargaining on the collective bargaining process related to SPOG.
The Transportation Utilities Committee has an appointment to the Levy Move Oversight Committee, the Finance and Housing Committee.
We have an appointment to the Employees Renter Systems Board and to the Labor Standards Advisory Committee.
And with that, that concludes the President's Report.
Okay, Council Member Sawant.
Thank you, President Mosqueda.
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
And on that letter, of course, as I've said before, I strongly support it and happy to sign it.
And on today's agenda, there is one item from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, the bill that my office sponsored to ban cruel winter evictions during the coldest and wettest months of the year.
This would be precedent-setting legislation.
It is modeled after a very successful ban on winter evictions that has been in effect in France for 70 years.
However, as far as we can determine, it would be the first of its kind in the United States, so hopefully we will not only provide additional protections to renters, this time from winter evictions in our city, but will also inspire other cities and states across the country to do the same.
I wanted to share this article from the Seattle Times from Dan Beekman, which is extremely informative on winter evictions.
I mean, on the bill itself, but also just context in which this bill has been put forward.
Obviously, as you know, it was put forward from my office in response to a strong recommendation from the City of Seattle Renters Commission.
And this article contains a lot of that kind of data that shows the basis for why this would be a good idea.
And in addition to what Dan Beekman has here, of course, I've shared numerous times with you all The losing home report, how it shows that nearly 9 out of 10 renters who were evicted ended up homeless in the study that they did, and many of them were children.
And they were overwhelmingly from black households.
So it's really, we're talking about black women and children who are the most deeply impacted.
And again, we see that the eviction process itself is what you would call means tested in the sense that middle class people don't fall prey to evictions.
It is very, very vulnerable and marginalized people.
who make up the majority of those who are evicted.
And the study also found in the sample that they were evaluating four of the evicted tenants committed suicide.
Yeah, the statistics are pretty dire.
And the statistics that we are looking at are countywide because that's how they are tracked.
But of course, the reality is clear.
Seattle is a big part of setting the standards right as well.
And I think the Beekman article talks about how there have been over a thousand evictions in King County in this past year.
which is just a stunning number.
I also wanted to say that there, I'm sure you all have, I don't have copies of that, but two small landlords wrote an opinion editorial on the Seattle Times.
Just wanted to share that we haven't found any evidence, any actual evidence that will back up the concerns that they have.
I understand that they have concerns.
But to me, it seems to my office, which has done a lot of work around this for several weeks, seems like there's a whole range of what-ifs, which is understandable, but what-if is not enough to formulate policy.
It has to be backed up by data.
In fact, one of the co-authors of the op-ed from the landlords actually met with my staff, and then they told us that They've actually never evicted anyone, so they wouldn't even be impacted by this law, really.
This law is meant to protect tenants of corporate landlords and slumlords who end up having an exploitative approach towards very poor households.
So just to give a background of all the steps we've taken, as I said, this bill was recommended by the City of Seattle Renters Commission in early November of last year.
In December, my office introduced the first draft.
And then we at the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee on January 23rd, we discussed an amended version of the first draft, which was already amended dramatically to create exceptions for situations like criminal activity.
And, you know, we modeled it after the existing Just Cause Evictions Ordinance, and we passed it out of committee with a recommendation for a vote at the city council on February 3rd.
On February 3rd, the council delayed the vote on the bill, holding it to today.
which council members wanted to prepare more amendments, but I'm a little disappointed, and I'm not a little, I'm quite disappointed to see that most of the amendments are actually going to make it more difficult and more restrictive for renters to be protected by this eviction ban, and I know council members will be going over their own amendments.
I'm not going to say most of my comments for later, but The exception to my concerns is Council Member Lewis's amendment, which he had already brought forward in committee, which I'd already said that I support, and that was already ready last week, but all the other amendments would be watering down this legislation to make it more effective.
Just to very quickly summarize my concerns, I'm not sure how renters who go to court are supposed to know that they need to demonstrate how many units their landlord owns.
I mean, I can tell you my own office, you know, in just doing sort of a, experimental project has found it hard to find out how many units are owned by any given exploitative landlord like Carl Haglund.
And so I don't know how an already vulnerable household is supposed to have that information.
And as for means testing, There is just a long, long series of documentary evidence to show that any program that is designed to support low-income people, it is best designed if it's not means-tested.
From SNAP to Seattle's utility discount program, every piece of evidence shows that means-testing becomes a barrier.
So I would really urge council members to think about who needs our support the most.
Is it the most vulnerable renters who are being evicted or landlords who own multiple homes and also the kind of landlords who tend to exploit, landlords who are not exploiting their tenants.
And then...
I just wanted to let everybody know that the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month, so our next regularly scheduled meeting will be on February 25th.
And just one more item.
At today's city council meeting, I also intend to walk on for a vote, a resolution opposing any effort to ban cities like Seattle from enacting progressive business taxes, such as the tax Amazon movement that has already been now really growing since last year's election and has had many successful events with hundreds of people actively participating and dozens of organizations, including progressive labor unions.
And we've just discussed it, you know, the immediate danger is the preemption, not the revenues.
I want to make it very, very clear again and again that we welcome the revenues, but we do reject any possibility of preemption.
And as President Mosqueda said, you know, we need to have every tool at our disposal, every tool in our toolbox.
So I support the letter, but I also hope that my colleagues will support the resolution.
I sent you all a draft last Friday.
It supports progressive business taxes, opposes preemption, and the resolution urges Mayor Durkan to publicly oppose preemption and request the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to advocate these positions in Olympia.
I'll stop there.
So, council colleagues, I want to make sure that folks know on the eviction one, if there is any concern that the bill is not going to be fully amended out there and that it will run smoothly if there's ongoing debate, I will ask to hold it.
And if this kind of conversation around the multiple number of amendments doesn't look like it's going to be fully baked up there, then I think that it's a more important conversation for us to have the bill ready to go as it comes to council.
As I read it, I think that these amendments all do line up and that if they were potentially either included or not included, the bill could move out today.
But I just want to signal that I think that if folks feel confident that we can move this forward today, I will.
But if it ends up being a long, drawn-out conversation, I think there's more work to do.
And instead of sending it back to committee, I think it might make sense to hold it.
But let's have a conversation out there.
It looks like the amendments are ready to go.
And my desire would be that we include this, the amendments today, or at least have a vote on the amendments today and move the bill out.
I mean, if the council members who have amendments should weigh in on this, but I would, just in response to what you're saying, I would say I would prefer the bill to be passed out of full council today.
I mean, I have my own position on the amendments, but I don't think, I don't need any, I'm pretty sure that I don't agree with the amendments.
But and I already may and then we would move the bill.
I want to move the bill.
Okay, great Questions, okay councilmember Lewis.
All right.
Thank you so much madam president pro tem so just really briefly Just want to remind everybody that we do have a special meeting today after full council of the homelessness strategies and neighborhoods committee will be taking a brief recess after full council and then reconvening and probably down at this table to have it feel more like a committee after the meeting.
Really encourage everyone to come and to, well, definitely five of you, so we have a quorum.
But we will be considering, Council Member Sawant, transitional encampment ordinance.
Ketel Freeman circulated, I believe yesterday afternoon, a memo discussing the status of where we are in terms of the amendments that have been proposed and a brief description of all of the amendments.
Thank you everybody for working with central staff to get those in.
It's a pretty good summary of where we are, so just review Ketel's email prior to that committee hearing to get a good overview of the situation of where the amendments are.
I mean, just as a reminder, I intend to hold a vote on that proposed ordinance this afternoon so that we can queue it up for full council a week from now to make sure that our partners in the nonprofit sector who operate a lot of these transitional encampments get ample notice of the new permitting authority so that there's a smooth transition and we're not putting them in a position where they potentially might have to scramble or have some uncertainty.
So that's my plan currently, and I look forward to that conversation.
In the district, last week we had our first office hours, which was great.
We had two sessions, one on Friday morning in Belltown, and then one on Saturday morning in Uptown.
We, in total, we met with 11 constituents, including 10 people who signed up for appointments in advance and one person who just recognized me and then came up and started talking to me, which was great and definitely encouraged.
So I'm glad that that is, that that's working out.
We had the opportunity to talk about parks and open space, public safety, Pike Place Market, equitable development, among other topics.
I look forward to continuing to hold these office hours in the district and I'll report back on the results of those conversations to full counsel if it can inform our deliberations as a body.
Moving on to the letter, thank you so much to Council Member Muscata for doing the work on putting this letter together.
I'm happy to sign it.
I think that it does a really good job of expressing our concerns, and then having very clear, bulleted, enumerated action that we want to see on the bill.
I think this is particularly important since based on my conversations with state lawmakers over the weekend, it does sound like a lot of cities in King County are making their opinions known, and I think it is important that our input as an institution be part of those negotiations.
You know, I just, I think that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that despite potential hurdles here and our vigilant advocacy to prevent any unwanted consequences, you know, never in my lifetime have I seen a conversation about regional progressive authority in the county that's gonna tax big businesses, that's not gonna be funded by a regressive source.
You know, I've only ever seen conversations typically in the past where it's only the city of Seattle and we're talking about like a sales tax levy.
So this is a step in the right direction.
We gotta make sure there's no unintended consequences and I'm proud to sign this letter that helps make sure that our voice is in the mix as well as other groups who we might have disagreements with.
Councilmember Peterson.
Good morning colleagues.
I want to echo the comments of Councilmember Lewis and thanking Council President Pro Tem Mosqueda for crafting this letter so carefully.
There is common ground among us all here.
The idea that preemption would take away options and tools for the city, I do not support preemption generally.
And so I will be signing this letter.
And also, personally, I like to see the recognition that this is a regional crisis, that we're looking for evidence-based solutions.
It honors the existence of the Regional Homeless Authority that was recently created.
So I'm very pleased to see how carefully crafted the letter was.
I think letters are very appropriate to communicate the council's positions on issues, especially when they're impacting other levels of government.
So thank you for putting this together.
Councilmember Juarez, our fearless chair of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee, asked me as vice chair to advertise the Parks Department's first three community discussions on how our Seattle Parks District can best invest the tax dollars it will be receiving over the next six years.
And so they've put together three community meetings, Monday, March 2nd at Delridge Community Center from 6 to 8 p.m.
Thursday, March 5th at Lake City Community Center, 6 to 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 7th at Van Asselt Community Center from 10 a.m.
to 12 noon.
This is building off the community engagement Seattle Parks and Rec conducted during their recent strategic planning process so they are now kicking off this public process for the Seattle Park District and As you may recall voters approved the Seattle Parks District in 2014 and tax revenues have been invested back in our parks and rec system and it's time to develop a plan for the next We've talked about, or I've talked about in my district, the needs at Magnuson Park Community Center.
There are needs in everybody's district, so we hope folks come out and express their desire to see where investment should go for parks.
I think that there's a question from Council Member Lewis.
I know you're just pinch-hitting, but it might be a question that you have in mind too.
Sure.
Again, I don't know if you have an answer immediately, Councilmember Peterson, but if you do, I want to take advantage of it.
So, I think this is great that Parks is doing this outreach.
There's a lot of interest in my district, certainly, on certain parks and recreation improvements that could possibly come as part of this levy.
I know that this is the first wave of these meetings.
I don't know if I think it's important for us to make sure that we have a plan in place.
I think the city of parks has laid out a broader schedule.
None of these initial meetings are in my district.
If there is some advocacy our office would need to do to make I think that it's concentrated in three of the seven districts, these meetings.
I think Parks is listening right now and hearing you loud and clear, and there's not one in District 4 either, which is why I put a plug in for Magnuson Park Community Center.
So I think this is just the beginning, yes.
So there's March 2nd, March 5th, March 7th, so it's just the very beginning of it.
And is it your understanding that there will be additional meetings and that they will try to cover all the districts?
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you for that clarification.
Thank you.
Councilmember Peterson, you have more from your committee.
Yes, please.
So the Transportation and Utilities Committee has one item on the agenda at full council today.
It's the appointment of Kevin Werner.
to the Move Seattle Levy Oversight Committee.
Our committee unanimously recommends him.
He has a science background rather than an advocacy background, which will help on climate change considerations, for example.
In District 4, last week during my office hours, I met with another group of restaurants to discuss how things are going for their small neighborhood businesses and the displacement pressures they face.
These displacement pressures from small neighborhood businesses, I've been hearing the same theme throughout my district, U District, East Lake, Roosevelt, Ravenna, Wedgwood, Wallingford.
So it's just a theme that we're hearing.
So I know Bobby Lee and others and the executive are hearing this as well.
Hopefully, everybody saw our incredible Civic Cocktail performances on Seattle Channel.
I actually saw a number of tweets about it.
People were very impressed with all of you, so congratulations.
It was great to be up there with Councilmember Morales and Strauss and Lewis at Civic Cocktail.
You can watch it on Seattle Channel.
During district hours, I was also joined by Councilmember Rod Dembowski from King County Council.
He's been a very reliable friend of Agnes and Park Community Center, and we were meeting with folks who wanted to see greater investment there.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Peterson.
Council Member Morales.
Good morning, everyone.
I will echo my colleagues' appreciation for your work on this letter to the folks in Olympia.
I think it's important particularly that we make clear we are hoping to see a bill that does not include preemption and that we would be very interested in a higher revenue generation given the crisis that we're trying to resolve with this funding source.
We, I need to put on my glasses.
Oh, so we have, just regarding the agenda day, we have several things on the referral calendar.
We've got several commission appointments coming up.
We also have authorization that we need for, the Department of Arts and Culture to accept Seattle Parks Foundation donation.
So that's what's included on the calendar.
And this is to deliver on an AIDS Memorial Pathway Arts Project in Cal Anderson Park.
It's going to be adjacent to the public plaza at the Capitol Link light rail station and connecting the festival street block of East Denny Way.
We had district hours.
We continue to do that on Fridays.
I also met with several small businesses from our district and have had a lot of conversation with folks about the issue of alignment on our different city departments.
So we will continue to talk about how to best serve our small businesses and make sure that they have the kinds of seamless services from our city that they are working towards so that they can stay in the city.
And we, next week our office hours, in-district office hours will be 10 to noon at Cafe Red.
So, if folks in our community, in our district want to come see me, that's how you can, where you can be.
And then, I need more information on this, but I know that Metro and SDOT will be doing some outreach in District 2 regarding the Rapid Ride.
So there is a series of community meetings, community engagement processes that are beginning soon.
And as I get more information about where folks can come hear about the options and give their input, I will make sure to share that here and through social media.
Thank you very much, Councilmember.
Councilmember Strauss.
Yeah, good morning.
Good morning.
I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.
There are zero items on the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the agenda today and there's one item on the introduction and referral calendar and that's the reappointment of Nathan, Director Nathan Torgelson as the Director of Department of Construction and Inspections.
I believe that we solicited questions from other offices and if there's something that The next Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is this Wednesday, February 12th, and there are three items.
The reappointment of Director Torgelson, and we've split it into two halves because of the number of questions.
A presentation from SDCI in response to last year's tree resolution, and I'm very excited to get to work on this.
And a clerk file 314434 that you've heard me speak of.
I think this is now the third time in four weeks about the contract rezone of 4600 Union Bay Place.
Last week was a very busy week.
We had more than five engagements.
I had four times either in a public meeting or on stage.
So last Monday, I attended the 43rd District Environmental.
It was mostly around the environment and the fact that we are in an environmental crisis.
So the 43rd environmental caucus on Tuesday I joined councilmember Morales at the urgency of now Seattle's Jewish climate festival While my staff attended the Phinney Ridge Community Council meeting on Wednesday I joined council members Morales, Lewis, Peterson at Civic Cocktails while my staff attended the North Precinct Advisory Committee meeting.
On Thursday, we held district office hours and heard from small landlords and small businesses and folks who were concerned and interested to know how they could help address the homelessness crisis in their neighborhood more effectively.
And so one of my proposals that you may be seeing coming forward will be about 311. I think that would be a good one stop shop as compared to I had the honor of joining John Richards, John in the Morning, for International Clash Day, Clash for Climate.
I did let him know that we have our own John in the Morning, John Streeter, here at City Grind, who is also a music guru.
It was a really great opportunity to talk about the intersection of the Clash, climate, and what we can do here.
On Friday, I also met with Ballard Pepatch, and the Department of Neighborhoods to look at how we could move forward together to preserve one-third of District 6's pea patch places and make sure that open space is retained in our city.
This week we've got Ballard District Council, East Ballard Community Association, Central Ballard Residents Association, And also you will see on the introduction and referrals calendar today many items that are being re-referred from last year.
And so that is, if anyone is on the wonkish level looking at our IRC, that is where many of these items are coming from.
And finally, I have a proclamation that I would like to send down the line.
That's all I have.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
I just before I get started.
I want to let Councilmember Strauss know.
I'm so sorry Councilmember Strauss.
Can you reiterate what the proclamation was related to?
Yes, it is regarding staff.
Okay.
Yeah, and so this is One of we have on my team some folks that that served under Councilmember Bagshaw that are serving under me and today is or not today, this week is Allison Wright, who is my Chief of Staff and Council Member Bagshaw's Chief of Staff.
This is her last week before attending to family leave to care for her new son.
And so, you know, words are too blunt a tool to express the appreciation that we have for professionalism that Allison exudes.
Excellent, great.
Yeah.
Wonderful.
Looking forward to signing that.
I was trying to make it a surprise.
I understand.
I'm sorry.
We are very excited about that.
We'll keep it a secret.
No sending that out on Twitter to anyone in the gallery.
I don't have the TV on in the office right now.
Before I get started with my report, I just want to let Council Member Strauss know that reportedly from another Clash fan, there was a radio show in Uruguay that thanks the city of Seattle for a Clash So as far as what items I have from my Public Safety and Human Services Committee on the full council agenda today, I have resolution 31930, which is a resolution affirming the city's good faith intent.
to consider raising in the collective bargaining process for the Seattle Police Officers Guild 2021 contract renewal, police bargaining accountability proposals that have been identified by the public and the city's police oversight agencies.
This was adopted in the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on January 28th and held for a week since I was out of town last week.
The resolution itself summarizes the comments made by the public at the December 5th hearing in the Gender, Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee, and includes letters from the three accountability bodies, the Community Police Commission, the Inspector General, and the Office of Police Accountability.
regarding collective bargaining.
The Municipal Code requires the Council to hold a public hearing in advance of the commencement of negotiations with the Police Officers Guild and requires the City to consider in good faith whether and how to carry forward the interests expressed at the public hearing.
The resolution is designed to meet the intent of the Municipal Code and states that the City will consider in good faith whether and how to carry forward these interests.
It is along the lines of resolutions the council has adopted previously, most recently in 2014. Also, I will be walking on to the introduction and referral calendar, the reappointment for Colleen EchoHawk to the...
community police commission for a term of confirmation to December 31st, 2022. I also want to just highlight or sunlight amendments proposed for the winter evictions legislation, which we will be hearing as well today, potentially in full council.
One of the amendments is an amendment that was requested from some of our non-profit housing providers, and I think it's also good business for other tenants in the building.
And it is an amendment to exempt evictions for whom the notice of eviction identifies behavior that impacts the health and safety of others.
This is an amendment to the amendment that Councilmember Sawant already proposed.
as it relates specifically to criminal activity.
There are various types of rule violations that may not rise to the level of criminal activity, but that are the type of violations that can have a negative impact to the safety of other tenants and as well as building management.
And so this was a request from CCS and I intend to put that forward if we are moving forward on this bill today.
In addition, I want to thank Councilmember Lewis for adding an option for housing providers to have access to rent assistance funds in the case that a tenant falls behind in their rent.
due to and is considering an eviction based on non-payment.
I requested that Council Member Lewis add into his amendment a requirement that if the landlord is paid directly from this fund because there's some lack of clarity whether or not it's going to be a landlord-accessed fund or a tenant-accessed fund.
But if the landlord is paid directly, they must sign an agreement that they will not report rent delinquencies to credit agencies.
I think it's really important that tenants not be held liable for damages associated with past due rent in those instances that the rent has been paid.
As far as there's a comment or a question down here councilmember Lewis Well, I just want to make it clear that that that change is totally something I'm in agreement with Thank you for including it in the version of the amendment that you brought forward so sorry if I wasn't guess well Well, just in case it if it wasn't so just excellent
My Public Safety and Human Services Committee meets tomorrow morning at 930 a.m.
Items that I have on my committee agenda are two appointments to the Community Police Commission.
One appointment is Prachi Dave.
The Commission is the nominating body.
for Prachi Dave, and then the other is a reappointment of Colleen Echo Hawk, and that is a mayoral reappointment.
We also are going to be hearing from the Office of the Inspector General on their 2020 work plan, and we will be receiving a director's report from Acting Director Jason Johnson of the Human Services Department.
He will cover a high-level overview of the department's work areas and 2020 goals.
And just to clarify, he will not cover issues related to homelessness investments because those are the purview of the Select Committee on Homelessness.
And then finally, I want to, again, sunlight the fact that I will be distributing in the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments a letter related to a budget priority of the council last year.
And this is a letter regarding the program called Home for Good.
And this letter, I will circulate for signatures.
You should have received it over the weekend.
And the intent is to share with the executive that the Home for Good pilot should last for 12 months, even though because we are actually developing a new program, we may not actually complete a contract for that program until first quarter.
Home for Good is the name of the pilot.
It's in development to prevent or end homelessness for people over 50 years old who are living on federal disability benefits.
Often the benefit they receive is inadequate to cover the cost of rent and still leave enough money left to live on, even in subsidized housing.
And so this leaves this population vulnerable to eviction and homelessness.
Crosscut last year profiled a Seattle man, Mr. Dwight Williams, who fell into homelessness when he gained federal disability benefits, which did not cover the cost of his subsidized housing.
If you haven't read it, I'd be happy to share it with you.
It explains the disconnect between the state and federal policy that pushes people like Mr. Williams into homelessness even after receiving both state and federal subsidies to assist them.
Through three separate Council budget actions last year the council allocated seven hundred fifty thousand dollars to create and evaluate a pilot project That would provide rental subsidy to try and stabilize their housing The prime sponsor for this action was council president Lorana Gonzalez the stakeholders Gathered to give input to program design last week there was some confusion as to whether or not the funds must be expended by December 31st The intent of the council was for a full 12 months worth of funding last year.
This would make for a really short project if it was more like nine months worth of funding since the Human Services Department is still in the process of developing the program and issuing developing a program, developing an RFP, issuing an RFP, and then selecting a provider based on responses to the RFP and also negotiating contracts.
So this, it is not atypical for the executive to take the first quarter of a year in doing this program development.
But we want to make sure that the council's intent from last year be clear and that this letter simply expresses that the council understands that based on stakeholder input that the pilot may be most effective if it's a full year's worth of funding, meaning extend funding into 2021, and that this council may be considering additional funding in the budget process this year.
If there are no further questions on that, just a quick overview of what I've got going on this week as far as...
I have a quick question on that.
Yeah.
Is that letter for signature this morning or are you going to bring it this afternoon?
I'm going to bring it this afternoon.
Okay, got it.
Thank you.
And it's in everybody's inbox.
My staff, Christina, sent it over the weekend.
I'm happy to take edits if you have them.
Let's see, so as far as external and internal non-council committee meetings I have going on this week, I have the King County Regional Policy Committee that meets on Wednesday.
This will be my first time attending that committee.
Last few years I've been on the Regional Transit Committee meeting, so I'm excited to get to work on the Regional Policy Committee.
I'm also on the Firefighters Pension Board.
I'll be attending that this week.
And then other community events coming up.
This evening, I'm attending a meet-and-greet with the Civil Rights Commission here in Bertha Knight Landis.
On Tuesday, I'm really excited about this meeting in-district at Roxhill Park, specifically regarding a project that folks in Roxhill have been working on for a while.
It's a collaborative effort of community members, nonprofit organizations, county and city agencies, specifically Seattle Public Utilities, to restore the ecosystem in what was the Roxhill bog and provide the community with a safe, engaging natural area for recreation and education.
It's really important, this project, to the health of Longfellow Creek, its salmon, and saving of one of the last peat fens in the city of Seattle.
Climate change and urbanization have caused the bog to degrade to a critical tipping point, if not addressed now, and the restoration of its natural functions may no longer be feasible, but we've got a plan to do some really important restoration.
I want to give a shout out to King County, specifically King County Council Member Joe McDermott for his support of this project.
And then finally, Thursday afternoon, I'll be addressing the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce at their annual meeting.
And then finally, finally, Saturday, the State of Africount 2020 at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Theater is happening.
I'm looking forward to that as well.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
And just for clarification, you are going to be moving to amend the introduction and referral calendar to include that appointment, but not the agenda for today, correct?
Correct.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
I'm amending the introduction referral calendar to introduce it to my committee tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
Any other questions or comments, colleagues?
I really appreciate it.
Thank you all for your comments on the progressive revenue letter on House Bill 2907. I really appreciate the message that we're sending as a body.
And I hope that the takeaway from today's discussion, the letter and future conversations in Olympia is that we're not trying to make this into something.
It's not, this is not about political leverage or trying to wage a political fight in public.
This is about wanting to be a good partner and wanting good sound public policy.
And I think with that letter, you see the real sincere effort to say we want to help be part of the solution.
We're ready to roll up our sleeves.
We've thought of creative solutions in the past.
We want progressive revenue at this regional level.
And we want this regional governance body to function so that there is real change in our streets and real experience change from the individuals who are at risk of homelessness or experiencing homelessness.
I appreciate your collective work to send that unified message, and I hope it is well received.
I know that our friends, the sponsors, Representative Macri and Senator Kaiser in the Senate, have been good stewards of good public policy and wanting this housing and funding.
So I know they all have the best intentions, and we're looking forward to working with them.
appreciate all of your work and we will see you at 2 p.m.
today for the full council meeting and then as a note as councilmember Lewis mentioned the select committee on homelessness will meet immediately afterwards we're talking 10 minutes after we adjourn a full council so that we can hopefully get folks out of here so they can go on to their other evening events or back to their community and homes appreciate you all being here today's council briefing is adjourned thank