Seattle Within Reach: Environmental & Climate Justice

And thank you so much for joining us at the Seattle within reach conversation today.

I'm Tammy Morales, Seattle City Council member representing District two.

This is our first conversation of the 2023 year, and I'm excited to be back.

If you haven't joined us before, the Seattle Within Reach series is about how we intentionally create well-resourced neighborhoods that are connected, that offer goods and services that people can access without having to drive.

And the idea is really to talk with local and national practitioners about how we build healthy neighborhoods that have access to these services.

At the series, we're focusing on particular topics.

So if there's something you'd like to learn more about, you can drop us a line.

In the past, we've covered issues like the comprehensive planning process itself, social housing, mobility issues.

Today, we're going to be talking about climate justice.

So we know that climate change is having a dramatic impact on people across the globe.

Here in Washington, we're experiencing things that really didn't happen 20 years ago.

We've got extreme heat events every summer.

We have annual wildfires that fill the skies with smoke.

We know that there are dramatic changes happening.

In Seattle, we have many neighborhoods, especially communities of color, poor health impacts that are due to their proximity to airports, to highways and busy arterials.

Neighbors in the Georgetown area, for example, an area that's sort of in the midst of an industrial center, have an average lifespan that's 13 years shorter than folks in Laurelhurst, which is a relatively wealthier neighborhood.

We also do have a climate action plan here in Seattle.

The city of Seattle tracks its progress toward our climate goals using 2008 as a baseline.

And we've made some progress.

We have a goal of reducing our building energy emissions by 38% from our 2008 levels by 2030. And we have seen a 13% decline in our building emissions date so we're working on legislation to accelerate that at the city council right now.

Our most recent analysis shows that since our last report in 2016 Seattle's overall greenhouse gas emissions have actually increased by just over 1%.

So while we've reduced overall emissions by 4% since 2008, that reduction is really not nearly enough to meet our goals.

We know that.

The 2016 analysis also showed that our core climate emissions increased as well between 2014 and 2016. So we have some real systemic changes that we need to make if we want to ensure the health of our communities.

Today, we're going to talk with two people about the work that they do to support a greener future in their communities.

I'm very excited to have Katie Valenzuela with us today.

Katie is a Sacramento City Council member elected in 2020, same year as me.

She focuses on issues related to housing and homelessness, climate change, violence prevention, and labor.

She also serves as a senior policy advocate for the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition.

Before joining that coalition, she ran the consulting firm focused on supporting environmental justice groups, working on state policy, served as a policy and political director for the California Environmental Justice Alliance, and was the first consultant for the California Legislature's Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change.

He's been held positions focused on youth development, statewide education policy, and advancing food justice, and has extensive volunteer experience in Sacramento, where she helped organize the Sacramento Urban Agriculture Coalition and the Sacramento Community Land Trust.

was appointed to be one of Sacramento's first representatives on the AB 32 Environmental Justice Advisory Committee.

And Council Member Valenzuela has a bachelor's and master's degree in community development from UC Davis.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having me Council Member.

David Mendoza is the Director of Advocacy and Engagement for the Washington Chapter of Nature Conservancy.

He leads state and federal government relations, policy, and communications.

David has deep expertise in state and local government policy and advocacy, working for nonprofits, state, and local governments.

Prior to the Nature Conservancy, he was founder of Inclusion Solutions, a policy advocacy and communications firm, and projects ranged from industry research and policy development to legislative advocacy and communications.

David's clients included state government agencies, cannabis retail companies, nonprofits, and labor unions.

Representing environmental justice organizations, David conceived of and led the development of the now enacted HEAL Act, which we're going to talk about a little bit later today.

And he also served as a co-chair of the State Environmental Justice Task Force, is now a member of Washington State's first Environmental Justice Council.

He's a graduate of Pitzer College and Seattle University Law School, and is a licensed attorney in California.

So I first just wanna say thank you so much to both of you for being with us today, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

And I think I wanna just get right into it.

We've talked a lot already, or I've discussed already a lot about the disparities that some of our communities face, and that really is about environmental justice.

And so I wonder if we could start with, from each of your perspectives, If you could talk a little bit about what we mean by environmental justice, environmental racism, there are probably folks watching who are maybe familiar or have heard those terms, but don't necessarily know what they mean.

So can you talk about that, why this movement is important and why black and brown folks, folks who are lower income tend to live closer to environmental hazards?

Sure, I'll get us started here.

If that's okay, David.

Thank you again for having me here today.

It's always nice to share best practices with some of our sister cities to the north.

So environmental justice is really about confronting a legacy of systemic racism that has led to people of color, not only being more likely to be located near sources of pollution and emissions, but also to be less likely to be able to access the positive things that will increase their resilience and increase their longevity.

So across California, just like in Washington state, we see such a close tie between where communities of color live and where the social vulnerabilities and environmental vulnerabilities that we don't even have race as one of the indicators we look at anymore because these neighborhoods like these are where the people of color are and we know that our maps are showing us where the neighborhoods of color historically have been.

So what's different with the environmental justice movement is the recognition of the inherent power dynamic that has led to that and how do we build community power to be able to engage in the solutions for themselves, to have a voice in the process for themselves, so that they can actualize the reality that they would like to see.

It's really going to the root of the power dynamic that has led to the situation.

So building capacity in neighborhoods, frontline communities that are next to sources of emissions, having the predominant voice in the movement.

And there is a whole set of principles that the movement adopted back in the 90s, call him as principles that really outlines the guidance of how we make decisions and how we center community voices and everything that we do.

So that is something that I use to distinguish environmental justice from other similar movements is that it's about confronting those land use trends and those inequities and investments, but it's really about building community power in that process.

Yeah, no, that's a great definition of what this movement is and how it seeks to include overburdened communities in the governing process.

And I think one of the things that, you know, with the Environmental Justice Task Force, which we are part of, was how do we help define what environmental justice is for those government bodies to kind of do that process.

And so in Washington State, you know, we had the Environmental Justice Task Force was a combination of agency staff and community leaders who spent a little over a year engaging on these issues.

How can government be better?

How do we actually turn the tide in these institutions towards embracing the concept of environmental justice, not just as a side mission, but a core part of their work?

One of the things we were we will look to that how other governments and California is so far ahead and a lot of this work, but I think we also looked at kind of the requirements of our agencies had from the federal government and one thing that fellow government has had in place.

since the 90s was an executive order signed by President Clinton that actually created a definition in criminal justice.

And we think it was a good starting point.

One of the key aspects of that definition is about the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin.

And we thought that was the first part of this.

But I think the second part, as we had our discussions at the task force, was having people at the table and then not addressing what their concerns are is the next missing step.

And so in Washington state, Our now adopted definition includes that environmental justice includes addressing the disproportionate environmental health impacts in all of our laws, rules, and policies, and that we should prioritize these vulnerable and overburdened communities with the equitable distribution of resources and benefits and limiting that harm.

So clear direction involving people and actually addressing the concerns they had that are now kind of directing our state governments to do that work directly with community.

So thank you.

I wanna back up just a little bit because a couple of things y'all mentioned was we're confronting land use trends and then the governing process itself.

So part of the conversation that we've been having throughout this series is around the comprehensive plan and its intersection with all these different elements.

So when we're talking about climate justice and we're talking about land use, You know, what that typically means is that communities of color are in near highways, near airports, near industrial zones.

Can you talk just a little bit about sort of the history of what led us there and what some steps might be?

If we can't really move communities away from a highway that is now built, how do we mitigate that?

And how do we start to address, as you were saying, David, the real impacts that that has on health?

Yeah, I'd say, you know, the history of why, you know, certain industries are in communities of color and located there is the history of redlining and racial covenants in our country.

Seattle and Washington state is no different from so many other places in the country where we have had strict, you know, no people of color can live in certain communities, those communities, and then they were left and with certain choices that also had industrial uses allowed.

And so factories grew around, homes grew around factories and those communities have been and continue to be surrounded by, you know, an overburdened amount of pollution and toxics and highways streaming through their communities.

And so that's kind of the root of those issues.

And I think the thing, ways to address changes moving forward in terms of land use, especially where we're starting to get there, I think lots of like ways, I think cities like Seattle, have tried to address the concerns within the current bounds of land use laws, the Growth Management Act, which guides the planning nature for how cities plan for growth and expansion and is a key tool in that fight.

And we've, at the legislature, for almost 12 years, been trying to add the concern of climate change and resiliency to our Growth Management Act to require local jurisdictions like cities and counties to make that plan to adjust for the concerns that are being raised by climate change, how to make our cities not just carbon neutral, but how do we plan for the impacts of fire, drought, heat waves in communities as well to protect our people, to build the infrastructure that's needed.

We were nearly passed last year, we're within three hours of passing the final house for passage and Future wise, organizations have been leading that work for so long, and we at the Nature Conservancy are supporting as co-leads this year within our Environmental Priorities Coalition to get this bill over the finish line.

And we're optimistic it's still going to be a fight.

These things end up being long floor fights with opposition just trying to kill the bill through amendments and long discussion.

but we have had strong commitments from leadership in both the legislative houses that they were going to push through that and get it done this year finally.

I think another component of a new bill this year that we're supportive of being introduced and led by our state's environmental justice organization front and center is also incorporating environmental justice considerations and practices into our Growth Management Act to also address some of the concerns we're talking about today.

That's also still alive.

We're about halfway through our legislative session.

We're still optimistic we got through the first key policy committees and we're having fiscal committee this this week and then we'll continue to see.

Fingers crossed.

Well, thank you for all the work that you're doing there.

It's gonna be important for us to start making those changes at the state level because we have a lot we can do at the city level.

Certainly the state is gonna have to play a part in something like the Growth Management Act is really necessary in order to ensure that all communities are doing this work.

You know, it's the changes that need to happen need to happen at a broader scale than just one municipality or, or a couple of municipalities.

Council Member, you've been a real champion for environmental justice in California, of community ownership and community engagement.

Here in Seattle, we've got some affordable housing and growth goals, you know, the comprehensive plan, the Growth Management Act.

right now is requiring all of our municipalities across the state to look at their affordable housing allocation.

And some communities don't want to meet their assigned allocation, right?

Especially if what we're talking about is affordable housing.

And so, you know, it's hard to, there's often conflict between our growth goals, our affordable housing goals, and our environmental justice goals.

How do you work in Sacramento to reconcile these two different things?

Well, it's a challenge here as well.

So I don't know if that makes you feel better or worse about the experience that you're having in Washington state.

But, you know, I will say that generally these plans and these laws largely focus just as a sidebar on new development.

And I think the question of how we proactively intervene in communities that are already built, like you said, we're not going to tell a whole neighborhood that now you have to move across town or we're going to bulldoze all of your homes and make them more dense, like there's a real challenge.

And government doesn't, and planners, a lot of planners, like my uncle was a planner for his whole career in Kern County, like they learn on the job and they learn to do, so these cycles reinforce themselves.

You know, you have an industrial use, And they say, well, it's okay if there's an industrial use over there, because there's already an industrial use there, but it's not okay if it's over here, because there is an industrial use.

So you start to see how these patterns replicate, and so there are a lot of best practices in how you intervene in those patterns.

They don't change overnight, but things like amateurization ordinances, where whenever a facility is seeking to expand, or change ownership that they can't.

That's something that you can control at the local level to say, not only are we gonna start restricting what you can do at your current site, we're gonna identify the site in a different part of town where you aren't next to people's homes.

And then we're gonna give you incentives to try to locate out at that facility.

So while you're growing, you actually try to move them out of the community.

So these are strategies that have been tried in other cities that have shown some early promise and given us some idea of what are those tools?

Because planning generally isn't, changing much about existing communities.

Sometimes we'll go in and do a complete street and renovation or we'll plant some trees at a park, but we don't really have the tools for what does it look like to intervene.

If everything is paved, how do you create the urban tree canopy that will help protect residents from particulate matter from the freeway?

Like those are real logistics challenges and it's very real issue for neighborhoods who say, well, I don't want I can't afford to maintain those trees who's going to take care of those trees, so I think that legislative requirements that David talked about which we have similar versions of here in California are helpful to kind of force that conversation to occur, but it's still very much takes like local engagement, because those are the types of details that.

that are possible but do take a lot of local momentum to push to push that forward.

And one of the biggest concerns in environmental justice communities is displacement, because what starts to happen when you make that community better and you bring in the farmers market and you build the park and you create the tree canopy is suddenly everybody wants to live there now and usually environmental justice communities aren't that far from commercial corridors so while we focus on building new there's also this negligence of protecting our existing and what tools we have to make sure that people aren't being displaced because that's when you start to see those interesting moments where communities like protesting a mural right or protesting a new tree installation and people are like why are you doing this this is a good thing and they're like Because I know what's going to happen.

I'm not coming into my neighborhood and that's not okay.

But yeah, from the affordable side, we struggle a lot in California.

And one of the things that our government hesitates to do is to start conditioning the funding.

And that's really the key, right?

It's like if you don't eventually get to the point where you condition the funding, it's really hard to force local governments to say, OK, OK, we're going to try to figure out how to build more of these units.

But because they're worried they're going to punish the very people that they want to protect.

But what I find interesting is when I go to communities and say, well, what would you like to see happen if the government doesn't do what they're supposed to do?

They're like, take the money.

I'm like, take the money, show them what, like, make them feel it so that they won't do this next time and that they'll fix their ways.

And in California, they're struggling through that.

There's been some litigation that has been attempted.

Like our attorney general has an environmental justice Bureau that they've gone into some of these cities to try to litigate.

on planning documents that don't accommodate sufficient affordable housing, but even achieving that regional housing needs, again, the cities and the counties aren't developing those.

They're basically just identifying the parcels and saying, hey, this is where enough housing could occur.

But the devil really comes in the details of that planning commission and project approval level where project by project by project, they're not building affordable units.

And so those proactive policies like inclusionary housing where you have to build a certain percentage those types of mandated tools are really what's missing across jurisdictions and not just in California, but it sounds like in Seattle as well.

But really, I think general plans, these new movements and the bills that David talked about are real opportunities to really make sure that it's not just like, oh, yeah, here's enough space for you to build the housing that you want.

But like, what is our plan?

How are we going to actively incentivize you through funding or policy or community engagement or all of the above that vision to become a reality?

Yeah, I mean that's definitely what we're hearing the I sit on the, you know, the regional growth management policy board and the objection that we hear about even creating these plans is, well once we create the plan we don't have the funding to actually make it happen.

And, you know, your point is well taken there, there are lots of elements that have to be part of this, in order to actually see the outcomes that we want, which is more housing that people can afford, and so that they don't get pushed out of the city.

So can you talk a little bit about, I know you're both very active in community engagement, in trying to mobilize communities to advocate for their needs.

And we'll talk more about that in just a moment.

But before we move on, can you talk a little bit about why it's so important for people who are in positions of power to center environmental justice in the work that they're doing?

Well, you know, Angela Glover-Blackwell had this paper or this term that I think she coined called the curb cut effect, right?

And the whole concept was that when you make a curb cut in the sidewalk, if for someone who might have limited mobility, you're also helping the parent with the stroller, you're helping the delivery person with the cart, you know, you're helping everybody because you've designed something that's meant to meet the needs of the most vulnerable among us.

And that's sort of a general tenet of environmental justice.

It's harder.

It's always going to be harder and more expensive to reach those communities.

It's always going to be harder and more expensive to do the things that they need.

But when you do those things first, now you've made it easy for everybody else to get what they need.

You know, when you take the, when you make that work happen and so and the only way to really know that is to ask them, you know, is to really talk through like we're working through building decarbonization efforts here in California and there's this coalition that I help facilitate, and there are barriers that we are encountering and some unincorporated communities that we didn't even know existed.

Like, we didn't know that mobile homes had issues accessing the incentives for, you know, and that they can't do it if the stove is outside, which in a lot of communities their stoves are outside, because if you're making tortillas all day, who wants that stove in your house just heating the whole thing up when it's 100 degrees, right?

So, and then they weren't, and so we're, now we're having to go back up and fix all these policy issues so that they can even access these programs that have been created, assumedly for their benefit, but it makes, when you when you start there now it's every now everybody has even less barriers is going to be a little bit more able to address the systems and so that's to access those incentives to make those changes you know we make it as easy as we can for that community that's as far out as possible it's totally isolated that has no buses to get rid of their cars then everybody who has less barriers is going to have access to those tools as well and it also addresses the equity piece that david was mentioning like This isn't about equality, it's about equity.

It's about recognizing that those neighborhoods have been left behind.

They are the most at risk for climate impacts.

They are suffering now more than anybody else is.

They can't afford to turn on their AC when it's hot.

They don't have good weatherization for when it's cold.

They are getting that smoke exposure because their house isn't appropriately weatherized.

And so they deserve to be served first, just from a policy and just a rationale, like just a justice perspective.

But in the end, doing that will make your dollars it may seem like it's taking longer, but then you're going to do the work deeper, right?

We say go fast, like go fast to go alone, go slow to go together, right?

And so by really centering environmental justice in your decision making, you're going to have a bigger impact.

Your money is going to have a much broader implication for more people because you're focused on the people who are going to have the most obstacles to getting there.

Yeah, at that spot, and the only thing I would add is zeroing in on the comment you made, like, when you went to that trailer park, you didn't even know about these issues.

And I think that's the most critical part.

Traditionally, our legislator elected officials and agency staff are not from overburdened communities.

They don't know what those experiences are.

And so the benefit of reaching out and engaging will help change how these laws are made.

and how they're implemented it to better reflect the needs and center the concerns and fix those problems versus someone's idea of being apart from this community is thinking that I know what might be good for them when usually they don't.

My favorite example is Sacramento County was making a climate action plan and I'm going to pick on them because I don't represent the county, I represent the city.

And they were doing this plan and we were pushing them to do more outreach and they're like, we don't need to do more outreach, we know what we need to do to get the climate action plan right.

And so I finally forced them by going through one of the supervisors to do a workshop in this unincorporated community that's mostly immigrants next to this huge distribution facility and their plan for addressing transit gaps, not even kidding you, was Lyft and Uber, right?

Like, well, why don't you just use Rideshare, right?

And all these residents just kind of looked at them and it's like, you know, credit cards, right?

Like, they don't have, they're like, Like I can't do that, and it was such an interesting moment to watch these planners go Oh, you know, or like a different I did a workshop and it was Mandarin.

Spanish and English for our environmental justice element and this elder and Mandarin was like why never take the bus.

And we're like well, why not there's a bus line right there it takes you to all these places and he's like well the stops really announced in English so.

I'm worried I'm going to miss my stop and not know where I am so I just don't take the bus and I'm like, like literally all the years of transit planning, nobody had thought to say let's pre record these stops in multiple languages so more people will take the bus like these very obvious things that seem obvious when you can these communities that as David mentioned.

someone who's working and learning best practices from other jurisdictions might not know and it doesn't mean that they don't aren't intelligent it's just how do you really know how this works until you go out into that community and they say yeah no i don't use that crosswalk because it's around a blind corner and those cars are going really fast so i just go up the street and don't use the crosswalk because it's safer i feel safer there you know how hard would it have been for us to ask those folks and just put the crosswalk where they need it is another story but

Right.

Well, and that's that is key, right?

Because if we've got all these folks who the district that I represent is similar, you know, folks speak dozens of different languages here.

And, you know, it's really hard to understand what it takes to be able to do these engagement processes in languages in a culturally appropriate way and make sure that you're collecting information from folks that is going to be meaningful to the work that that you know our departments and our agencies have to do and do it well so that we don't have to come back later and say, oh, we didn't even consider that people might not have credit cards, or might not understand the stops being announced so yeah I do think it's really important that we We are listening deeply and really close to the ground so that the work that we do and the money that we invest is actually going to have the outcomes that we're hoping for it to have.

So I want to, I want to ask.

You know, Council Member, you, California really leads the country's transition to a greener economy.

We all look to what you're doing there to help us figure out how we, what next steps we should be taking.

Can you talk a little bit about how we ensure that there is a just transition that's supporting workers?

You know, I really wanna think about what are the actual tools that we can use to start to get us to a more resilient economy, more resilient communities.

I'll just give one example here.

In Seattle, we recently included money in our parks district budget to help start creating community resilience hubs.

So the idea is to use these community centers as sort of a pilot for green retrofitting.

So how do we add solar?

How do we add heat pumps?

And how do we make sure that these facilities are places that could be used as heating as cooling centers in the event of extreme heat or as a safe space in the event of one of our wildfire seasons which we really seem to have a season now.

And we want to make sure that as a city, we are using whatever resources and tools we have, at least begin step in that direction and start to reduce our own emissions.

We also want to make sure that people of color are included in those decisions.

And we want to make sure that they're included in the work that could potentially, or that will be coming as a result of these changes that we're making.

And you talked a little bit about how you're handling that in California.

Yeah, it's um you know everybody I don't know what to say when someone says California is a leader in this because like we are in the art right like we have done more than anybody else does so I want to recognize credit where credit's due but a lot of what California has just done is created ways for industry.

to pay money to avoid reducing pollution.

And so there's a whole bunch of stuff that we do in California that I hope nobody ever replicates.

And David knows about this.

And I could talk on and on about my concerns with some of the systems we've created and what that means for our communities.

But I will say that the large source of our emissions reductions have come from the energy sector.

So our clean power, our renewable portfolio standard, and then a lot of what we're talking about now.

And the reason I brought up buildings is because it really is such a fascinating opportunity to do exactly what you're talking about.

Right.

It's like, how do we get to the heart of where people live?

and make them more resilient, not just get gas appliances out, but actually address their energy burden, their weatherization, their air filtration systems, so that they are ready and able to do what they need to do to be able to manage what's coming in terms of changes.

And that is probably the best opportunity.

And one of the things we've, a report we just put out a few months ago that we're talking through with our state agencies is how do we make that a public works project?

A lot of building decarbonization efforts are very much low hanging fruit, you know, here's your incentive, here's your rebate, but we're leaving behind people who can access those programs, but also in some cases, changing out a stove or changing out an appliance might not actually make your energy bill go down and might actually make it go up.

And so how and you're not really addressing the full depth and breadth of what that household needs so one of the ideas that has been banting about when it comes to targeted decarbonization right if we went into a neighborhood that was underserved and EJ neighborhood and we made it a public works project and we upgraded your electrical and we upgraded your water systems and we weatherized your houses.

how can we that would both make best use of our dollars it would create the job pipeline for the trades right to be able to do the apprenticeship work and it would make sure that that whole neighborhood gets what they need in a way that doesn't put them at further risk of either higher energy bills or less safe gas lines because gas lines as people pull off of the gas line you reduce that throughput it does make it less safe specifically in neighborhoods that we're concerned with because those gas lines are older and we don't want to leave people behind on those lines if they're going to be less safe.

So like those are the types of cutting edge ideas.

There's also strategies like when we did our new building code, our reach code to say no gas in new buildings, we adopted a dual plumbing and gray water ordinance.

So for certain size of buildings and certain types of buildings, They're now required to install systems that allow them to reuse the water at least one more time and to capture some of the water that's coming in around the building, which will both reduce energy down the line right because now that's a little less that we're going to have to process that water.

And it creates jobs for the plumbers and pipefitters who are the job sector that's directly impacted when you say we're not going to install gas lines anymore.

And they wrote that ordinance with us and actually ended up supporting our reach code, which I say to local electives because they're all like your plumber supported your reach code like they did.

And they did it because we had a strategy that based on their numbers and how many buildings of that size we build.

they knew would be a comparable amount of work if not more work for them down the line.

So those are the types of intentional strategies that, you know, for a lot of things I think if we really centered air pollution, if we centered cost on on low income homes if we centered resiliency we'd be designing programs much differently because that would be we'd be looking for those strategic intersections to say.

Okay, that makes the most sense it's going to create the jobs can increase the resiliency and it's going to reduce emissions overall so.

that's kind of where we're at in California, but it is an evolving target because it's hard to say to folks now in some communities like where i'm from in current county, which is some of the largest oil fields.

in the state of California, they're not really seeing those benefits yet.

You know, what they're seeing are layoffs and they're seeing impacts and they're not sure what to do and what their future holds.

And that's when I talk about being really aggressive about the where.

So like we did high speed rail in California, very controversial, but we did it.

And then when they created the manufacturing facility, they located it in Fresno, like 200 miles north of Bakersfield in Kern County.

And I'm like, see if we've been thoughtful We would have put that in the middle of where the oil fields are and made that a just transition.

We would have made that link to say, OK, maybe you're losing your job here, but here's another job that you can use to create something that's clean.

But we don't do that.

So it was very laissez faire.

We say, here's your tax incentives.

Here's our goals.

And we let industry really do it.

But we're not being very intentional about how we match make, where those jobs are going to be needed, what skill sets are needed with those opportunities as they arise.

Well, I'm curious to talk a little bit more about that and would love to hear both of your thoughts because we are, you know, we're anticipating a transition.

We are in the city of Seattle working on you know some building decarbonization legislation.

The pipe fitters aren't necessarily pleased with that.

And, like, we know it's coming, it has to come, because our communities are depending on us reducing emissions in order to be healthy.

I don't think anybody, you know, has a problem with that goal.

But what can we anticipate in terms of actual jobs and how do we help that transition happen in a way that is, I know there are lots of different labor issues involved in doing this well, but I'm just trying to get a sense of the actual kinds of jobs that we can anticipate, right?

So not just solar panel installation, for example, but construction of solar panel manufacturing plants.

not just maintenance of heat pumps, but the creation of heat pumps.

I'm just trying to find some hope in, especially given the district that I represent, we have a lot of young people who are not gonna go to college, who are looking for opportunity to be able to have good paying jobs for themselves and their future families.

And there needs to be, a hopeful connection to a possibility of a whole new sector or multiple new sectors of potential jobs for them.

So I'd love to hear a little bit about that from you.

No, I love that you're framing it that way, because I used to always joke about the solar panel installer thing.

I'm like, how many solar panel installers do we really need in the state of California?

That's all we were doing for a while.

And they're like, this is the future.

And I'm like, it's really not, not for long term anyways, not for a lot of people.

But there are so many industries.

And I think why I keep talking about it's going to cost more is because the tension that happens in the climate movement a lot is that people want to go as fast and as far as they can.

And so that means they're trying to stretch every dollar as far as they can, which in many cases means that the labor standards aren't there.

And that's the hard part is that, you know, with housing development, for instance, like we do a lot to incentivize infill development.

It's a great strategy and we want to try to get more and more housing built where there's already neighborhoods so that we can increase that density and bring those services.

But rarely do you see residential developments honoring labor standards, right?

They're not paying living wages.

They're not offering health care.

And so how do you really create that inroad for those neighborhoods to get into those carpentry jobs or IBEW or whatever those jobs might be if those standards aren't there?

And that's always been attention in California.

I think part of why our renewable portfolio standard works so well is a lot of it was directly tied to project labor agreements, which was very controversial at the time, but it created those really meaningful construction opportunities which allowed the trades to do the pre-apprenticeship and the apprenticeship and really work on getting people into those sectors.

But that is the tension point, you know, it's like we want to decarbonize buildings, we want to do it as fast as we can, because it's a climate emergency.

And I 100% agree.

But if you don't make it a public works project, and if you don't try to figure out, and if you just allow people to hire whatever contractor more often than not, those aren't labor contractors, they're not working through apprenticeship programs.

So I think from a public perspective, holding that line of the high road, as we call them, to make sure that those standards are there, and then funding those pre-apprenticeship programs.

That is the thing that is the most, that's the stuff that gets you before you get into the apprenticeship, the J-care, the GEDs, whatever it is you need to be able to move into that space.

so that we can make sure that the workforce is meeting those opportunities as they're created.

But it's immense.

I know in LA, when they adopted their zero emission bus system, they actually, there's intentional procurement practices as well, right?

So they procured their buses from a company that was making zero emission buses just north of the city of LA in Lancaster.

So there's ways that we can be really intentional about how we procure, what programs we fund, and then what standards we're setting so that those pipelines actually exist and manifest for our residents.

Yeah, that's, I've been impressed by a couple of things you mentioned the last few minutes council member as well as just this public works designation that seems like a really innovative way and like one of the, one of the issues we're facing here in Washington state is we have this state constitutional prohibition against, you know, providing public money for private benefit and that can be interpreted very narrowly right in terms of these projects and so you know especially I think that one of the issues that we're facing is how do we get these multifamily units kind of upgrading the extent you're saying, because it could look like pure benefit for a landlord who can then raise rents and move them new folks out so like This public benefit, this this kind of public works detonation, it might be following up with you offline.

I made a note of it myself.

Yeah.

But, you know, you know, unsurprisingly, I think we're a little a little bit behind California in some of these things.

But I think one of the things that we are trying to do, the conversation on workforce development is bubbling up, not just, I think, in the technical aspect of what unions have done traditionally versus what they haven't done.

And I think that's just a harder conversation.

I think it connotates a need for them to organize in some ways to take a build that new membership and that's that's hard it's not easy in our in our country has not made it easy to unionize new members and so that is that is a barrier from them being able to see like it's not something you just can't tell them go organize because it's not going to actually result in benefits for their current members, how we treat as well, like we should be funding.

If we are transitioning out of the carbon economy, we should provide opportunities and state funding to retrain if they're early enough in their career or provide them opportunity to just retire early if that's what they want as well.

And that forced someone for the last three years of a career to do something entirely different.

And so we need to create those opportunities and fund those.

I think another aspect that's preventing some of this work too is lots of these, especially in the construction trades are off hours.

And it's hard for most to even find childcare.

And so I know our state construction trades are sponsoring a bill for helping build that kind of alternate work hours, childcare moments.

Cause if you're a working parent, like how are you even going to work in a night shift or whatever it is to get there and support your family if you don't have that kind of service even available anywhere near you.

Those are critical, like underpinning things.

I think the other aspect and more to the Nature Conservancy side of my life, is the natural resources development and career paths.

There have been a variety of ways to get into short-term kind of jobs, but there's not a good career path if you want to be, you know, eventually be a forester or, you know, a firefighter in the active fighting forest fires, or maintaining our urban forests, creating green stormwater infrastructure.

How do we create career paths, identify the skills needed, get folks into those opportunities, and then build careers from there?

The thing that I think is lacking in this conversation right now is coordination.

I hear city council members talking about it, I hear county council members talking about it, I hear legislators talking about it, I hear Congress people talking about it, and no one's talking together at this time.

And so how can we have a regional conversation amongst all these levers of government who have a piece of the puzzle and try to knit these things together in a real comprehensive way?

And so I think that's one of our goals as an agency that tends to operate all these different layers, we're been in the midst of our own strategic planning and this workforce development is really emerged kind of a naturally through our different conversations.

yeah where there's pieces here to do and work on and develop.

Yeah, that's definitely something that we've been talking about at the city, you know, we had a legislative request to our across departments to take a look at the way the city is engaging in workforce development.

work, whether it's through our utilities departments or our human services departments, and I think what we're finding is that we've got our fingers in a lot of different pots but we don't have an overarching strategy and have not been partnering as well with our regional Workforce Development Council.

And so we're spending a lot of money and not necessarily having, you know, sort of net benefit for community members that we could have.

So that's definitely something that is, you know, a place where I'm very interested in making sure that we're moving in the right direction and a strategic direction and connecting potential climate work and climate goals to those workforce development opportunities.

Yeah, and your unions on this right, I mean, because I think so many of them, you know we're talking to some of our trades in particular right now because their apprenticeship programs are long and they're hard and one of those things that they're recognizing.

We're a we're not reaching the population, we want to reach and not enough people are finishing like they see their own self benefit and we need more people to finish these apprenticeships.

So they're actually work we're working with them to create shorter apprenticeships right like sort of introductory spike with the ironworkers today in Sacramento they're talking about creating a one to two week.

Out of a four week program to say okay well let's see if you just get one or two certifications, but if you make it through that.

we can get you on a job site and then we can keep working with you, you know, so that the, you can be such great partners.

And as you mentioned with the childcare effort, David, it's like, they, they understand what the, what these barriers are and they want to help.

But yeah, similar to you again, I make sure you don't feel alone.

We have the same problem in Sacramento where it's like, wait, we just spent how much money on workforce stuff.

And like, I'm not seeing the impact, especially in the parts of my district that really need access to those services.

So we're still missing.

Missing the mark but moving in one direction and that regional idea is my turn to save some steal something from you, David, I'm going to steal that because our utilities make an investment the state makes investment the cities and counties are making investment, and none of us are doing it in a way that has a coordinated hey we all want to install more EV charging, so why aren't we doing it together and why aren't we making it the type of public works project or real job benefits could be coming through like.

It's just silly.

And I think especially in this moment, we have so much federal money coming down.

We have an opportunity, a lot of state funding, and all these investments just can build on each other if we have that coordination.

And it's definitely not happening for all the conversations I've had.

So we have a limited time to figure this out.

There's an opportunity here and, you know, it's conversations like this that I hope help us prepare and be ready when those opportunities come down so that we are able to take advantage and really be able to deliver for community members.

But I wanted to back up really quickly.

You mentioned earlier the work that you're doing on the Growth Management Act and trying to include, or the legislature having this debate about including climate goals and climate environmental justice goals into the Growth Management Act.

Can you talk a little bit about what that would mean for urban growth strategies?

So that's one of the things that we're talking about a lot in Seattle, as we're having the discussion about our comprehensive plan update is, you know, the urban growth strategy that we're have been operating on since the mid 90s is this sort of transit oriented development, you know, corridor is where we where we focus our growth.

And that's a big discussion in the city right now.

Is that the right way for us to continue operating because of what it means for putting multifamily housing on arterials, what it means for safety, sidewalk infrastructure, and health disparities?

So if something like that is changing at the state level, do you have a sense of what that could mean for the growth patterns that result in municipalities?

Yeah, I'd say that there's two separate efforts to address this, right?

I think that the Growth Manager Act Bill incorporating climate change is kind of requiring consideration of how we are going to reduce our greenhouse gases that were designed.

But it's not changing kind of the ability to continue to just exclusively have single use zoning or single family zoning like 70% of Seattle's currently zone right and so there is, I think, a very I'm very optimistic about some of the bills happening led by representative Jessica Bateman to kind of eliminate that essentially and allow for kind of more infill growth development.

It's going to be a battle.

It is every step of the way is going to be a challenge.

So we'll see.

I think I actually want to refer to this idea I'd heard in California of Those cities who don't plan for density in California, this is a combination of two separate laws I think passed over 20 years or so.

It just happened in the last couple of years.

Those cities that didn't plan for density automatically lost all their zoning and you could build any kind of level of density in a community.

And it's happened in some cities.

I think Santa Monica, for instance.

What I don't know is like, was that just market rate or did it encourage like low income?

And so like, it's just a powerful tool.

Don't plan for density, we'll force it on you kind of thing.

It's not how Washington's operate, but I love it.

How has this played out so far in California?

Oh, it's never boring.

That's for sure.

You know, it's something it's something else when you hear the state talking about suing a city within the state.

Right.

It's like, what are you talking about?

But really, I mean, we've increased our housing element requirements to such a level that you can't get a housing element approved, I believe, unless you're hitting these different principles.

And so Like in Sacramento we're already taking steps to eliminate single family zoning requirements and putting in place the protective measures to talk about displacement I feel really strongly that just building more housing is not a solution it's important but obviously we need to protect people and make sure some of that housing is. is affordable but I hear what you're saying in terms of the because I used to work at Breathe California ages ago and I was doing a lot of their health advocacy work and there was this really big multi-family development near a transit corridor and everybody's like well you should oppose this because it's near pollution and we're like I'm like hey I mean the way new building standards are I don't know if it's the same in Oregon we can do a lot to protect indoor air quality through intervention and like I said the tree canopy There's all this research on what type of trees and how well they filter particulate matter to really buffer community.

But just because that transit corridor is that way now doesn't mean it has to be long term, you know, like the improvements we can make, like we're getting ready to take one of our major corridors down and do a major road that construction is just getting ready to start.

And people are kind of freaked out about it.

But, you know, we're very intentional about where can the traffic go?

What are some alternative routes?

And we think This will work and it'll help significantly improve the traffic flow and safety on that road, but it's going to significantly reduce emissions as well so we're going to be reducing the throughput and also increasing the tree canopy and getting more people on bikes and walking so it's.

it's part of that holistic vision like I always say, like there's no silver bullet right and planning it's like you know it's like any one thing you have is immediately like you remove parking restrictions.

are minimums and suddenly everybody's parking everywhere and nobody can find a spot in front of their house it's like it has to be paired with intentional like best practices that have been developed to make sure it works, but it can work, and I think that those opportunity sites, the thing with density on corridors like that is that it's sort of the only way from a market side that you can bring.

the density for the type of bus service, the rapid bus service, the grocery stores, those types of amenities that people really want.

So you can't take that off the table.

I think it's an important conversation to have about air pollution, but there are ways and best practices to mitigate that and to really make it good for the new residents as well.

Yeah, well, thank you for that.

I think, you know, one of the things that we talk about a lot in Seattle is displacement.

The city's grown so much, so much faster than anybody anticipated.

And we frankly, we're not ready.

And so we're trying to play catch up in building new housing.

And particularly in the district that I represent, there is a very palpable fear of gentrification because of the displacement that's happened already in the city over the last 15 years or so, you know, The the parts of town where there, it used to be 80% black are, you know, 10 20% now so it's real, and, and it has definitely created this this fear of any change, because of the impacts that it has on folks and so Now how do we mitigate what are as we're as we're contemplating, whether it's zoning changes or just new development, how do we mitigate and make sure that folks who have benefited from the prosperity in the city, folks who have, or sorry, that folks can benefit from the prosperity in the city from the investments in their neighborhood, and, and don't have to fear getting pushed out because of those investments.

I really think that it is important that policy makers engage deeply with community, as I know both of you have done.

So I want to talk about why that is, you know, how do we make sure that we're centering communities of color in this work?

How are we repairing the harm that's been done to communities of color?

We know that local government has a direct role to play in how our neighbors experience their everyday quality of life.

And everybody deserves to have that nice quality of life regardless of what part of town they live in.

So David, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about, you have led one of the largest people of color efforts at the state level with the HEAL Act, the Healthy Environment for All Act that passed in the legislature last year.

It's the first statewide law to create a coordinated collaborative approach to environmental justice and I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how that coalition, how those folks came together, you know, how it was created and just some of the lessons that you learned about, about how the how the rest of us might be able to build on that success that you created.

Happy to.

The inspiration for the HEAL Act came from the work that front and center department, our state Department of Health, the University of Washington and our Clean Air Agency had done to create what's now called the Environment Health Disparities Map.

Unsurprisingly, based off prior work from California, the CalEnviroScreen of how can we identify overburdened communities in a mapping protocol that really drills down as low as the census track level so you can have a comprehensive picture of what kind of toxic pollution are they facing?

What's the other kind of difficulties in terms of rent burden or a lack of education in communities?

So you have a full picture of a community that help you identify how to best kind of address concerns.

So that map was nearing finalization.

I mean, and my partner, Tiffany Mendoza, were both consulting at the time.

And I started being bombarded with all these agencies asking like, oh, how do we talk about environmental justice?

What do we do?

Tell us, guide us, please.

And it was just like, we're one organization, we can't.

And so together we like thought of this, the concept that eventually became the HEAL Act that was essentially, instead of having one organization be this gatekeeper, To what environmental justice was, we should create a community led process, have a body that ended up being the environmental justice task force that had community leaders.

And state agency important like leaders in the state agencies, not a low level employee, but someone who is an influencer and decision maker spend a year.

understanding environmental justice and then make recommendations of how to actually incorporate that.

And the key behind that was not just to have guidance, but to make requirements and how agencies operate.

I think that from my own experience working in government and some of how folks really do take their agency mission seriously, not so it's not so how do we embed that into agencies missions and vision of how to do the work.

and make it a requirement.

And I think that's the key here.

It's not just an add-on, it's not a separate thing, but they are required to do certain things now in Washington State.

And so the community engagement is at the top of that list.

If they need to engage community engagement, they have to do community engagement for a variety of things.

The most powerful tool that is in the HEAL Act, I think, though, is what we call now an environmental justice assessment.

So for every, there's, of course, significant agency action, and that's been a big drama, how you define that.

But some examples of how that is agency requests, legislation, development, capital projects over $10 million, transportation projects over $15 million.

Early stages, you have to do an environmental justice assessment that its goal and purpose is to understand what's going on in the community that you're going to have this project in, maximize the benefits of this project and minimize the potential harm, and then move forward from that.

And it's not a one-time analysis as we're designing it, and we're still in, these aren't going to be required by agencies to do until this coming July.

So we're still very much in the early, like, unfortunately, still in the early phase of figuring this out.

But the hope is that this is a continuous engagement loop of as we're moving forward.

And we've heard this is going to be designed this way, the community didn't like it, we've shifted it and then go back to the community to visit now meeting the needs and have that conversation be ongoing.

And so I think that's going to be probably the most powerful tool to kind of move forward.

I think other kind of aspects of the HEAL Act include like changing these agencies missions, putting making environmental justice part of the strategic planning processes.

So those are the longer term kind of changes of changing government culture.

And, you know, it's not gonna be a quick journey, but I think it's gonna be an important one.

As I wish I could rephrase, phrase exactly how you said, give you a quick loan or successful together.

So that's exactly what this is.

And I, you know, so what's hard about the HEAL Act in explaining, it's not going to individually solve some of the burdens that we see in the problems we have in this community, but it's creating the framework in which hopefully we can get there.

And, you know, overseeing all of this work and hopefully in a partnership space that we're still kind of figuring out is the Environmental Justice Council, which I am a member of.

And, you know, we have a lot on our plate.

We're all volunteers.

We're not just implementing tasked with helping implement the HEAL Act, but also our state's Climate Commitment Act.

And it's a lot on the plate for a volunteer body to do, but there's a whole range of leaders.

That's community leaders, tribal leaders, one business, one labor, all kind of at this table trying to figure out the best way to do this.

And so I'm hopeful that we're going to get there, but we're still early days for sure.

It was a huge lift, clearly, and successfully done.

So the implementation is a separate piece, surely, but just getting to this point was huge.

So thank you for all of that work that you did.

Council Member Valenzuela, I think we have time for one more question.

And I would love to ask you, given the central role for you of community engagement, making sure that you're hearing from community voices, How do we move forward with development from a community-based perspective?

How do we make sure that those voices are there and that the decisions that we're making about what to put forward as policymakers, as budget decision makers, is really centered in that community perspective?

You know, I always tell people that you aren't expected to know how to talk to everybody, you know, like that Mandarin speaking elder I referenced before, I don't, I don't never worked with Mandarin community speaking community directly, so I, you go through people who have those relationships right and properly resourcing.

Those organizations and those community groups so that they can help get to people is is really key because those relationships are hard to replicate and that's really how you start to build trust is working and you build accountability for yourself there as well, because now you're working with a group who helped you reach their community and now they're going to be at that table expecting that you're going to follow through on the things that you told them that you would do so.

it's um we are huge proponents and in California we've been making a big push on our state.

Organizations and our local governments to fund Community outreach through the Community groups don't just try to do a webinar somewhere and think you're going to reach everybody right, and you know that because you're.

elected you go canvas you go do things it's like, let me talk to some people for you don't come out here and try to do it all yourself, but I do want to speak, though, to the point you were raising about.

Just as placement, I think that what we know now about doing environmental justice work is that housing protections have to come first.

They absolutely have to come first.

There is no way around it.

And the hard part is that a lot of the agencies that do climate work don't do housing work, you know, like right now we're fighting with our air resources board because they're trying to do this appliance standard which we're resisting because there aren't there's a huge role in our tenant protections that allows people to potentially be evicted for major renovations, right?

And so we're trying to tell them, you can't do this until we can get these tenant protections in place.

And they say, well, that's not our job, right?

So I think especially at the local level, the city council level, we have such a role to play to ensure that we're pulling these tools in from other jurisdictions.

And what we've learned so much from our friends in the East Bay and the Oakland area, because a lot of the wave that we see in Sacramento is coming from the Bay.

people being displaced from Oakland and other cities, but they have such an intricate web of community land trusts and public banks and funding mechanisms and ballot measures they put in place to try to protect to ensure that people can stay there, but that has to be coupled with policies you know around repairs for people whose homes have code issues and stronger tenant protections and first time homebuyer assistance programs, like the sort of stuff that we know really ensures that communities can stay in place and really pull down some of those best practices like land trust, which allow people to maintain ownership of their home.

It just makes it so you're not going to build 500% equity, you know, you're still going to agree on a reason.

and a lot of neighborhoods that I've organized and they welcome that because they understand what's happening.

But I think that it's our duty to a degree as local electives and as policy folks who see that, to know that really anything you do in an environmental justice community runs this very, very strong risk of displacement and that we have to start with those protections and making sure we have a plan.

And not just with the big projects, because this can also happen really incrementally, but for the big projects, Those community benefits agreements we just thought we had multiple litigations over a huge project in one of our neighborhoods that you see Davis was doing and pop pop pop pop pop and through the litigation finally secured like $5 million to go out.

and do some emergency repairs and make sure that people would be able to stay in place.

But it's a drop in the bucket compared to the impact we know it will have.

So I'm going to research the HEAL Act.

David, thanks for doing that, because I think better benchmarking is something we need to do.

But it can also happen super, super gradually and through little baby projects.

And one day, all of a sudden, you look at a neighborhood, like you said, and say, oh, my gosh, everybody's gone.

Everybody that we thought we benefited from this is scattered around the city and the county.

That has to be first and foremost, and it's become a little bit of a broken record for me, where I'm like, you know, our first priority, if we're really gonna say, and I said it earlier, is to keep people housed and to keep power on, right?

And after that, it's all gravy.

But like, if we keep those two things central, it sounds a little simple, but honestly, that has to be the central tenets of our climate work.

Otherwise, we are running the risk of further exacerbating some very real harm.

Absolutely.

Well, I think we, I would love to connect with you both after this.

There's a lot of cross-pollination happening here.

I think we can also include some of the work that you're doing as resources on our website, because I think folks throughout the city would be really eager to learn more about the work that you're doing.

So I want to say thank you to both of you so much for sharing your work and sharing your perspective and your energy about all that it's really going to take for us to make sure that communities of color are protected, but also that we are just doing what we can, everything we can to make sure that we are preparing for climate change and ensuring that our communities can be resilient and can remain healthy as those changes come.

So Council Member Valenzuela, thank you for joining us from Sacramento.

David, thank you for joining us from far off in Tacoma.

We are planning, in the planning stage for the rest of the year, the 2023 series of Seattle Within Reach.

So for folks who are watching, if you've got suggestions, if you have comments or questions, you can send those to Evelyn Chow on my staff.

You can follow us on social media.

And if you want to watch this segment again, or you want to share it with someone, you can find a link on my council website, which is seattle.gov slash council slash Morales.

Thank you everyone for joining us and we'll see you next time.