Good afternoon.
Today is June 30th, 2025. The council briefing meeting will come to order.
The time is 2.02.
Council member Moore is excused from briefing today while council member Saka will be joining the meeting remotely as well as council member Kettle.
Will the clerk please call the roll.
Council member Solomon.
Here.
Council member Strauss.
Present.
Council member Hollingsworth.
Present.
Council Member Kettle.
Here.
Council Member Rink.
Present.
Council Member Rivera.
Council Member Saka.
Here.
And Council President Nelson.
Present.
Seven present.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry, I didn't see everybody who was remote on that screen earlier.
If there is no objection, the minutes of June 16th, 2025 will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.
So we have no proclamation today and no presentation, but we do have three executive sessions.
On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there are 27 items on the introduction and referral calendar.
The consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance, 23 appointments, and the minutes of the June 24th City Council meeting.
And there are three pieces of legislation from committees.
One from the Public Safety Committee, and two from Parks, Public Utilities, and Technology Committee.
Let's see, as I said, there are no proclamations for signature today, so we will now move into our discussion on the preview of council actions and council and regional committees.
The roll call order today begins with Councilmember Salomon.
Thank you very much, Council President.
So in terms of council business, the next land use committee will be this Wednesday, July 2nd at 2 p.m.
We'll consider two reappointments to the Seattle Planning Commission, hold a briefing and discussion on the bill to update the Seattle subdivision procedures, and hear a briefing on the Roots to Roofs bonus pilot program.
In terms of regional committees, the Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Policy Board is meeting this Thursday, which I do plan on attending.
In terms of highlights from the past couple of weeks, I wanted to mention the Anti-Displacement Resource Fair.
that my office conducted in conjunction with the Office of Neighborhoods on January 14th.
Definitely a great success.
We had 15 different service providers there from Urban League to United Way to Office of Planning and Development, Black Legacy Homeowners.
Anybody who had a piece of helping people stay in their homes, either through repair assistance, technical assistance, legal counsel, utility programs.
And a lot of these organizations actually didn't know what the others did, so it was good that they were able to network with each other to see how they could support folks staying in their homes and helping them from being displaced because of costs or, you know, catastrophic things that may happen to their homes.
So it's a really good event.
People have asked that we sponsor another one.
Not sure if we'll get to that this year, but definitely want to lay the groundwork for whoever follows to be able to do a similar model.
In terms of what's coming up this week, oh, also should mention that yesterday was able to walk in the Pride Parade.
with my child who was on the Parks Department float, so we had a great time doing that.
And also had a chance to speak with the Beacon Business Alliance this past week about some of their concerns and support for the small business districts within D2, Beacon Hill in particular.
We'll also be meeting this week with the Department of Transportation to talk about safety issues along with South Rainier Avenue, where we've had a number of vehicles actually plow into people's homes because of reckless driving and uncontrolled speeding.
So seeing what we can do, working with Department of Transportation to help those homeowners overcome some of those issues.
We are also doing a meeting with various stakeholders tomorrow regarding crime prevention through environmental design.
um, legislation, you know, getting it, getting set to actually encode.
And so meeting with developers tomorrow to see how to incentivize it for them to make it feasible and workable and not add an undue burden onto development in the city, but still advance the principles of crime prevention through environmental design.
Um, other meetings we have coming up are with the sale Indian services commission, Bloodworks Northwest, the Tubman Center for Health and Freedom, and yes, a lot of things going on.
And if there's no questions, I'll yield the rest of the time.
I'm not seeing any hands raised up there.
Okay, you may proceed.
Thank you.
The Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will be meeting this Wednesday at 9.30 a.m.
All council members are encouraged to attend as there are a number of pretty big ticket items here.
It's also going to be a longer than expected meeting, so I would plan to be in committee until 1 p.m.
if possible.
The three items on the agenda are the appointment of Dan Eater as director of the City Budget Office.
Interim Director Eater's written responses to council were circulated last week by my staff.
Also, at the last committee meeting, I asked Interim Director Eder to offer meetings with all council members if they want to dig deep into his questions and answers, just because committee is sometimes the right place.
But if you want to get into long-form conversation, that's a better one-on-one experience.
And so I believe that he has offered this to everyone.
So if anyone wants to meet with him, please do so either before Wednesday or before the full council vote.
For this agenda item, we will have extensive discussion and question and answer with Director Eder.
So come ready with your questions.
Also be mindful of is this a one-on-one conversation topic or is this a everyone conversation topic?
Please, we won't be limiting discussion.
Social housing developer agreement will also be here.
This is the...
new legislation involving the social housing developer.
We had this first hearing on June 18th, Finance Native Communities Meeting.
As we know, voters approved Initiative 137 last year, creating a revenue source for the social housing developer.
The social housing developer won't be able to start collecting the money until next year.
Actually, the city collects it on their behalf to ensure they're able to hit the ground running.
The mayor's office and social housing developer and ourselves have been working together on this bridge loan.
The loan would be paid back once they start collecting revenue from the new tax.
And because we collect that revenue, we are guaranteed that we will get our money back.
We also have one item on the agenda scheduled for briefing and discussion.
That is the proposed B&O tax rebalancing.
And I look forward to hearing about the Seattle Shield initiative proposed by Councilmember Rink and Mayor Bruce Harrell.
That's the B&O tax rebalancing proposal.
So we'll be digging into this proposal in the coming weeks.
And ultimately, the final decision will need to be the Seattle voters.
For full counsel, the finance, oh, and last bit on financing of communities and tribal governments, we had planned to have our tribal relations director back on July 2nd to continue the conversation from last time.
Seeing as we have three pretty big ticket items, we've asked for them to return in August.
So just for allow the record to reflect.
On full council, my committee does not have any legislation coming.
I will be bringing back one of my amendments regarding the golf centers, and I realize that There may have been confusion in my absence.
I apologize that I wasn't here to speak to it.
I was in an interesting seminar during the conference.
So this will be Amendment A, which would authorize the city to change, reduce, or relocate the golf courses if the city creates walking paths for public access within the perimeter of golf courses.
I know that in those sentences, everyone's mind races to, we can't have pathways in the middle of the golf course because people can get hit with balls.
this is true.
Let me be a little bit more specific.
On the Jackson Golf Course on 145th, no, I believe it's 125th, 135th.
Is it 145th?
So up there, yeah, it is 145th.
The fence perimeter is up against the curb for And so if we were to create even a sidewalk or a perimeter trail, we would need to move that fence inwards into the golf course.
There's a fair amount of space in between the greens and the street.
This would be a very small and incremental change.
It does cost money.
It costs money that we don't currently have.
And this is a 15-year contract.
So if we don't include this now, there might not be an opportunity to come back to this for another 15 years.
The next Metropolitan Parks District six-year spend plan happens, I think, in four to five years from now.
So just as we walk through this, if we were to create a sidewalk or a perimeter path between the street of 145th and a fence line of the golf course, we have to take action now.
because we then have to go find money.
It's also revenue neutral because, again, we're not impacting golfing.
We're moving a fence so that people can walk down the street on either side of the street.
Currently, they have to cross to Shoreline to get through that section of 145th.
So this amendment relieves liability in many different ways, and it doesn't create additional liability.
And it's an allowance, not a requirement.
So this allows us to go find money to create a perimeter path or a sidewalk.
Happy to take questions, but I realize that in my absence, Many ideas, and when I watched back committee, I was like, oh, yeah, I can see how people thought that we were going to create a pathway straight through the park.
I think the Second Amendment, which I won't be bringing back, looked to accomplish that goal, which was to say we're not going to create new pathways in the middle of the golf course, rather what existing pathways are already there.
I'm not going to bring that one back.
I just wanted to focus in on how actually simple this additional walking path amendment is and the importance of passing it now because it's a 15-year contract and our next Metropolitan Parks District cycle is in just a few years.
Do you want me to pause to see if there's questions, or do you want me to finish?
Yeah, so this is an amendment that was in the Parks Committee, and you were just talking about your committee, but this is coming to full council, not your committee.
Okay, got it.
Sorry, I had switched gears real quick right there.
All right, I missed that transition.
Yep.
I'm going to keep ticking.
Feel free to call me.
Feel free to chat with me at any time.
I will be working for my district office all day tomorrow because I'm hosting comp plan meetings with my residents.
So Councilmember Saka, I'll be remote from D6 for your committee, and I will be remote for full council tomorrow.
But I'm available if anyone needs me.
In the world of Sound Transit, the Sound Transit approved the at-grade crossing master plan last week as well as the Tacoma Dome extension alignment and budget.
This was huge because currently the spine of light rail has connected only to Snohomish County at Linwood and has not yet connected to Pierce County.
This was a really big deal.
As well, alongside Councilmember Rivera, I attended the Association of Washington City's annual conference and in-person board meetings.
Learned a lot, and it's always great to see our other 280 cities and towns.
Each city requires a different type of legislation.
Not all cities need the same type of legislation, but I can tell you we're all experiencing the same issues at different levels.
In District 6, since our last Since my last time at council briefing, I held a town hall in Magnolia with about 90 to 100 residents.
It was really great to see everyone.
I'll be hosting office hours this Tuesday evening as well.
So with that, thank you, colleagues.
That is my report.
Happy to take any questions.
Seeing no questions, I'll pass it over to Councilmember Hollingsworth.
Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.
We have two important meetings coming up, Seattle Parks Utilities Technology Discussion, which will be on July 9th at 2 p.m.
We are still formalizing the agenda, so please stay tuned for that.
We also have the Seattle Comprehensive Plan meeting.
on July 11th that will be at 2 p.m.
please note colleagues that we will be having we will be taking in person and virtual public comment for the first two meetings we did written public comment because there's a lot of information that we had to get through to make sure that we could absorb that we will be allowing public comment in person and virtual for this meeting.
So just a heads up.
We also will be preparing for the full council deliberation on the golf legislation that Councilmember Strauss has just told us about.
Just a reminder that Seattle's public golf courses are self-sustaining and they do not rely on general funding.
And I also want to thank Councilmember Strauss for his thoughtful amendment.
I'm confident that you'll help clarify some of the questions that we had That was in council committee to full council.
So looking forward to that.
And then thank you to everyone who came out for the public hearing on the 23rd.
As well, we are doing our best in tweaking certain things and trying new things where we split virtual and then in person to try to hear as many people as possible.
And so we'd love people's feedback, what worked well, what didn't.
and how we can continue to improve as well.
So we did it in a two part session and we'll continue pushing forward with this format because we feel like we can hear the most people, people are engaged and connected And also it gives some of our staffing a little bit of a break in between when we split the two.
So I think that's incredibly important.
Just want to thank everybody for coming out as well.
And we've been getting a ton of engagement and a ton of feedback regarding the format.
So we'll continue to push forward.
The other thing I just wanted to say publicly, you know, Dr. Charles Mitchell unfortunately passed away this weekend and just want to honor the life.
He was a transformational trailblazer, an educator in our community, a mentor.
He was the chancellor of the Seattle Community Colleges, served as a dean there, and also the president.
There's also the gymnasium is named after him right off Broadway as well.
And so his impact will continue to live on in our community.
And he was just a towering spirit for us.
And our thoughts and prayers are with his family.
um other than that i don't have anything else but uh i will pass it if there's not any questions uh i will pass it off to councilmember kettle okay uh thank you i see hearing and seeing no questions for councilmember hollingsworth i will uh jump in and add my update um uh first sorry i'm not there in person i'm calling in from my other office First up, as always, Public Safety Committee meeting, not this week.
We have transportation in that spot instead, but next week on 8th of July, and we'll follow up on our two bills that we introduced last time, graffiti and the chronic nuisance properties, two pieces of legislation.
So we'll have those up for 8th of July.
In terms of this week, I just wanted to note, had a good meeting with Ventures Nonprofit, a group that supports small businesses in terms of their financial literacy and assistance in terms of being to work those pieces that sometimes are not a strength of the small business community.
owner and uh and really interesting conversation with them in terms of what we can do and within the business community also had a meeting with the public safety civil service commission today and it really highlights the work that's happening on the police but also fireside in terms of recruitment and the like very good reports on both fronts generally with the police in terms of overall And then, you know, the fire department too, which is really working hard to increase their paramedic numbers.
And so that's really important for our public safety posture here in our city.
Tomorrow is, you know, some standard inside government meetings, but I will highlight one of those meetings is with Mr. Eater, the head of the Wednesday meeting.
We're ahead of the meeting for his nomination.
Wednesday, you prep with RWQC, which is really helpful.
WANTED TO SAY HAPPY 4TH OF JULY FOR THOSE CELEBRATING ON FRIDAY FOR THIS WEEK.
NEXT WEEK WE HAVE THE DSA POLICY COMMITTEE ON TUESDAY WOULD BE INTERESTING.
A WALKING TOUR ON WEDNESDAY WITH THE MAGNOLIA COMMUNITY COUNCIL AND ALSO A MEETING WITH THE DOWNTOWN COMMUNITY COUNCIL.
And then Thursday, the Puget Sound Transportation, the Puget Sound Regional Council's Transportation Policy Board.
That's Thursday of next week and supportive, say thank you to SDOT for their support on all the issues related to that.
And Friday, Plymouth Housing and Growth Northwest, two groups that will be meeting with Friday of next week.
I just wanted to end with a thank you for your support of the proclamation, highlighting Father Ryan's service to not just the St. James Cathedral community, but the entire city over the last 37 years as the head of St. James Cathedral.
It went...
It was jam-packed, very well received, 750 to 1,000.
I'm not sure the exact number of people there, but it was really impactful on Sunday morning, yesterday morning.
So I just wanted to say thank you for the support of that proclamation.
Also, on Saturday, I just wanted to highlight St. Paul's in Uptown.
I got my shirt here.
St. Paul's, you are my neighbor.
St. Paul's is a great asset in D7 and specifically uptown.
You know, it's groups like, you know, in this case a church, but with St. Paul's, it's about building a community and they're doing a lot, a lot of outreach in the neighborhood and really building community.
And this is something that we need across the board, whether it's a Little League or if it's a scouting thing or if it's a church thing, whatever, nonprofit, whatever it is, we need post-pandemic to really rebuild our communities, those civic pieces that we have in our city life.
And I just wanted to give them a shout out.
Again, St. Paul's.
And you should see the amount of work that they did to renovate their church.
They have an iconic roof, you know, kind of in the age of the Space Needle thinking, same time World's Fair.
It kind of comes from out of that area.
The amount of work that they did to renovate their place, their church was unbelievable.
And it will be there for decades and decades to come based on the incredible amount of work that they've done.
over the last couple of years.
I mean, it's truly incredible how much work they've done.
And I don't know if I mentioned this, but I just want to highlight that you too can get some great pieces there at Mariners.
It's just my way of saying that, yes, my first pitch a week and a half ago was a strike.
Just want to put that out there.
Any questions?
I'm not seeing any.
Go ahead.
Let's see.
Who is next here?
Councilmember Rink.
Thank you, Council President, and good afternoon, colleagues.
Happy Pride.
It's the last day of Pride.
I hope everyone had a great weekend.
I kicked off mine by going to Trans Pride on Friday, where I brought forward a proclamation on behalf of my office to formally recognize Seattle Trans Pride.
In case you didn't know, our Seattle Trans Pride is actually one of the largest Trans Pride celebrations in the country.
And it was a beautiful event.
It was a fabulous weekend.
And I think it's important to recognize that our city now serves as an important and critical refuge to the LGBTQIA2 spirit community nationally, especially with everything that's going on right now in our country.
And that's an honor and a huge responsibility.
And we will need to continue to work to make sure we're doing right for the community.
And for the remainder of my time today, I'd like to cover three pieces of legislation that will be heard for the first time in committees this week, starting us off with the B&O announcement.
And colleagues, we know that the city of Seattle currently faces a $251 million deficit across all fund balances, with further financial risk stemming from the Trump administration the threats to federal funding and economic uncertainty.
And so last week, Mayor Harrell and I came forward with a proposal to address this, a proposal that we are calling the Seattle Shield Initiative.
And this proposal would temporarily raise B&O rates to bring in $90 million in net revenues for the city annually with funding dedicated to backfilling essential human services threatened by the Trump administration and maintaining effective ongoing city programs.
And these investments include things like housing vouchers, shelter, food and nutrition access, services for survivors of gender-based violence, and more.
With current financial forecasts, this revenue would also allow the city to protect and maintain investments in human services that are currently under attack by the Trump administration.
And as we saw from the news over the weekend, this big, beautiful bill seems to be advancing through the Senate.
And as a reminder, as is performed proposed in the current version of the bill, this includes a cut to SNAP benefits by a third.
So really concerning news, really highlighting the urgency and importance of this proposal when it comes to serving the needs of our community.
The proposal would raise the B&O tax threshold exemption from where it's currently placed at $100,000 to $2 million in those receipts and create a new B&O deduction up to $2 million.
About 76 percent of current B&O taxpayers, small and medium-sized businesses, would no longer owe tax, and approximately 90 percent of businesses would owe less than they do today.
And B&O Tax Relief has been highlighted by small business leaders as a way to support Seattle's economy, make the city more competitive with neighboring jurisdictions, and help small businesses thrive.
And we will just be discussing this proposal in depth in the Finance Committee later this week, and I'm really looking forward to that discussion.
moving along next up uh we have um another piece of legislation that my office has been working on in collaboration with community stakeholders and non-profit organizations we're bringing forward our roots to roofs legislation we all know that seattle is in afford in an affordability crisis and while much work is being done to promote community-led affordable housing it's it's not meeting the mark it's not enough So this legislation intends to promote housing affordability with an anti-displacement and racial equity lens.
For two long, high-risk displacement areas have borne the brunt of new development, and this bill is meant to mitigate that harm.
This comes in the form of a pilot program meant to incentivize community-led affordable housing production by providing height and FAR bonuses, and the pilot would expire at the end of 2035, or once 35 qualified projects have applied, whichever comes first.
this will be a city-wide uh with an additional bonus in areas with a historically restrictive racially restrictive covenant and while this is modeled on legislation council considered last year we've worked to incorporate stakeholder and community feedback to ensure that our shared goals are met And I'm happy to have Land Use Chair Solomon as a co-sponsor on this.
I want to thank him for collaborating with us to get this to a place where everyone can be proud of.
Looking forward to having this heard in Wednesday's Land Use Committee meeting.
And lastly, our third and final piece of legislation that will be heard this week is related to streamlining the subdivision processes.
Years ago, the state legislature gave us the authority to delegate final approval for subdivisions to the Department of Transportation after the hearing examiner has issued a decision.
While council currently votes to codify these decisions, the hearing examiner's decision is final and the council actually has no choice but to approve it.
This process takes months from drafting legislation to committee hearings to a final vote on it going into effect.
This bill is a simple yet straightforward effort to promote good governance that will shave months of time off of our housing projects.
And again, this will be heard also in Land Use Committee this Wednesday.
And thank you to Chair Solomon for his collaboration on this.
And I'll close on this note about another community event that I was able to attend this weekend at the Ethiopian community of Seattle.
This was an event focused on housing and immigrant power, an event called Our Homes, Our Legacy, Celebrating Power and Resilience, a really incredible community event featuring panels with housing experts.
We had Director Chao from Department of Neighborhoods and staff from the Equitable Development Initiative present.
It was a fabulous event, especially looking at the intersection of serving our immigrant communities and addressing the housing crisis.
And as you can imagine, there was fabulous food.
And with that, colleagues, if there are no questions, I will turn it next to Councilmember Rivera.
Councilmember Hollingsworth.
Yes, I just had a quick question.
Thank you, Council Member Rink.
Has the legislation for the B&O tax, has that been transmitted to council yet?
It has not been transmitted to council.
We are working quickly to make sure it is transmitted to everybody.
Every office should have received last Wednesday a packet on details about the policy.
We're working quickly with the executive to get this finalized and transmitted.
Thank you all for bearing with us.
But we're working to transmit that immediately.
Thank you.
Councilmember Rivera.
All right.
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Last week, I visited the care team at their office in the UW Police Department's building.
We talked about their work in the district and how they can help provide support in the district now that they have expanded to the various districts in the city.
We'll be continuing the conversation there on how they can best support the city in the work that they do.
I also attended the Families Education Preschool Promise Levy bill signing.
The mayor signed that, and that will be going to voters on the November ballot.
I also attended the Association of Washington Cities conference last week.
It was really a terrific conference.
It was really interesting to hear from the various cities across the state There's so much alignment between cities, big, medium and small.
Everyone's grappling with similar issues from homelessness to behavioral health issues and beyond.
So it was a really great opportunity for us to be together And hear from each other on ideas and just, you know, just there is, it's always really interesting to hear how the smaller cities are also dealing with the same issues that the bigger cities are.
We don't always think about that.
but is very much what is being experienced across the state.
The similar issues as big cities, I mean, so that was really interesting.
And I also participated on the legislative priorities committee for the AWC.
I also attended parks and the Government Accountability and Economic Development Committee virtually while I was at that conference.
And that is all I have to report this week.
Thank you.
Passing it along to whoever's next.
Councilmember Saka.
All right, thank you.
Colleagues on the Transportation Committee front, our next Transportation Committee meeting will be tomorrow morning, 9.30 a.m.
Two agenda items on the calendar.
One is an ordinance and implementation resolution pertaining to the SC3 transitway agreement, basically SDOTs, pieces, and bits.
uh related to some enablement that the city needs to do to implement and cert so sound transit can start building uh light rail here in seattle uh and then the second piece will be some the second hearing and possible vote uh on some executive driven legislation regarding a deed of trust between sdot and the cultural space agency pda that we previously heard i think earlier this month, it might have been late last month, but this is the second time we'll be hearing that.
On the regional committee front, was excited to join the PSRC Executive Board meeting in person last week.
A number of agenda items on the calendar, including a federal legislative update and discussion, continuing ongoing discussion of the regional transportation plan and financial strategy investments.
More work to come.
on that important work dream, particularly at the city level.
So in this case, it would be the Transportation Policy Board, which I also sit on.
And then also attended the very first ever Levy Oversight Committee, first ever in terms of this brand new voter approved transportation levy that was passed last fall, thanks to the generosity of voters.
So attended that earlier this month.
It was more or less of an orientation, but really looking forward to rolling up my sleeves alongside the Levy Oversight Committee members and making sure our levy dollars are delivered and projects are delivered on time and on budget.
And the community I'll know just that I had such a blast yesterday attending the 51st annual pride celebration in Seattle was, and I saw a few of you there as well.
Awesome.
And honored to march alongside the city delegation.
Really, really good to see, I think, Estimated 300,000 people swarmed the streets of Seattle to support Pride.
And really, really good events.
It was actually my, I was able to bring my two youngest children.
They joined me and marched in a parade.
So shout out to my six-year-old and my eight-year-old Wiley who made it through the mile and a half this March handing out candy with me.
We got to hand out candy to the kiddos at heart.
Finally, I'll note that West Seattle Little League is hosting—I heard a plug for Little League by Councilmember Kittle, I think, earlier.
Finally, I'll note that West Seattle Little League is hosting the District 7 girls' softball tournament this week at Bar-S Playfield.
And then in about two weeks, I believe, West Seattle Little League, also at Bar-S, is hosting the statewide tournament.
also at Bar S, each of those tournaments, especially the statewide tournament, can reasonably expect it to receive hundreds of unique visitors from outside of the city of Seattle, parents, families, coaches, players, grandparents, the like.
So I wanna thank Superintendent Diaz, Park Superintendent Diaz and our parks and our entire parks team for ensuring that those play fields are in tip top shape as best as they can be at least because that is going to be the experience that a lot of people see and understand.
kids hollering in the background um despite my my efforts earlier to say i'm on these meetings uh but in any event uh i just want to thank our entire parks department for making sure these these uh fields are like like i said top shape tonight during the district district 7 tournament west seattle little league is playing Seattle Central Little League.
So that's a member Hollingsworth.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news in advance, but Seattle Central, I think, is going down.
Central District is going down, but it'll be fun nonetheless and great way to support youth community sports.
That's all I have from my perspective.
I welcome any questions or comments.
If none, I will pass the baton, so to speak, to Council President.
Not seeing any comments there.
Okay.
So there is nothing on tomorrow's full council agenda from the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee.
We did have a great committee discussion last Thursday on downtown brick and mortar retail.
And despite, you know, so much conversation these days about e-commerce and its impact on brick and mortar.
I do have to say that the takeaway from this discussion was that brick and mortar retail still matters, especially downtown, because if you really think about it, not necessarily especially downtown, it's how we experience A place or a unique part of the city.
It's it's what we actually interact with as At least as visitors when we are exploring new places and especially downtown so this added the people that spoke were So the roundtable discussion included city attorney Davison to talk about how the frequent, I'm going to mess up the name, the high utilizers list and how that has impacted in a positive way the Organized retail theft but also representatives from Nordstrom Pacific place DSA who's working with downtown works to do some focus strategizing on retail recruitment and I am likely forgetting other folks in this conversation, but I do think it was a really interesting and it wasn't just a It wasn't just a session to complain about the status quo, it was actually giving a fairly clear eyed assessment of what's going on downtown and ways in which the city could support that one might not have thought of before, things like lighting, et cetera.
So, oh, you might've been interested as well.
Anyway, and you were there, of course.
watch it on TV or on the award-winning Seattle channel.
Anyway, so looking back at last week, on Thursday, I attended an Uplift Northwest Business Leader Mixer event for a conversation on primarily public safety, crime prevention, and neighborhood resilience across downtown Seattle.
And some of the folks there were...
Assistant Chief Dan Nelson, Captain Brown from SPD, of course, Karen Lee, CEO of Plymouth Housing, Bob Donegan, of course, of IVARS and Kidd Valley, Chikindi Salisbury, CEO of Seasport Media Group, etc.
Just folks talk elevating some of the issues that are happening downtown in just a freeform conversation.
So that was interesting.
And of course, last weekend, as has been mentioned, it was all pride all day on Saturday and Sunday, at least for me.
I did not do anything on Friday night.
One thing that hasn't been noted is that I joined several council members at the Memorial Stadium groundbreaking event.
I think that you did mention this, Councilmember Kettle, but that was very, it was really interesting to think forward to the transformation of that space and that asset to the City of Seattle.
Tomorrow, there's something going on that I really want to note.
At 10 a.m., I'll be joined by local care providers to announce the details of a resolution that would dedicate a portion of any public safety sales tax revenue that the mayor may propose later this year for investments in addiction treatment and recovery services.
And I'm I'm kind of calling this a progressive public safety initiative, but basically it's designed to shore up the existing investments that we have in recovery and addiction services, and then also contemplate supporting other services that can really add pavers to the road to recovery so hate to be kind of cheesy about it but the um earlier this year the washington state legislature gave your jurisdictions the option to implement a one-tenth of one percent sales tax for public safety related programs and this does fit into the um the uh that legislation and i'm doing this because and i've talked to you council member kettle about this is that substance use disorder i say this all the time is inextricably linked to our chronic homelessness and our public safety challenges.
And so really addressing addiction in a concerted manner is not only fiscally responsible, it's also, I would say, the morally right thing to do because sometimes it's easy to defer behavioral health investments, but this is just designed to bring front and center to the conversation as we go forward.
And of course, the problem is much bigger than any one resource could address.
I'm just trying to get it on the map or get it on the city's agenda more centrally than it has been before.
So that is happening at 10 o'clock in the morning in Pioneer Square.
I'm going to stop because we have three executive sessions.
So if there are any questions about things that I have just said, I'm happy to take them.
Okie dokie.
All right.
If there is no further business, we will move into the executive sessions.
Hearing no further business, we'll now move into an executive session.
As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session, the purpose of which is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.
which is an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law, and there's always a monitor there to ensure that we do not stray into conversations about policy.
And because there are three of these executive sessions, I have in my note estimated two hours.
However, I do not believe it will go that long.
So what is the time that you have as the estimated termination point I can hear you?
Okay, all right, we'll go ahead and say that.
Estimated end of the session is five o'clock.
If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I'll announce the extension and the expected duration.
At the conclusion of this executive session, this council briefing meeting will automatically adjourn.
The next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is on July 7th at, no, 2025 at 2 p.m.
And now, looking up once again, The council is now an executive session.
So council members, please log on to the executive session, zoom meeting in your offices.
Oh my gosh.
And, and council member Saka, can you please introduce your guest?
Oh, thank you, Madam council president.
This is one of the rascals that was hollering in the background earlier.
Say hi Huxley.
The cat got his tongue now, but in any event, he's weirded out by seeing himself on the screen.
I gave him some praise and kudos because he did such a great job passing out candy yesterday.
I think you heard his name and thought that that meant he did a great job.
Now it's free for all to yell and holler and scream, but we won't do that again, will we, in the meetings?
No?
All right, cool.
Pleasure to meet you, sir.
All right.
Thanks, everyone.
See you on Zoom.