Seattle City Council Briefing 3/29/21

Council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 931 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Present.

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Present.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of March 22nd, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Colleagues, we do have a very full agenda today, so I'm going to go ahead and dispense with the President's Report as a reminder.

We do have an executive session again today at the end.

So once we get through our legislative session update, we'll go around the Zoom room for reports.

And I am hoping that we will be able to get to executive session today by no later than 11 a.m.

so that we can adjourn approximately at 11.30 a.m.

So with that being said, I'm gonna hand it over to our team from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'll go ahead and hand it over to Lily Wilson-Kodega, who is the Director of OIR for introductions for the record, and then I'll hand it over to them for the presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President, Council Members.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, OIR, passing it to Robin Kosky.

Robin Kosky, Deputy Director, OIR.

I'm Ben Majewski, State Relations Director, OIR.

Anna Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

And we are here with you today with a state legislative briefing only with about one month left in the 2021 legislative session.

Very excited today to spend most of our time with you on budget and revenue as the Senate and House Democratic Caucuses released their biennial budgets and supplemental transportation budgets last week.

notably with a much more positive revenue outlook than had been anticipated earlier.

That being said, as I'm sure Quinn will remind us today when he reports on the council's transportation priorities in his portfolio, while that bodes well for operating budgets, declining tax revenues, population growth, and general increased transportation costs will continue to present challenges at the state level for transportation, even with the defeat of I-976 in court.

And while the more positive revenue outlook has dampened some progressive revenue efforts.

We are thrilled to report that capital gains continues to advance this session and is referenced in both the House and Senate operating budgets.

We are very much appreciative of council's assistance in reaching, I know many of you have engaged in this issue, reaching out to key legislative allies and leadership as needed to ensure the bill continues to move through the process this session.

I will also note some significant investments in assistance to our immigrant and refugee communities left out in much of the federal aid our state has received that Hannah will report on at more length in her portfolio today.

And then finally, Robin has some exciting news to report on housing and homelessness investments specific to our capital budget and some exciting news on the expanded capacity for rapid acquisition funding.

And with that, a final reminder on timing.

We are coming up on fiscal committee cutoff this Friday, April 2nd.

opposite house for cut off on Sunday, April 11th and signing die.

The last day of the legislative session is scheduled to be Sunday, April 25th.

God willing, I will now turn it over to Quinn Majewski, our state relations director for a state budget update and council priority highlights.

All right, good morning everyone, as Lily mentioned last week, the all of the budgets were rolled out.

That includes the the House and Senate transportation capital and operating, I'm going to start by providing.

an overview of the operating budget.

This is a pretty significant document, both the House and the Senate.

And so I'm going to provide an overview.

We will be following up with additional information on all of these budgets and more detailed summaries coming out here in the next day or two.

So look forward to that.

But just to provide an overview at this point.

As we provided in our previous updates, the state's revenue forecast has continued to improve to the point where there's only a minor shortfall in the current biennium.

That combined with some assumptions the state has not, and the House and Senate don't necessarily agree about how much of The American Rescue Plan Act funds, they are appropriating, but they are doling out some of those in the budgets.

So what we are seeing in both the House and the Senate is actually a pretty stark reversal of fortunes compared to what we saw over the summer, which is a pretty significant and sizable increase in investments and funding.

So I will summarize those now, but again, more information forthcoming.

Specifically, either entirely or principally federal funding, both the House and Senate are investing approximately $1.7 billion in K-12 school assistance for reopening and safety guidelines there.

Both House and Senate include about $1.1 billion in COVID response and vaccine deployment.

Both include pretty substantial investments in rental assistance.

When I'm done summarizing, I'll hand it over to Robin to dig more into detail about the housing investments, given her expertise there.

Both House and Senate fund, as Lily mentioned, the continuation of the Immigrant Relief Program, which was started over the summer.

The Senate includes $300 million, while the House includes $340 million.

Both House and Senate address the shortfalls in the unemployment insurance program, providing relief to that fund, which will benefit both workers and businesses.

The Senate 500 million, the House 600 million.

Both include grants for stabilization of funding for childcare providers.

The Senate 509 million, the House 490 million.

And then both include support for small businesses.

the Senate in the form of tax incentives, while the House includes additional funding for small business grants.

The House $250 million, the Senate $138 million.

Shifting quickly into funding that is, a lot of funding is a mix of federal and state to the point where it's difficult and not particularly helpful to separate out.

So most of the remaining funding includes a mix of federal and state funds, but both House and Senate fully fund the Fair Start for Kids, childcare and early learning, sort of omnibus legislation.

Both fully fund the Working Families Tax Credit, which is a state version of the EITC.

Both include funding for the expansion of paid family medical leave under House Bill 1073. Both include increases, sort of a variety of safety net programs, which Hannah will cover more specifically in her portfolio.

Both include investments in foundational public health, the Senate $150 million, the House $100 million, support for premium assistance, investments in behavioral health, and support for wildfire and forest health and wildfire prevention efforts.

There are a handful of differences that I do think are worth mentioning, not to pit the budgets against one another.

They're both very sizable investments.

The House does specifically fund the 988 system implementation, while the Senate does not.

The House includes $26 million for housing and essential needs, while the Senate includes funding specifically for the implementation of 5160, which is the backup for the eviction moratorium.

I will pause there and hand it over to Robin to go through some of the more detailed investments in housing in both the operating and capital budgets.

Good morning, everyone.

There's more good news on the housing and homelessness side of things in the budget.

And as Quinn said, the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance has done an excellent job of going through the budget.

So we'll send out modified versions of the summaries of the budgets that they've given us to all of you.

It's a nice comparison between the governor's, the Senate and the House's approaches.

As far as the capital budget goes, overall, the House budget invests almost $149 million in the Housing Trust Fund, and the Senate invests $205 million in the Housing Trust Fund.

For a rapid acquisition fund, the House invests $50 million and the Senate $90 million.

This would allow us to capitalize on opportunities like one the Office of Housing has just made, in a building called the Clay in Capitol Hill that's being purchased by Lehigh and funded by a revolving acquisition fund at the Office of Housing.

We would be able to use this money to capitalize on opportunities like that that we know that there are more of in Seattle.

So it's really wonderful news.

And then the House budget allocates $25 million to enhance shelter capacity where the Senate does not make such an investment.

Total, the levels of how much are invested overall is quite similar.

The Senate has $325 million toward housing and homelessness capital investments and the House has $331 million.

Moving on to rental assistance, the House budget invests $1.1 billion in rental assistance and the Senate invests $255 million The Senate has a $31 million investment for civil legal aid and courts that would support the right to counsel that is in Senate Bill 5160 that provides tenant protections exiting out of the eviction moratorium.

Foreclosure assistance is in both House and Senate budgets at 187 in the House and 181 in the Senate.

House budget devotes 275 million specifically aimed at addressing family homelessness that would support about four and a half million dollars for permanent supportive housing.

But then also some funds for rapid rehousing and diversion both budgets fully fund the housing and essential needs program, which is a program that has struggled to maintain full funding over the years and is usually oversubscribed the Senate budget adds an additional 26 million for expanded capacity for that program or the house just.

funds at an existing level.

And then the House has some additional money for local shelter capacity, $35 million and another $24 million in another area in the operating budget.

Some more good news around permanent supportive housing.

Both of the budgets add an additional $20 million.

It seems like the way the House funds it through federal funds and allocation of document recording fees bill, which passed on Saturday evening, House Bill 1277. I'll talk about that a little bit more later in my report.

But they both add $20 million.

And then they both add, both budgets add some funding for housing associated with behavioral health supports.

So overall, very good news.

And that is a mouthful.

So we'll definitely provide you with the details.

And you can certainly get back to us with additional questions on these numbers, which were still, I think, unpacking to some extent as well.

And I guess I will hand it back to you, Quinn, unless Hannah, do you have any ads that you'd like to highlight, Hannah?

Just a couple of quick additions.

In education and early learning, the Child Care Education and Assistance Program slots are increased 500 by 500 slots in the Senate and 100 in the House.

There's also just under 9 million in the House budget to eliminate school lunch co-pays.

The foundational public health was mentioned, but additionally, there's an increase of Medicaid insurance reimbursement rates to fund family planning of 5 million.

And the House budget includes 35 million in one-time grants for uninsured and underinsured care through federally qualified health centers.

And then in the safety net area, for the implementation of 1073, which is the family leave, the Senate includes 200 million of the federal funding to fund those impacted by COVID who were eligible for family leave before, And TANF is increased in both budgets by 15 and 10%.

So a lot of great social service and safety net increases with this budget.

So those budgets were all heard last week at varying dates and are all going to be voted out of committee at various dates this week, except transportation budget, which I'll cover more at the end in the transportation section, was exact last week.

So I think we will conclude the budget and revenue portion of this.

Council President, I'll defer to you about whether or not you want questions or if you'd prefer given time to have people follow up with us individually.

Quinn, is there more you all intend to cover here, or is this the conclusion of your presentation?

I believe we intend to go through the Council bulletin as usual, although probably not as in-depth as usual.

Great, so why don't we go through the rest of your presentation and then we will take questions and comments at the end of everyone's presentation.

So colleagues, please do raise your hand, preferably using the raise hand feature in Zoom if you wanna get in the queue to make comments after OIR finishes your presentation.

Great.

I will hand it off to Hana to talk about education.

Thanks, Quinn.

A couple highlights just on the Fair Starts for Kids Act.

In addition to the funding being included in both budgets, both vehicles are still alive and were exec out of their respective policy committees and are now moving into fiscal.

The bills were amended in committee to come a little closer together.

They still vary in implementation timelines and the Senate bill has a more expedited approach to all of the The updates, final details are still being negotiated, including which will be the final vehicle.

And that is the big update in education.

In environment, a little bit of movement and action last week.

On Saturday, the Senate heard, Senate Ways and Means Committee heard the Clean Fuel Standard legislation, House Bill 1091, and that is scheduled for executive session tomorrow.

The Climate Commitment Act, last Monday after our briefing, was voted out of Ways and Means and is now in the Rules Committee.

And then finally, the HEAL Act, Senate Bill 5141, is scheduled for a hearing in Appropriations tomorrow.

in general government.

Just two small updates.

House Bill 1173, the Armory PDA, State Development Authority legislation, that was voted out of the policy committee and now has a hearing in Senate Ways and Means coming up tomorrow at 1.30.

And then similarly, the House Bill 1258, the microenterprise home kitchen legislation was voted out of Policy Committee last week and has a hearing coming up on Wednesday in Ways and Means.

In healthcare, House Bill 1273, menstrual products in schools, is scheduled for a public hearing tomorrow in Ways and Means.

House Bill 1477, that's the national 988 number we're following closely, was exact and has been referred to Ways and Means.

5068, the postpartum Medicaid, has been placed on second reading.

And Senate Bill 5313, which is the health insurance discrimination bill, passed the House last week in a 57 to 41 vote.

And I'll move on to housing.

A few updates on housing bills for this week.

House Bill 1220 that does some things around housing in the GMA and also includes some language on making sure that facilities that serve people experiencing homelessness are able to be offered in areas that are zoned for short-term rentals, has a hearing in the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday afternoon.

House Bill 1277, the document recording fee bill that expands the document recording fees by $100 that would generate over $100 million statewide, passed the House yesterday with fairly short debate.

In the past, you know, it's been very difficult to get document recording fees increases passed.

So interesting that it passed quite easily yesterday in the House.

Now it's on to the Senate.

There were some amendments made to Senate Bill 5160, which provides tenant protections with the ending of the eviction moratorium.

There were quite a few small changes, but the highlights are that it provides that a property owner may not report non-payment of rent to another property owner from March 1st of 2020 to six months after the end of the eviction moratorium.

Also says that a prospective property owner can't deny a tenancy based on medical history and may not ask for medical records.

sets date parameters for when landlords must offer a payment plan of that same March 1st date through the expiration of the eviction moratorium, six months after the expiration of the eviction moratorium, or the end of the public health emergency, whichever one is greater.

Also increases how much landlords can get from the Landlord Mitigation Program for up to $15,000.

That bill is scheduled also for a public hearing and appropriations on Wednesday.

I can then move on from housing to police reform.

A couple of updates there.

House Bill 1267, the governor's request legislation that would establish a statewide centralized investigations entity for use of force.

has a hearing in the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, as does House Bill 1310 that establishes a new standard for use of force.

Senate Bill 5051, Senator Peterson's Oversight and Accountability of Peace Officers Bill has a public hearing in the Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

And Senate Bill 5066, the Duty to Intervene Bill is also being heard in Appropriations on Wednesday.

Some pretty significant police reform bills do continue to move on in both chambers.

Switching gears now to public safety, this is an area where there's quite a bit of news this week.

Senate Bill 5038 that eliminates open carry at the state capitol and public demonstrations passed the House yesterday afternoon and evening of debate on a party line vote.

So that is quite a substantial piece of legislation that passed yesterday, quite historic.

And then I wanted to just talk briefly about the legislative response to the Blake decision.

I would say that conversations between lawmakers are currently ongoing.

Two bills have been introduced last week that have some very different approaches to how to handle the Blake decision.

And neither bill has been scheduled for a public hearing as of this morning.

Senate Bill 5475 offered by Senator Mullett would recriminalize possession of drugs and then establish a legislative work group that will hold public meetings to study the impact of the decision.

That approach does definitely place the burden of funding this on the local jurisdictions.

Senator Dhingra has also introduced Senate Bill 5476, which establishes personal use amounts for controlled substances and then removes criminal penalties for possession of controlled substances that don't exceed that personal use amount as established in the state law.

It also authorizes law enforcement to refer individuals possessing personal use amount to a, forensic navigator for the purpose of evaluation and treatment.

So this is approach more focused on referring people to services versus recriminalizing.

And I think that is all that I have for my report this week.

In safety net and civil rights, House Bill 1073, the paid family leave coverage has a public hearing tomorrow in ways and means.

House Bill 1078, that restores voter eligibility, passed the Senate 2722. House Bill 1151, which is a big omnibus public assistance bill, passed off the House floor 3414 last week.

And the Working Family Tax Credit has a public hearing in ways and means tomorrow.

I'll pass it over to Quinn for transportation.

Rounding things out in transportation, the big news is last week's release and subsequent hearing and vote on the House and Senate transportation budgets.

I do want to distinguish, these are our current law budgets, which don't assume any new revenue.

So they're distinct from what we more commonly refer to as a transportation revenue package.

which would be where we'd be looking at substantial new funding for projects.

So in that context, as Lily mentioned at the beginning, while overall operating revenues have continued to increase since the low point in the summer.

Transportation revenues have not.

They continue to be down almost $1 billion, or actually more than $1 billion over this current biennia and the 21-23 biennia.

That was addressed, or I guess some progress was made with the Supreme Court's decision on I-976 restoring about $300 million, but there's still a substantial shortfall in the budget.

Both the House and Senate addressed that by appropriating approximately a billion dollars in American Rescue Plan Act ARPA funding to backfill that.

So that, by and large, prevented any significant cuts or delays in projects in both the House and Senate budget, which is good.

We along with pretty much every community has projects that are funded largely through the 2015 package connecting Washington that we don't want to see delayed.

It does mean that the budget doesn't include many significant investments, but I do think it's worth noting just a handful.

The Senate budget largely directs the small increases in funding that are available to starting a handful of projects around the state, none of which are included in Seattle.

It also includes approximately $4.1 million to continue the state's study of a road usage charge as a potential replacement for the gas tax.

The house budget, meanwhile, includes some increases to funding for multimodal grants as well as green transportation grants approximately.

10 and 15 million for those projects.

So there are some small differences, but overall predominantly a maintenance budget that also meets the state's obligation to fund fish passage barrier removals statewide.

The only other update in the transportation space is House Bill 1301, which is the bill that would allow Sound Transit to provide alternative fare enforcement, including warnings without citations.

That legislation is going to continue to move forward.

It's scheduled for executive session tomorrow at 1.30.

With that, I think that concludes our presentation.

We're happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much, Quinn, Hannah, Robin, Lily, really appreciate all of the hard works, definitely some great things coming out of the state legislature as it relates to some of these budget items, so I'm excited about that in particular.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on this report?

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much.

Good morning.

Thanks for the report out first on the House Bill 1220. Thank you, Robin, for reporting out on the progress of that bill.

Obviously, this is a big priority for the city and our region as we try to figure out how we house folks and keep them stably housed.

Is there any indication that the council or our partners need additional assistance in this last leg, or are you feeling pretty positive given its passage out of the committee recently?

There are still some negotiations happening on House Bill 1220, Council Member Mosqueda, so we will certainly let you know.

I think right now we are in an okay position, but I will certainly let you and other council members know if we think that there's some help that we could do to get it over the finish line.

Thank you, and obviously I think it's important for the associations that we're a part of, including the Association of Washington Cities, to well represent and others who are supportive of that bill.

So I appreciate Council Member Lewis flagging that and Council Member Strauss' engagement as we consider how we can help best last week.

And then Council President, I do have one more bill I just wanna ask about.

Quinn, thank you so much for your correspondence on Senate Bill 5354. I'm wondering if you might be able to let us know if there's any additional assistance or how is the city weighing in on the flagger bill to help make sure that armed officers are no longer at our events as traffic coordinators?

Yeah, happy to speak to that Councilmember Mosqueda.

So that legislation passed the Senate, I believe, with a rather robust margin.

We have been supportive of the legislation and we've also been, as it has proceeded to the House and questions have come up about how it would be implemented, we've been working to answer those questions for legislators and for committee staff and to assuage any concerns that they have about, you know, What about X scenario or Y scenario?

The bill is scheduled for a committee vote today.

And the legislators that I have spoken to and that we've provided information from Department of Transportation S.2, I think after they get their questions answered, they've all been supportive.

And I know Council Member Yu, we're reaching out to members of the committee to express support as well.

So I don't get the sense that the legislation is in danger.

I think there were just questions that needed to be answered, but I'm happy to sort of continue to engage there and work on that legislation.

I also wanted to note Council Member Mosqueda, Quinn met early on with some of the other advocates from both the Labor State Council and their local here, Billy and Billy, and got an overview of this as a high priority for them.

So we've been in touch and they had not flagged any additional needs for assistance, but we did say we were happy to connect at any point if they felt like the bill needed some additional push.

Great, thank you so much.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions?

All right, doesn't look like anyone else has any more comments or questions.

So Lily, you want to close this out and then we'll go ahead and move to the next agenda item.

Thank you so much for your time.

That concludes our report today and we will see you next week.

Excellent.

Thank you everyone from OIR.

Thanks for being with us.

You are free to leave now as we transition to our next agenda item, which is preview of today's City Council Actions Council and Regional Committees.

Colleagues, as a reminder, the roll call for today's rotation begins with Council Member Mosqueda, followed by Council Members Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So first up is Council Member Mosqueda.

Take it away.

Good morning again.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I first want to say Happy Holi Day.

My staff reminded me that today is Holi and excited to say Happy Holi Day to folks who are celebrating and recognize this holiday, including in my office.

The first item to report back on is that there are no items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's agenda for full council.

The Finance and Housing Committee is going to meet again next Tuesday at 9.30 a.m.

Included on our tentative agenda is our ongoing conversation that will begin in earnest about the American Rescue Plan Act, ARPA.

A memo, thank you very much to the Council President and their office, including central staff in my office with Freddy de Cuevas and Sejal Parikh.

We have provided for you a calendar for your reference.

Colleagues, this includes the ability to marry our conversations for the American Rescue Plan Act.

in the Finance and Housing Committee meetings.

All council members are invited to attend if you'd like to, but you're not required to.

We just want to make sure everybody knows that they are welcome to participate.

And if you're not on the committee, I'd be happy to bring something forward and offer to be a sponsor for something in our discussions.

We will endeavor to have the ARPA discussions in the first half of our committee meetings going forward.

In addition, in the memo you will see there's the dates noted for all of our committee meetings, but also we've included at least one special committee meeting monthly between now and June.

It's possible that we might not need that extra time.

So for my colleagues on the committee, please note that we will keep you updated if we do need those times, but we wanted to have them on the calendar just in case.

We will endeavor to have two pieces of legislation.

This is an opportunity for us to look at tranche one and within tranche one funding.

identify which allocation can be sent out as quickly as possible before June so that any programs that are reliant on federal dollars don't hit cliff and that we can act quickly with the first allocation within tranche one occurring before June.

Then we will shift over to ordinance number two which will be the second allocation of tranche one to allow for us to think about a little bit more long-term recovery efforts.

As a reminder, Tranch 2 from the ARPA funds, as you've seen in the presentations from central staff and from our OIR team, that funding will come 12 months later.

So it's a really exciting opportunity for us to partner with the federal government who's provided up to $239 million for the City of Seattle for us to use.

We're dividing it in these sort of three buckets so that we can continue to work very quickly with the executive, with community partners, and to get money out the door as soon as possible.

and your participation to the degree that you're both on the committee and are able to attend, or if you're not able to, to notify me and central staff, and we're happy to bring items forward to you.

This will allow us to move relatively quickly as we respond to the crisis, both for workers and small businesses, our most vulnerable, our community at large, as we eagerly anticipate opening our economy in a healthy and responsive and equitable way.

So please let us know if you do have any questions about that.

Again, the Finance and Housing Committee meets on the 1st and 3rd.

We have a special finance and housing committee meeting on Tuesday of each month.

We meet at 930 a.m.

In the memo you will see there is one additional special finance and housing committee meeting each month and we will keep the full council updated if we need those select budget committee meetings.

We also have included a public hearing for one evening as well to I will make myself available as long as needed as we have done in the past to make sure that people can call in and invite all the council members to join if they are able to as well.

So more information is included in the memo.

If you do have any questions, please do let me know.

Farideh Cuevas in our office is also going to be sending a calendar hold for everybody to have on their calendar, just as an FYI, if you're able to come, that's great.

And again, for our colleagues who are part of the Finance and Housing Committee meeting, we have asked for additional time so that we can do both our discussion at the first half and any continued business as needed in the second half.

So thank you in advance for your time, and we have put that additional time on your calendar, looking to wrap up by 1 p.m.

at the very latest, but we will also make sure to be conscious of our time and use it very efficiently.

OK, let me know if you have any questions on that.

Next, in terms of other updates.

We are going to have the rental assistance bill in our committee again next Wednesday.

Thank you, colleagues, for providing your feedback and in the form of amendments to the rental assistance bill.

The deadline was last Friday at noon.

I understand central staff is working on a handful of amendments, so we'll make sure to update folks and have an overview of those amendments available for briefing next Monday and for discussion, deliberation and possible vote.

next Tuesday.

Very excited to work with all of you as we get the funding out the door and also very excited to hear that the CDC's extension of the moratorium on evictions continues as well.

City, state, federal government working hand in glove to make sure that folks don't face eviction and that they have stable housing and support in terms of job security.

That's going to be the goal as we look at the ARPA funds coming forward.

So much more to come on that next Tuesday.

In terms of other updates, folks remember that last Thursday, March 24th, was Equal Pay Day.

Many of us put information out on our social media and newsletters about it, appreciate the recognition that the date of March 24th marks the date that average women, so predominantly white women, are able to finally catch up in terms of pay that a white man makes in a calendar year.

It takes another three and a half months to make sure that the average woman gets the same compensation.

However, I did want to note that it's as important as we also call out Equal Pay Day, that Equal Pay Day for Black women is not until August 3rd.

For Native American and Indigenous women, it's September 8th.

For the Latino women, equal payday is October 21st.

So overall, women in this country, women of color in this country, need to work nearly a year and a half to almost two years longer to earn the same wage as their male counterparts.

I think that it's an important reminder as we head into the discussion about COVID relief to also remember that this was the problem before COVID and COVID exacerbated this problem problematic wage disparity where two out of every three women are now work our frontline workers that have been directly impacted by COVID.

Women of color, particularly black women, one out of three who work are working on the front line to keep our community safe, healthy and whole.

And in addition, they're working in sectors of our economy that are hit hardest by the shutdowns like hospitality and leisure.

And disproportionately, these positions are filled by women.

We talked last week a lot about child care, and I think it's important to put that in context as well.

where lack of access to childcare, especially in-person schooling during COVID restrictions, have caused a she-cession instead of a re-cession, a she-cession, as nearly three million women have left the workforce, according to a report recently by NPR.

This disproportionately affects single mothers as well, who've had to struggle to make sure that there's appropriate care for their families while keeping food on the table and roof over their head.

And much of this we have helped to try to mitigate at the local level.

Our statistics, as has been reported in Council President's Committee last week, are much better locally, both in Seattle and in King County, compared to the national average, which is 40% of child care facilities closing nationally.

While we're doing much better, we know that both pay equity and access to good living wage jobs and access to affordable child care is going to be a priority as we think about creating a more equitable recovery.

And I look forward to working with all of you on that.

Um, and then lastly, I want to provide a few updates, uh, on on the activities that we've been doing in our office.

Um, last week I had the chance to have a conversation with Chief Diaz as a follow up conversation to many of the individuals who were on a large B.

I. A. Presentate or B.

I. A. Zoom meeting that we had.

We wanted to have a follow up meeting because of some of the experiences that neighborhood organizations and business leaders have had with officers showing up and saying that there was nothing they could do.

They needed to call city council.

Chief Diaz reiterated that this is not an appropriate response and what we need to do is to make sure that there is a triage system so if an officer shows up and it's not a crime-related issue that SPD has oversight for, that we have a way to triage those calls out to our community partners and other departments within the city so people get appropriate responses.

I'm really looking forward to that, and I want to thank Councilmember Herbold, who I know has done a tremendous amount, including recently, with trying to make sure that those specifically mental health calls are getting triaged to the right place, and I look forward to working with her on that, and I thank Chief Diaz for the comments that was made in that meeting.

also had the opportunity to participate in the King County Regional Summit, a virtual convening bringing together electeds across the region with many of you, and appreciated learning more about the Go First strategy to address issues of gun violence in our region.

Wednesday, I attended the Affordable Housing Committee, and on Friday, had the opportunity with Council Member Herbold again to participate in the regional policy committee meeting to discuss the Best Starts for Kids levy.

And I was very proud to see Best Starts for Kids levy proposal passed unanimously out of the committee.

And this is a very exciting opportunity for us to of the city of Seattle.

The city of Seattle has offered to voters the chance to pass $872 million over the term of the six-year levy to bring funding into a reason to invest back into kiddos, back into kiddo care in a more equitable way.

And I think Councilmember Herbold for the amendment that she brought forward clarifying that cities including Seattle absolutely are going to be beneficiaries of this important levy.

And their statement encouraging us to pass this levy, Best Starts for Kids, represents a singular opportunity to expand access to high-quality care and invest in the workforce at the very same time when child care is absolutely critical to our economy's reopening.

They talk about lack of access to care before COVID and the important need to make sure that it's both equitable in terms of access for working families and for the largely women, women of color workforce that is, that makes up our childcare network.

And very briefly, last week I did not get the chance to note a few things from Office of Labor Standards.

I want to note for folks who are following the new grocery store hazard pay ordinance, OLS has released a webinar for grocery pay requirements and a Q&A document.

OLS's website has provided a fact sheet in multiple languages.

There is a joint webinar as well that they have done with the Office of Civil Rights on domestic worker protections for hiring entities, as a reminder.

Domestic Workers Bill of Rights was passed in 2018. And they have been diligently working on recommendations which we will be able to receive this summer.

And the council will have the chance to respond to those recommendations as we put in law so they don't sit on a shelf and gather dust.

And we wanna welcome new staff members to OLS as well.

They have had the chance to add to their enforcement team and their policy team.

Two senior investigators and I'm really excited about the senior investigator and policy analysts who are going to be joining in late April.

Again, this is important so that we don't just pass legislation and have it on the books, but that we also have education and enforcement to make sure that those laws are meaningful.

And finally, FAS has done a tremendous amount of work in terms of planning for the Lumen field, supporting Seattle Fire Department and their ongoing vaccination efforts at pop-up locations.

As you've heard, they've converted testing sites into more available vaccination sites, and FAS is really helping to provide the roadmap to make sure that we have 22,000 doses allocated a day.

They are also holding their annual meeting about the animal shelter volunteer opportunities and they have made sure that more people have opportunities to help those who need additional assistance in sheltering our animals in this area in the last few months.

We know that a lot of people have done Uh, taking on new pets and we want to make sure that they stay house.

Um, also last week they provided additional support for public schools.

There is a school memorandum of understanding between the school board and the third party administrator.

And they earlier this month they signed the M.

O. A.

and made sure that FAS is going to be monitoring and supporting and administering the Seattle Public Schools Student and Community Workforce Agreement and associated social equity provisions, including WEMBI, accessible work sites and prevailing wage opportunities.

I will end there, but thank you very much, Madam President, and all of you for your ongoing conversations in our Finance and Housing Committee, and do hope to see many of you starting next Tuesday at 9.30 a.m.

Thank you for that report.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, looks like there are none.

Okay, colleagues, we still have 8 of us to get through and an executive session that we are planning for.

I'd like to get to the executive session.

by 11 a.m.

if at all possible.

It's currently almost 1020 a.m.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Councilmember Peterson for his remarks.

And then after Councilmember Peterson is Councilmember Sawant.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has one item on today's full City Council agenda.

At our committee on March 17, we accepted Council Bill 120015 to reaffirm electricity rates for Seattle City Light.

I'm pleased that City Light has managed to take various actions that should amazingly result in no net increase to customer bills this year.

Each customer's bill is composed of various electricity rates, pass-through power rates, and surcharges.

And through a combination of actions, we can continue to prevent an increase in bills this year.

In addition, City Light will be keeping their promise for next year, 2022, by sticking with the original rate path agreed to back in 2018, and possibly achieving a smaller increase if the pass-through rate from the Bonneville Power Administration comes in lower.

I appreciate both Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities focusing on affordability for our city's residents.

Our next meeting of the Transportation Utilities Committee is Wednesday, April 7 at 9.30 a.m.

At our April 7 committee, we will hear from Seattle Public Utilities on their strategic plan.

This will lead into a discussion about SPU rates for clean water and wastewater, along with trash, recycling, and compost.

Our city has become less affordable and utility bills are regressive.

So our goal is to keep costs down so we can keep rates low.

Ideally, SPU can keep or even improve upon the promises made from the previous strategic plan.

Thankfully, during COVID, our city-owned utilities, both SPU and City Light, have managed to keep rates steady to increase enrollment in the utility discount program and to waive late fees.

Due to our governance structure with King County for wastewater treatment, however, a majority of the King County Council unfortunately raised their wastewater treatment fee, which is passed directly through to Seattle residents.

I'd like to see King County going forward make growth pay for growth, especially in real estate development in suburban and rural areas of the county.

In District 4, last week I joined several community leaders and nonprofit organizations providing affordable housing and services to the 850 low-income residents who call Magnuson Park home.

We met to discuss crime prevention solutions because there's been an uptick in thefts and other illicit activities throughout the park.

We were joined by the Parks Department, and although we're still waiting for SPD to fill the open crime prevention coordinator position, to provide service to the vast North Precinct, we were able to have their supervisor attend to listen as well as provide some insights.

Colleagues, what do these five names have in common?

Boris the Plunger, Daphne, Molly the Mole, Mudhoney, and Sir Digs-a-Lot.

These are the finalists for naming the new tunnel boring machine that will enable the city and county to complete by year 2025 our ambitious 2.7 mile, 19 foot diameter, Ship Canal Water Quality Project.

As required by the state and federal governments to prevent harmful stormwater and wastewater from polluting our local waterways, we are investing a combined $570 million.

I'd like to thank the Seattle Times for their increasing focus on these large infrastructure projects, including this article on the Ship Canal Water Quality Project that was recently published.

As with all large capital improvement projects, this is on the City Council's watch list and will receive more scrutiny as we move ahead to make sure we contain costs and produce a high-quality project on time.

While this project is led by Seattle Public Utilities, it involves multiple layers of government and has literally several moving pieces.

To vote for your favorite name for this new tunnel boring drill through this Wednesday, March 31st, you can go to my City Council blog.

I want to thank the Washington State Department of Transportation for being so proactive about their bridges.

While the Montlake Bridge is, of course, in Councilmember Swan's District 3, it impacts the region.

So as Transportation Chair, I just wanted to reiterate the announcement made by WSDOT that they will be repairing the Montlake Bridge in two phases this summer and fall.

WSDOT published a blog post which was then in several media outlets.

Phase one will require a month-long closure in August.

They're replacing all 84 panels of the bridge's metal grid deck.

This was work that hadn't been done for 20 years, and replacing two expansion joints.

So August 9 through September 3 is when this will be closed.

There'll be more announcements about alternative routes.

Phase 2 will require five weekends to close the bridge this fall.

I want to, again, thank WSDOT for their proactive approach to bridge maintenance.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any comments or questions for Council Member Peterson?

Okay, looks like there aren't, so we're going to go ahead and continue down the line.

Next up is Council Member Sawant, followed by Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

Good morning and thank you.

There are several items today on today's city council agenda from the Sustainability and Mentors' Rights Committee.

There will be the confirmation votes on the first four appointments to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

After the mayor twice cut the funding for the Green New Deal Oversight Board and our movement twice fought to restore that funding, the Office of Sustainability and Environment has now hired the Green New Deal Oversight Board advisor and we have begun making appointments.

There are 19 seats on the oversight board and today we will be voting to confirm the first four of them.

Along with the Office of Sustainability and Environment, my office has opened up a new application window for the remaining positions and any members of the public who would like to apply can do so by finding an application on the OSCE website or on my council office blog.

The people we will be confirming today are Matt Remley and Rachel Heaton from Mazaska Talks, Debolina Banerjee from Puget Sound SAGE, and Jess Wallach from 350 Seattle, all of these have been approved unanimously by the committee.

All have vast experience in building the movement for a Green New Deal, for a just transition to stop climate change.

Also on today's city council agenda is the final vote on the right to council legislation from my office.

This ordinance commits the city to ensuring that any renter facing eviction in Seattle has the right to a lawyer in their eviction hearing, which is absolutely essential for many renters to remain housed.

Data from the losing home report found that almost nine out of 10 people evicted in Seattle become homeless so we cannot overemphasize possibly the impacts of eviction.

And the reality is having legal support in eviction court makes all the difference.

A lawyer can prevent you from being evicted in an unjust eviction and can help people get access to social services like rental assistance to stay housed in other instances.

We have been discussing this issue for several years.

My office has brought budget amendments to fund eviction defense attorneys alongside the People's Budget Movement.

And this year in the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee, we have discussed this particular bill since January.

It was voted out of committee on February 23rd with three votes in favor and Council Member Peterson voting against.

Because there was a vote against, the full council vote was delayed from the March 1st city council meeting to the March 8th city council meeting.

On March 8th, Council Member Peterson proposed to delay the vote by an additional two weeks.

And I believe that was March 15th, sorry.

And a majority of the progressive Democrats voted yes on the delay, which is why it is on today's meeting agenda.

Last Friday, my office received three new amendments to the right to counsel legislation proposed by other council offices.

Of course, they will be describing their own amendments, but I did want to take a moment to give my views on them.

Council member Peterson sent out an amendment on Friday over email that is not listed on the agenda.

So hopefully you can clarify if he intends to move it or not.

This amendment would essentially limit the city's commitment to the right to counsel.

essentially saying that providing the eviction defense attorneys is conditional on there being sufficient money in the budget.

The reality is the only reason there would not be sufficient funding is if elected officials intentionally wanted to underfund this program, because we're talking about less than $1 million per year.

And we've also seen, for example, in New York City, which has the right to counsel, they saw eviction filings themselves go down by corporate landlords by 30 percent, because now they know they have to face a lawyer and not a vulnerable renter.

For contrast, the city could have fully funded eviction defense attorneys for 500 years for the cost of one year of the SPD budget, the police budget.

I do not support this amendment if it is going to be brought forward because we're serious about the right to counsel and that if we are serious that it needs to be funded always and there will be no need for this qualifier.

And I do not think we should be opening the door to underfunding right to counsel in the future.

On to remember Peterson also sent out an amendment that is included on today's agenda to amend one recital to say that the Department of construction and inspections will do an RFP.

every two years to the request for proposal.

In other words, every two years to determine whether the Housing Justice Project or some other organization provides a legal representation for renters facing eviction.

This is just an amendment to a whereas clause, so it does not appear to change much substantively.

However, I will not be supporting this amendment because it is overly prescriptive of how the department contracts out these services.

The way we have prepared the base legislation, we give the department, the Department of Construction and Inspections, the authority to choose whom to contract with, giving substantive parameters of what qualifies as an organization, will best represent renters.

And the attorneys from the Housing Justice Project, for example, will tell you that there are not very many attorneys offering this service.

Our whereas clauses then explain that currently it is the Housing Justice Project that does the work.

But who knows who is defending renters in 20 years?

Maybe it is still SJP, maybe it's some other organization that is going to be created in the future but does not exist currently.

And SDCI is empowered by the legislation to make that decision at that given time.

We do not require that SDCI contract with SAP, but we do acknowledge that they are the firm that are playing the role right now.

Whether SDCI uses RFP or RFQ or renews existing contracts does not need to be prescribed in the legislation.

Finally Council President Gonzalez sent out an amendment inserting means testing which I oppose.

It limits access to counsel to those who are quote unquote indigent.

Across the spectrum of social services any means testing even the least invasive has the effect of preventing some of the most vulnerable people from using the service.

From federal welfare programs to Seattle's utility discount program to the Centers for Disease Control's eviction moratorium during the pandemic, every social service that has actual utilization data shows that means testing, even the least invasive, substantially undermines the ability of the poor and the most vulnerable communities to access the service.

Even when the process of applying is not technically onerous, people are hesitant about using means-tested services because they feel humiliated or they are not sure if they are eligible or they have misconceptions about how difficult the application will be.

Moreover, the effect of means testing, even the least invasive ones, is that it writes the demise of that service in future events.

Means testing, in fact, has been used politically by pro-big business politicians, both Democrat and Republican, to divide and rule and then try and dismantle the programs themselves in the future.

One reason why Bill Clinton and the Democrats were able to destroy welfare in 1996 was because the programs, when they were set up some decades before, were set up with means testing in the first place.

Throughout the existence of these programs then, there were wildly false rumors about people abusing it, and these complete fabrications were used by Clinton to gut the program.

In contrast, social security has endured for almost a century, 86 years, precisely because it is available to everyone.

And it is much harder for corporate politicians to do divide and conquer because it is universally applicable.

That makes it more difficult to dismantle it.

And this has happened.

This program has stayed intact despite repeated brazen attempts by both Republicans and Democrats to dismantle it.

There are two other amendments that are not new.

Council Member Herbold sent out amendments two weeks ago that provide clarifying language, which I consider friendly, as I've said before, and will be supporting.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee is Tuesday, April 27th.

However, we went overtime at our last committee meeting and were unable to address all the items on the agenda, so my office is attempting, as committee members know, to schedule an additional meeting in April, and we will let you know when we have identified a time.

This evening at 6 p.m.

I'll be joining the stay healthy campaign launch to advocate for closing the end of lease loophole in Seattle's just-caused eviction protection.

That's one of the things that we'll be discussing, obviously, which my office has been working on for years and which we also discussed in the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee last week.

And I know Councilmember Morales will also be speaking there and is also working on that crucial legislation, which I appreciate.

The coalition, of course, will be talking about renters' rights as a whole, especially as they are affected during this pandemic and when renters are being forced to accumulate debt because of joblessness or loss of income.

There are several other renters' rights bills that my office will also be fighting for this spring.

As I mentioned earlier this year, we are committed after completing the fight on right to counsel to extend the right to counsel legislation.

The council will be voting on today to also support renters who are currently evicted by default.

This, as I've mentioned before, is a massive problem in Seattle and actually across the country.

In Seattle, half of all evictions happen by default, where the renter is not even able to be present to defend themselves in court.

My office is also drafting legislation that was recommended by school board member Zachary DeWolf, thank you school board member DeWolf, to create a moratorium on the eviction of school children and their families during the months of the school year.

The fact that children get evicted at all in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world is frankly unacceptable and is a devastating condemnation of how the capitalist economy treats human beings, including children.

However, the shameful reality is that children.

are evicted on a regular basis in Seattle.

The city council has the power to, at the very least, stop these evictions during the school year when an eviction will also uproot the student from their learning.

We know there are detrimental effects to this happening, and children are often uprooted from their schools themselves, and we have the duty to make sure that evictions do not disrupt the learning experience of children during the school year.

Thank you so much, colleagues, if you have amendments on Council Bill 120007, I'd like to ask for us to have a conversation about those proposed amendments.

at this juncture before we continue through the report.

So for any individuals who would like to address their amendments now during council briefing, I would solicit that conversation.

Council Member Peterson, you've raised your hand and I'm happy to go after you unless Council Member Herbold would like to readdress her amendments.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you Council Member Sawant for going over your thoughts on the different amendments.

I'm able to speak to the amendment to the recitals today.

The way the recital is currently written is problematic in my view because it says that the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection will continue as needed to expand its contract with the Housing Justice Project to fulfill the commitments in its ordinance.

And so my recital amendment simply has them go through a request for proposals process.

They don't have to do it right away.

It gives them plenty of time to put that together so that other organizations have the opportunity to participate in providing these legal services.

after a couple of years.

But to direct award it to an organization, a single organization, I think doesn't do service to other organizations that may be willing to compete to participate in the services.

So I think it's important to clarify that in the recital.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

For that, any comments or questions on Council Member Peterson's amendment?

Council Member Sawant, you have a question?

No, I do have responses, but I'm happy to hold my responses until all the Council Members who have amendments have spoken to them.

You're welcome.

You're welcome to respond to that.

I'm going to take it amendment by amendment.

So if you want to respond or add anything that you haven't already stated, happy to.

Okay, I just wanted to say that what Councilmember Peterson read out was not the entirety of the whereas clause.

What he left out was, quote, unless another attorney organization becomes better suited to accomplish this work at some future date, end quote.

So it already addresses the problem that Councilmember Peterson believes exists, but it doesn't exist because that's what the full whereas clause says.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions on Council Member Peterson's proposed amendment?

Okay.

Looks like there are no additional comments or questions on Council Member Peterson's amendment.

Council Member Herbold, did you want to address your amendments again?

We're happy to do so.

So just as a refresher, Amendment 1 specifies that an attorney organization, which the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections contracts with, should have experience providing legal representation to tenants.

This amendment was suggested by an advocate with deep experience in advocating for and supporting tenants.

The outreach to us as council members referenced this advocate's experience working with many legal aid organizations that might only provide advice about notices or represent tenants in very narrow situations.

And so though this bill itself is not the funding mechanism, It's important.

I felt that the council include our intention in the bill that future funding for this policy be made available only to those willing to represent tenants in a courtroom.

Second amendment would require that the organization with whom the city contracts to provide reporting on numbers of cases for representation that occurs outside of the initial show cause hearing, just again, just working to try to, in this case.

get data about the types of cases that are taken under the right to counsel ordinance.

In the past, we know that, for instance, in 2018, the most recent year for which we have data, only 11 cases of nearly 9,000 eviction cases went to trial in King County.

But this was before significant statewide and local eviction law reform that such a small number of cases went to trial.

And so I'm interested in knowing whether or not that number of cases that are going to trial and that will have, cases that go to trial will have a larger impact on the cost to the city to provide this service.

Interested to know whether or not is actually a growing number of cases that go to trial after the statewide and local eviction law reform.

And this amendment would require reporting on the number of those types of cases.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Salant, did you want to add anything to Council Member Herbold's description?

only to reiterate that I support both amendments.

Great.

Colleagues, any, um, I know we had a conversation about this, these particular amendments.

Um, I think it was last week might have been the week before.

I think it was a couple weeks ago.

But if there are any additional comments or questions for Councilmember Herbold on those amendments, please do raise your hand.

Councilmember Peterson, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I support both of those amendments.

I had a question about the one that's asking for reporting information.

One of the concerns that's been raised is by those landlords that own one, two, three, four units.

And while we don't necessarily need to amend your amendment, in terms of your intent, would it be something you'd be open to having the report include how many units the landlords own so that we could sort of see if small landlords or how they're impacted versus the corporate landlords?

I think, yes, all information is friendly.

This is information that we would be seeking the contracted providers of the legal services to report back to the city.

So if this is information that is easy for them to gather, I would be supportive of it.

As I spoke with you before, the council has indicated an interest in getting reports on the impacts of our local tenant laws on smaller landlords.

There has been, I think, a delay associated with getting some of that information, but also interested in getting an update from Council Central staff.

They had some ideas about how to do the study that we were interested in receiving.

with a different approach to still get us the information.

So I'm agnostic about how we get it, but agree that getting information about the impact of our tenant laws on smaller landlords is definitely useful information to have.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other comments or questions on that amendment?

Okay.

Looks like that is, I think, Amendment 1 and 2 and 4. I will address Amendment 3, which is my amendment.

So, colleagues, last Friday, Cato Freeman from our Council Central staff shared an amendment with all of you, and it was also published on the revised agenda for today's full City Council meeting.

I requested Ketel generate this amendment to Council Bill 120007, otherwise known as Right to Council Bill.

Two weeks ago, I had an opportunity to review the legislation after it came out of Council Member Salon's Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

My review also included a review of prior legal opinions on the legislation, participating in an almost two-hour executive session on Monday, March 22nd, and conversations with several council members to hear your concerns.

My office also spoke to various stakeholders, including leaders within the Housing Justice Project and the Tenant Law Center, which are the two major legal service providers for tenants facing evictions here in Seattle and across the region.

After all of this, it became clear to me that there were significant legal risk with Council Bill 120007 as passed out of committee.

So during the last two weeks, my office dug into those legal issues to further understand them and to analyze them.

And we heard clearly from service providers and advocates about how legal counsel for tenants facing eviction works in a practical sense.

And I thought it would be important to share some of what we learned through that outreach about how these services work in practice that might benefit both the public conversation and our ongoing debate around this important bill.

So due to the nature of evictions, most tenants who are facing an eviction are typically lower income and cannot afford legal representation.

Moreover, based on my own experience as an attorney, I know that there are almost no private attorneys that provide these kinds of legal services to tenants facing unlawful detainer actions.

So in other words, for most tenants, access to legal representation in unlawful detainer actions is largely limited to accessing services from legal aid organizations like the Housing Justice Project, and the Tenant Law Center.

Organizations like the Housing Justice Project, for example, primarily serve individuals who make 200% of federal poverty level, which is approximately $25,760 for a household of one in 2021, or $43,920 for a family of three in 2021. Practically speaking, people who seek legal aid in evictions are already income qualified to receive these critical legal services.

And I believe that providing legal aid against eviction and keeping people stably housed is smart policy for the city of Seattle, especially as we face an end to the eviction moratoriums currently in place due to the ongoing pandemic.

However, as a policymaker and an attorney, passing good legislation means we are not simply focusing on the policy objectives of a bill, but we are also ensuring that the legislation we pass is workable and that it will withstand legal scrutiny.

Over the last year, this city council has passed several important tenant protections.

I was the prime sponsor for two of those new ordinances, which included establishing a payment plan option for overdue rent and an eviction defense if the non-payment of rent was due to reduced income because of the pandemic.

All of these laws were legally challenged and our city attorney's office successfully defended our laws and these laws survived court challenges leaving in place important tenant protections I sponsored last year that expanded defense against evictions and created rental payment plans.

So for this reason, I have an amendment for this afternoon's consideration that will make the rights to council bill workable while still creating an opportunity for renters to access legal aid.

First, the amendment adds a recital to acknowledge the council's intent to minimize as many barriers as possible to accessing council for those who need it.

Second, the amendment establishes that any tenant residing in Seattle has the right to legal counsel free of charge if the tenant meets a simple indigency standard.

This indigency standard is modeled on the same exact standard utilized in the Immigrant Legal Defense Fund, which was unanimously adopted by the City Council in 2016. The definition of indigency focuses on the inability to afford an attorney at any point during the unlawful detainer suit.

And Amendment 3 says specifically, quote, a person is indigent who at any stage of an unlawful detainer suit is unable to pay the cost of counsel for representation in the unlawful detainer suit because the person's available funds are insufficient to retain counsel, close quote.

Third, this amendment allows contracted legal service providers to establish the process and manner by which to verify indigency.

This is a common practice that is similar to the steps taken by service providers in other circumstances, such as the self-certification process that was approved in the COVID-19 eviction defense bill last year.

In that example, the tenant simply needs to sign a form at their appearance in eviction court.

That would be enough to satisfy the criteria.

I will note that adoption of this amendment would also make the city's legislation closer in language to Senate Bill 5160, which the city's legislative agenda supports and is currently under consideration in Olympia to create a statewide right to counsel.

Senate Bill 5160 includes language that tenants seeking counsel meet the definition of indigency.

I believe this language will help ensure that Seattle becomes the first city in Washington State to pass this legislation while acknowledging and minimizing the legal risks of having this law survive a legal challenge, which is almost certain, and providing access to a right to counsel to those that need it.

This amendment, colleagues, should feel familiar for those of you who were on the City Council in 2016. as it is a concept that I used when I sponsored and passed the Deportation Legal Defense Fund for immigrants in 2016. So in the three years of existence, the Deportation Defense Fund has helped hundreds of immigrants and refugees fighting deportation proceedings while having no apparent administrative burden or chilling effect on those seeking services as a result of the indigent standard that was, again, unanimously supported in the Legal Defense Fund when we passed it in 2016. So I would ask you colleagues for your support on adopting Amendment 3 to this important bill.

I think it's a common sense way of making the right to counsel both legally defensible and accessible to those tenants who cannot afford a lawyer.

And again, if you have any additional questions about Amendment 3 before 2 o'clock today, you can certainly contact me directly, or your staff is always welcome to reach out directly to my senior policy advisor, Vy Nguyen, in my office.

And of course, Ketil Freeman is also available to answer any questions or concerns you might have about Amendment 3. Thank you, colleagues.

Happy to take any questions or hear any comments on Amendment 3.

Council Member Swan.

I have already clarified why I won't be supporting this amendment, but just to reiterate those points, the problem, as I said, is even in the case of the least invasive kind of means testing, we have seen through overwhelming amounts of data with various programs, not just renters rights programs, but various programs that are federally and statewide administered that even some of the least invasive and most benign seeming means testing requirements are deterrents to people from accessing the services that they need.

And it is a way, as renters rights advocates have said, it's a way of making poor people dance for a service that they need.

And it is profoundly humiliating to have people sign any piece of paper saying that they're poor before they can get legal aid.

Just to quote a letter from 13 different organizations, many of whom are part of the Stay Healthy Coalition that is launching today.

Just to quote from the letter, quote, the eviction process in Washington makes the use of a means test unworkable.

Unlike criminal proceedings, the eviction process is designed to be very quick and can occur in as little as three weeks.

The time a tenant misses a rental payment.

Unlike a criminal proceeding, which is much longer and involves multiple court dates, most tenants only have one court date.

During that court date, the tenant will have to present any defenses to the proceeding or try to settle the matter.

Courts will almost never continue the case, and trials are rare throughout Washington state.

At that hearing, a commissioner or judge will determine if the tenant should be evicted, in which case the tenant can be evicted as quickly as one week from that date, end quote.

Given all these obstacles, it is simply mind-boggling that self-described progressive Democrats are saying that this is necessary in order to make this law legally sound.

And Council President Gonzalez, you also mentioned the Housing Justice Project, and you said you've consulted various stakeholders.

Who are these stakeholders who are saying that there needs to be any kind of means testing to make this law sound?

You saw the letter from the ACLU.

All council members have seen the letter from the ACLU, which is strongly urging the city council not to insert any language of this kind.

We've heard from the Housing Justice Project themselves, who were at the press conference from my office this morning, who explained that renters rights attorneys do not believe that there is any basis in law to have this kind of language.

And last but not least, and the most important concern that I have, and that is shared by community members, including the attorneys, who provide these services, renters, is that any kind of means testing language is precedent setting.

So in other words, today, progressive Democrats have the chance to pass a strong law without any means testing to help set a precedent that we can pass laws and we should be passing laws that are unambiguously in favor of people who are the most marginalized and that we make these laws the most immune to dismantling in the future by making them available universally so that we prevent efforts from efforts at divide and conquer.

We have this opportunity It's astounding to me that self-described progressive Democrats don't want to take that opportunity.

And as Housing Justice Project attorneys also have said, and others have said, that renters rights activists like Xochitl Michalich have said on Twitter that the city's fund to reimburse landlords for damages when their tenants might flee because of domestic violence, that is not a means-tested program.

So when landlords don't face means-testing, why should renters face means-testing?

Thank you for that.

And I just want to clarify that I wasn't ascribing any of my comments to anybody at the Housing Justice Project.

I simply pointed out that we did engage with those folks and heard clearly about some of their administrative concerns.

agree that Edmund from the Housing Justice Project continues to express a preference for the base bill and did not intend to, nor do I think I ascribed any of intent of endorsement of my approach.

I understand that he has a very different legal perspective.

Lawyers can disagree all the time.

Lawyers disagree all the time on this council.

So I think it's sort of an area of disagreement, but I think I have offered up an opportunity for the council to, again, not just pass council bill 120007 as a virtue signal exercise, but actually have a bill that will be workable and that will be legally defensible and still meets the goals of the underlying legislation, which is to provide free legal counsel to tenants facing eviction when those particular tenants cannot afford to pay for their own legal counsel.

So I understand that we have a simple difference of opinion between myself and Council Member Sawant on whether or not this is going to be a barrier to access.

I do not think it will be a barrier to access for renters.

Again, we use the same standard in the Legal Defense Fund and we have no evidence, no data, no information to lead us to believe that the indigent standard in that context has created a chilling effect or an insurmountable barrier to being able to access free legal services in those deportation proceedings.

I believe that's gonna be true in this case as well.

I'm excited about the opportunity to vote in favor of this council bill and plan to do so if this amendment is adopted.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions?

Okay, hearing none, we're gonna go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Strauss, followed by Council Member Herbold.

Good morning.

Good morning council president and colleagues.

I know council president you asked us to be wrapped with all council members presentations by 11am which is four minutes away so I will endeavor to be brief.

There are no items from the land use and neighborhoods committee on today's introduction referral calendar and there are 11 items from the land use neighborhoods committee on today's city council agenda.

Council Bill 12021, the landmarking agreement for the Swedish Club.

Five appointments to the Community Involvement Commission and five appointments to the Urban Forestry Commission.

The next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will be on Wednesday, April 28th.

A little overview and preview of my activities here at Council.

Last week I attended the Fremont Neighborhood Council.

and the North Seattle Industrial Association meetings.

I worked closely with the Director of Parks Department to make sure Little League practice can proceed unimpeded in North Seattle.

And on Wednesday, I met with Chief Diaz, as well as received an update from Judge Eisenberg on the Seattle Municipal Court on the Domestic Violence Intervention Program.

I also attended the PSRC Executive Board meeting and the Maritime and Industrial Advisory Group meeting In addition to meeting with District 6 residents and convening a work group for the next steps on the Leary Triangle in the Freelard area, and wrapping up my week picking up litter on the beautiful shores of Golden Gardens Park.

This coming week, I do have jury duty tomorrow, so I'll be excited to share out how the county's process is working.

On Wednesday, I'll be meeting with a brewer in the Brewery District.

and meeting with Derrick Belgarde of the Chief Seattle Club.

I'll also be attending the King County Growth Management and Planning Council on Wednesday and the PSRC Growth Management Policy Board meeting on Thursday.

I'll be attending the Association of Washington City's Board of Directors on Thursday.

And lastly, we'll be spending both Wednesday and Thursday speaking to District 6 residents.

Here in District 6, I'll be hosting the District 6 office hours on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday from 1.30 to 6 p.m.

Last week, I had great conversations with neighbors from North Crown Hill, Central Ballard and East Green Lake about the Green Lake bike infrastructure design at East Green Lake Way and Meridian Avenue North.

We talked about homelessness across the city and then also about the Green Lake Recreation Center updates and the King County Metro realignment program.

As I mentioned just a minute ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the Parks Department's pilot program to have volunteers back out in the parks.

The Parks Department hosted four events at Magnuson, Jefferson, Golden Gardens, and one other.

I got to participate at the Golden Gardens pilot volunteer event and many thanks to Daryl, Scott, and Macho for all of your help making our park clean and organizing people during this pandemic.

As well as thank you again to superintendent for assisting the Ballard Little League to ensure they have a successful season.

Lastly, colleagues, at full council today, I will be presenting a proclamation honoring Director Sam Assefa, whose last day as Director of Office of Planning and Community Development was last Friday.

The proclamation was circulated last week, and I'll ask for your signatures in just a moment.

I'll have more to say at full council, and I'm looking forward to honoring Director Assefa for his five years of incredible leadership here in Seattle.

Council President, that is my report.

Can I now ask for signatures on this proclamation?

Yes, I will walk us through that process.

Give me just a moment to scroll up down here.

Oh, never mind.

I'm going to use a different platform because my iPad seems to be crawling here.

Give me just a second.

So colleagues, we do have this proclamation.

We need to get signatures before it is presented at this afternoon's full council meeting.

So are there any questions about the proclamation before I request the roll call?

Seeing no questions, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation honoring Samuel Assefa for service to the city of Seattle?

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Herbold?

I'll come back.

Warren?

Yes.

Thank you.

Council Member Herboldt said yes, and I said yes too.

Lewis?

Council Member Lewis?

Morales?

Yes.

President Gonzalez?

Yes.

And Council Member Lewis?

Aye.

Nine in favor.

Great, thank you so much.

Okay, Council Member Strauss, anything else to add on your report?

Yes, just two items, Council President.

Colleagues, bittersweet news.

Tomorrow is Allison McLean in my office's last day in the office.

She'll have a couple days of leave before starting her next position with the Youth and Family Empowerment Division at Human Services Department.

Allison has been an incredible asset to not only my office, also to this entire floor.

We already had one going away celebration for her last year when she started to take some family leave.

She came back, and while we won't be having a second proclamation honoring her this year, I just wanted to take this moment to really congratulate her on her next gig and thank her for all of her work here.

And lastly, Council President, I am hereby requesting to be excused April 12th from both full council and council briefing.

Thank you for that, Council Member Strauss.

Fully noted on that request, I would ask that you make the formal request at the full council meeting consistent with council rules so we can take that motion to be excused up during other business at today's full council.

Great.

I got a thumbs up, so I'm hearing that's good.

Awesome.

Okay.

Colleagues, any comments or questions for Council Member Strauss?

All right, hearing none, I mean, I did set out a lofty goal to get us to finish by 11, but seeing that that is not in the cards anymore, we'll go ahead and keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Herbold, followed by Council Member Juarez.

Good morning, Council Member Herbold.

Good morning, excuse me.

I'll keep my comments short.

First off, my weekly Human Services Department updates want to remind the viewing public and council members who are in contact with their constituents that applications for the Seattle Youth Employment Program are due this Friday, April 2nd.

Young people ages 16 to 24 can apply for a summer internship in city departments, nonprofits, or local businesses.

You can find out more at seattle.gov forward slash human services and click on the Seattle Youth Employment Program link.

as far as health goes.

I think we've all seen how new cases of COVID are significantly down from the extremes that we've seen over the winter.

But just wanna note for everybody that cases are trending upward again.

Younger adults ages 20 to 40 are the hardest hit and new and more contagious variants are circulating locally.

New cases are up 31% in the last two weeks.

Of course, the good news is that masks work against the variants.

Physical distancing works against the variants and good airflow and indoor ventilation are As always, especially important handwashing and all the things that should by now be second nature to all of us still work against these variants.

A recent University of Washington study found that 89% of King County residents.

or face coverings over the mouth and nose in public during the last four months.

I think that's really fantastic news about showing evidence of how much people in our region care about themselves and their loved ones and are willing to takes steps to demonstrate that care.

31% of King County residents age 16 and older have received their first vaccine dose and 17% are now fully vaccinated.

That's slightly better than the rest of Washington state.

new group of people will become vaccine eligible on March 31st.

People who are 16 years or older with two or more comorbidities, everyone 60 and older, and people, staff, and volunteers in certain congregate living settings, such as correctional facilities, group homes, and services for people experiencing homelessness.

And finally, high-risk critical workers in restaurants, construction, and other congregate work settings.

Vaccine supply is still scarce, both locally and nationally.

For every eight people who are now eligible, there's one dose available for them in King County.

So we're really hoping that that turns around soon.

To join the notification list for vaccine at the city's three community vaccination sites, one in West Seattle, one in Rainier Beach, and one at the Lumen Event Center, you can go to seattle.gov forward slash vaccine.

For anyone 65 years or older, you can fill up at the West Seattle and Rainier Beach vaccine sites at any time that they are open Monday through Saturday without an appointment and receive your vaccine.

This is, I think, a really important new development around the city's efforts to ensure that we are not leaving anyone 65 or older unvaccinated because of barriers that they may be experiencing to getting an appointment.

So again, you can just show up at the vaccination sites.

You do not need an appointment and you will receive your vaccine.

uh, weekly announcements about the efforts, um, successful efforts of fire and, um, focused on vaccination and sting.

Uh, the tests administered at their four sites are now nearly 688,000 people through last week.

And for vaccinations, um, administered over 28,000 vaccines through, well, I think I'm actually, I only have through March 20th, I think I should have some updated numbers here, but nevertheless, doing a fantastic job.

Events attending, I've attended last week and plan to attend this coming week.

Last week, I had virtual office hours.

On Friday, I also attended the Highland Park Action Committee to talk about public safety.

and attended the regional policy committee meeting where myself and member Mosqueda represented the city and we had the opportunity to vote to approve the best starts for kids levy authorization legislation.

And this coming week, just want to highlight, I'm really looking forward to a meeting with the community task force on criminal legal system realignment.

And I think those are the items I wanted to highlight today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Any comments or questions for Councilmember Herbold?

All right.

Hearing none, we will move now to Council Member Juarez, and then after Council Member Juarez is Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Council Member Juarez.

Good morning, Council President.

Let me see here.

I don't have my staff to scream at me where to turn up my volume.

Bottom right, got it.

Okay, can you hear me?

Good.

What a morning.

Okay, so I will be brief.

Unlike some people, I am listening to the Council President.

So just the basics.

First, I want to start with the proclamation for Marcellus Turner, M.T. I'll be presenting a proclamation to honor Marcellus Turner's M.T.' 's 10 years of service to the Seattle Public Library this afternoon.

My office circulated the proclamation Friday.

Thank you, Council President.

Council President, I'm ready for a roll call in support of this letter when you are.

Great colleagues.

Any comments or questions on the proclamation for MT?

Hearing no questions, will the clerk please call the role on the proclamation?

Mosqueda.

I Peterson.

Yes, so what?

Yes, Strauss.

Yes, Herbold.

Yes, Juarez.

Yes, Lewis.

Yes.

Morales.

Yes.

President Gonzalez.

Yes.

Nine in favor.

Thank you so much.

There you go.

You have unanimous signatures on the proclamation honoring Seattle Public Library's chief librarian Marcellus Turner.

Back to you.

Good.

Thank you, council president.

We're still under three minutes here.

Public assets and native communities.

There are no items on the public assets and native communities committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

There's a committee meeting on April 6th at two o'clock and we will host the second and last public hearing of the waterfront lid appeals.

Parks the Clean City init 15th and the 20th.

Last w crew members removed £60,000 of trash.

Crews also and cleaned up about 1500 They got a little bit of extra maintenance this week.

Shower program, we served over 300 people in that week, which is pretty good.

Childcare, last week the Parks Department served 288 children at 17 childcare sites throughout the city.

Food distribution at Rainier Beach Community Center, again, Food Lifeline distributed about 1500 meals to individuals and families.

Little Brook Park Design Meeting, The Little Brook Park Lake City Collective hosted an online public meeting on Saturday, March 27th, to share three new concept designs for Little Brook Park.

This community-initiated project, fiscally supported by the Seattle Parks Foundation, seeks to create a space better suited to the diverse community that live in the area and create a stronger educational connection to Thornton Creek.

As you know, D5 has the north and south fork of Thornton Creek, which is a salmon-bearing stream.

A final community meeting will be held later this spring.

Very briefly, Native communities, Senator Murray, and other Northwest congressional delegates introduced a significant bill on Thursday, March 24th, to amend the Federal Asset Sale and Transfer Act, commonly known as FASTA, to require that a federal agency, quote, shall consult with all tribal governments affected by any sale or transfer of federal civilian real property.

As you all know, this had to do with the National Archives facility.

And on that note, I will just say this is a BFD, a big deal, because this has been going on since the 1990s under President Bill Clinton, who issued an executive order, who said, if you do any property that affects tribes, you must have consultation.

I'm done, thank you, bye.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, appreciate it.

Any comments or questions on that report?

On that very succinct, efficient report?

Yes.

Okay, looks like there's none.

Council Member Lewis, take it away.

Well, I will follow Council Member Juarez's example and try to meet or exceed her record this morning.

So I'm gonna jump in there and I don't have a whole lot to report.

There are no items on this afternoon's agenda from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I do just wanna share as an update what many folks here probably saw on the news or heard from various departments.

about last week, that multiple hotels are now open to accommodate people experiencing homelessness, navigating out of encampments, and camping in public spaces.

Those hotels are both in the downtown area, the Executive Pacific Hotel, as well as the Kings Inn Hotel.

in the works and has been announced in recognition of the $12 million of additional resource this Council approved last week for FEMA reimbursable support.

under the shelter surge plan that this council conceived and implemented in the budget last fall.

The goal will be to stand up approximately 300 hoteling units, a little bit more now with the supplemental FEMA funding, and pair that with rapid rehousing to increase the effect and impact of those 300 hotel rooms.

So we'll be moving multiple people through and then moving them into housing placements, be they on the market or in permanent supportive housing.

So I look forward to seeing that work begin.

People are being moved into those hotels, they're operational, and that is really good to see, given that that has been a longstanding council priority.

I'm attending the Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management Policy Board this Thursday, and otherwise do not have any other regional committee obligations.

And Madam President, with that, I will conclude my report.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

Any comments or questions for Council Member Lewis on that report?

I don't think he beat my time on that, just saying.

I think it was close.

It was close.

I like the healthy competition there.

It's great.

Okay, colleagues, moving on now.

Council Member Morales, I think she's still on.

There she is.

Council Member Morales, floor is yours.

Take it away.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you.

There are no items from the Community Economic Development Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

I do want to let folks know that last week I testified on behalf of the Board of Health At the King County Committee on Mobility and Environment, the Board of Health agreed that we wanted to support the health and well-being of community members who are acutely impacted by having an airport in their neighborhood.

And so there are some amendments to add specific emissions reduction targets to the King County International Airport.

And we will also be submitting a letter in support as that committee takes a vote in the next week.

Last week, my staff and I participated in a workshop hosted by BC Seattle on building tenant power and getting tenants involved in the legislative process.

Tenants expressed a great need for eviction prevention, and we think not just about the current emergency, but also how we can help tenants during the recovery.

As Council Member Sawant mentioned, this evening we'll be participating in the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy campaign launch.

I'll be talking about work that my office has been doing with community on bringing legislation to close the Just Cause lease termination loophole.

And where I'll announce legislation my office has been crafting with community to protect any tenant who's facing a financial hardship during the pandemic from eviction.

Last week I participated in the People's Town Hall on Community Safety.

This was specifically regarding the issues in the Safeway parking lot in Rainier Beach.

I want to thank again the community organizations who organized and participated in that, including Urban Family, Safe Passage, the Boys and Girls Club Southeast Network, Community Passageways and Rainier Beach Action Coalition and just want to thank them again for all of the work that they do working together for the beautiful Safe Place for Youth initiative.

I was excited to be invited last week by a local progress member, Gerber Porter, who is a city council member in Alexandria, Louisiana.

He invited me to speak about the work that Seattle is doing on divesting from police so that we can reallocate for public investment in community.

Mr. Porter is a board member of the Solidarity Project Advocacy Network and he also invited Sorry, my notes are a little messed up here.

Also invited Sade Dumas from the Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition and Curtis Davis from Decarcerate Louisiana.

So the three of us were invited to participate in this panel and share what we are working on.

On Wednesday, I will be visiting Lumen Field, the mass vaccination sites, to see firsthand how that site is serving our community.

And tomorrow we'll be joining the fire department for a ride along with HealthONE.

Councilmember Lewis, finally getting myself on that list.

So I'm eager to see how that program is working.

And on Friday, we'll be joining LEAD staff and the Mount Baker community who are interested in taking a walking tour of the neighborhood with somebody from LEAD to understand how that program works and how they're serving community members.

I believe that's all I have.

I do want to just reiterate a point that Councilmember Herbold made, which is that last week our Public Health Seattle King County Health Officer, Dr. Jeff Duchin, had a dire warning, which is that we are on thin ice in Washington and in King County.

New COVID cases are up 43% from two weeks ago, and in King County, hospitalizations from COVID are up 20%.

So it's very exciting that we have lots of vaccines coming, different models coming, and our vaccination rates are going up, but it is still really important that we continue to observe protocols so that we can try to prevent another surge of COVID in our community.

That is all I have, Council President.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, I will round this section out before we get into executive session.

Really quickly, nothing to report from the Governance and Education Committee other than our next meeting, regularly scheduled meeting, is April 13th, 2021. Our committee, however, has no items on today's introduction and referral calendar and nothing on this afternoon's full council agenda.

Last week, I had an opportunity to attend the Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board, and this coming week I'll be attending a special Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board meeting on Tuesday at 3 o'clock.

Last week my office also attended a meeting of the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Oversight Committee where Seattle Promise updates were shared with all of the Levy Oversight Committee members.

Last week I also had the opportunity to speak with Youth and Young Adult Advocacy Program cohort with Choose 180 and Community Passageways.

It was a real honor to be able to be their first elected official that they got to meet in that setting.

And I was really impressed with all of their great questions about what leadership means and how they can grow as leaders in our community as well.

Many of them are already leaders in their own right in our community.

So I just want to thank Choose 180 and Community Passageways for hosting me.

All right.

I will leave my comments there so we can shift into executive session unless there are any questions or anything else for the good of the order.

Looks like there aren't any other hands raised or comments that want to be added.

So colleagues, as presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene in executive session.

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

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 12 o'clock noon today.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond noon, I will announce the extension and the expected duration in open session.