Seattle City Council Briefing 1/19/21

Meeting started.

Seattle Channel, thank you so much.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back.

I hope you had a good weekend, the January 19th, 2021. Council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Juarez?

Here.

Did you hear me?

I did.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Mosqueda.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

If there is no objection, the minutes of January 11th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

Let's go ahead and dive right into, I'm going to skip the president's report today.

I do have some remarks to make, but I'll make that as part of my normal report in agenda item four.

Let's go ahead and welcome our presenters on agenda item three, which is the state legislative session updates.

We do have members of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations joining us this morning, and they are slated to be with us until a little after 10 o'clock this morning.

So I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Director Lily Wilson-Kodega, who can help facilitate introductions of members of her team who are with us this morning.

Director Wilson-Kodega.

Thank you, Council President.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'm going to pass it to Robin next.

Robin Kosky, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

And I'll pass it to Quinn.

Quinn Majewski, State Relations Director, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

And I will pass it to Hannah.

Hi, Hannah Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

So good morning, Council President Gonzalez and council members.

We are before you today with your first state legislative briefing of the year, now moving into the second week of the 2021 legislative session.

And this year, it's a long 105-day session where legislative leaders will write their biannual budget.

And there have been some pretty significant modifications I'll touch on briefly, given the COVID-19 pandemic and recent security threats provoked by President Trump.

So the Capitol is currently closed to the public.

All advocacy and lobbying, including our team, is being conducted remotely.

And the actual buildings have been fenced off and secured by the National Guard, just given the need for heightened security.

My understanding is this will be in place at the State Capitol at least through Inauguration Day, potentially longer, but we will definitely keep you posted.

And this year there are Democratic majorities in both chambers and legislative leadership in the House and Senate have let us know that their intended focus will be in the areas of COVID relief, police accountability and racial justice, climate change and equity.

And also given it is a budget writing year and state and local governments are desperately in need of new resources to provide adequate housing, food, public health and other critical services.

Revenue reform is also high on the priority list.

and we're hearing a growing interest in capital gains, statewide progressive payroll tax, and other proposals to tax wealth in an effort to address the regressivity of our tax system.

Quinn is our expert in that area, so he'll dive into that a little bit more in his report.

Apologies for just sending over your bulletin this morning.

We were making some final changes from some updates we received late in the evening last night.

And just as a kind of run of show for today, Quinn will provide an update on budget and revenue, education, environment, and general government.

Hannah Smith will review the council's healthcare and safety net priorities.

And Robin Kosky will cover police reform, public safety, housing, and homelessness.

But before I turn it over to Quinn, I also wanted to note our gratitude to many council members for taking the time to meet with key allies in Olympia last week.

including Senator Wynn, Senator Saldana, Representative Macri, and Representative Frame to help us advance meaningful police and revenue reform.

I'd also like to thank Councilmember Herbold for participating in last week's Senate Labor Committee hearing, speaking in support of two police arbitration reform proposals, as well as Councilmember Strauss for his help testify on Senator Peterson's decertification bill last week, and to Councilmember Mosqueda and Strauss for their leadership on the Association of Washington City's Board.

And with that, I will turn it over to Quinn Majewski, our State Relations Director.

Thank you, Lily.

Good morning, council members.

I'm going to go through the budget and revenue, education, environment, general government, and then I'll be back at the very end for a quick update on transportation.

I'll pause at the end of each section for any questions, and I'm going to cover the major bills, but if you have questions on any of the other bills that are listed there, please feel free to ask.

So starting on page one with budget and revenue, the first two bills, the capital budget and operating budget, Our Governor Inslee's proposed budgets, they received a hearing last week to a wide range of responses.

We provided an update on those in December.

So unless there are questions, I'm going to go ahead and jump ahead to the capital gains tax proposal and just discuss that briefly.

1596 is Governor Inslee's capital gains tax proposal also received a hearing last Thursday.

There was again sort of a wide range as you might expect from advocates who are strongly in support of the proposal to those who are significantly against.

The governor's proposal would institute a 9% capital gains tax.

There would be an exemption for capital gains under $25,000 for single filers or $50,000 for joint filers.

There's also an exemption for the sale of residential property, retirement, pensions, and a handful of other categories mostly related to agriculture and natural resources.

We have heard that the Senate Democrats are likely to introduce their own capital gains tax proposal later in session.

The House may come out with theirs as well.

So while this bill did sort of kick off the discussion on capital gains, we do anticipate that there will be further iterations and future discussion likely coming later in session as we get closer to serious budget negotiations.

I do also want to touch on one pre-bill, proto-bill that's not on this list yet because it hasn't been filed yet, which is the statewide high earners payroll tax.

This is legislation that representatives Macri and Springer are working on.

It would institute a statewide high earners payroll tax on corporations similar in some ways to the tax that was adopted last summer here at the local level.

The current iteration, and I would caution that this is very much a bill that is still in development and is likely to change, but I do want to provide you the information that we have at this point.

The current iteration would institute a tax on, a statewide payroll tax on employers who compensate employees more than $150,000 per year.

There would be two tiers.

There would be a tier four employers whose employees gross receipts are between $7 million and $100 million, and that tax rate would be 0.25%.

And then for employers earning over $100 million, and that would be 0.5%.

So it is similar in some ways to the local measure adopted here, but obviously has fewer tiers and a lower overall rate.

The estimates that we've heard for this would be once it's fully implemented and sort of up and running at the state level would be between $160 million and $190 million per year.

So given the lower rates, you know, actually less money than the City of Seattle's version.

There is, I know this is a point of keen concern, so I want to let folks know that there currently is no preemption in the legislation, but obviously is a topic of discussion and one that we are monitoring closely and know that is of interest to all of you.

So just know that that is very much on our radar.

We don't have an anticipated date for introduction of the hirer's payroll tax.

It's likely similar to further iterations of the capital gains tax to come later in session, either in February or potentially March.

I will pause there in the budget and revenue category and see if there are any questions.

Colleagues, any questions or comments?

And I encourage you to use the raise your hand feature in Zoom if you're able to.

They've made it easier to see on your bar down at the bottom, so it's easier to use.

And if you can't find it, just let me know that you have questions or comments by just raising your hand if your camera's on or sending me a text message.

Council Member Lewis, your hand is raised.

Please.

Thank you, Madam President.

So, Director Majeski, I have a couple of questions on the capital gains tax proposal.

In the current iteration that has been proposed, so I guess Governor Inslee's capital gains tax, when you said residential properties are excluded, is that broadly all residential properties or primary residence?

Because I know a lot of previous bills have exempted primary residence, but is it broader than that?

My understanding is that it is generally residential property, but I can go back and confirm that for you.

I do know that previous iterations from last sessions have included only primary, so I can confirm that for you.

Thank you.

And then another quick question in what the Senate proposed capital gains might entail.

What are you hearing are the primary areas of contention and how it diverges from Governor Inslee's proposal.

Because I know past state capital gains proposals have had the earning cap much higher than the one that the governor's put forward.

Let me put it this way.

Is there a potential that the legislature is going to propose a capital gains tax that will raise less revenue than what the governor's proposed or more?

Obviously, my preference and I think most of my colleagues would be for a very robust, high revenue generating capital gains tax.

So just wanted to see what we might be able to expect later in the session.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think, you know, I hesitate to speculate too much given the sort of nascent point in the discussions where we're at.

I do think that, you know, based on some of the public testimony and stakeholder feedback, they may look at raising the threshold at which the capital gains tax kicks into effect from, you know, 25 to 50 to you know, a potentially higher rate.

So there is certainly a possibility that they, you know, may have a proposal that raises less revenue.

It's also possible that they could look at a higher rate to sort of offset that.

So, you know, I think there's a lot of different dials and levers that are being looked at right now.

And I, you know, I don't want to, I don't wanna state something that might be proven inaccurate later, so I would just say that they're looking at a variety of different elements, but the thresholds is definitely one of them.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis for those questions.

Council Member Sawant, please.

Thank you.

I know the presentation so far has said that you're not hearing anything immediately from the state legislatures about preemption or in other words, some sort of action to remove the Amazon tax from Seattle, the tax on big businesses.

But I just wanted to see if you are able to go a little more into it in terms of what you have heard so far.

I understand if you have not heard much recently, but I just wanted to press the question a little bit further because what we saw from a very crucial crosscut article that was published earlier this year.

This was on January 4th.

And the whole article was presented in a very problematic framing.

I mean, the title of the article was, How Seattle's New Payroll Tax Complicates Efforts to Enact One Statewide.

That is, like, implying that somehow because our movement won the tax in Seattle, that is now preventing state legislators from acting.

I mean, that's completely untrue.

I mean, state legislators, specifically Democrats, had decades to do something about it.

They didn't do anything about it.

They refuse to build movements to really push back against the power of big business.

In fact, they keep using the approach of negotiating with big business.

So in reality, if anything, the fact that our movement won the Amazon tax year has provided more pressure for state lawmakers, obviously on top of the fact that there is a serious budget shortfall.

I know the Biden administration is coming up with positive proposals around aid to states, but at the same time, that doesn't close the question in any way of the chronic underfunding of our services, our housing, our education, and so on.

And not to mention just the basic unfairness of big business and the wealthy paying little to nothing.

So on that note, I just wanted to say that in the article, It's very clear that the state lawmakers, the state Democrats, it's not the message they have sent, at least on their statements earlier this month, as not, we absolutely will keep the Seattle tax intact and we will push for this.

For example, Representative Macri's quote is, it remains an open question what happens with Seattle.

And then State Senator Christine Rawls, who's Bainbridge Island Democrat and is the Senate's lead budget writer, said lawmakers, I'm quoting from the article, lawmakers would probably want to avoid creating a double tax on Seattle companies, Seattle-based companies.

And all of this is extremely concerning, especially given what they already tried to do last spring.

And they were defeated in their attempts at preemption only because the tax Amazon movement literally took a contingent.

We marched on to Olympia and met with lawmakers, including Representative Macri and Representative Chopp, appreciated all those conversations.

I was personally there.

But it's still, you know, this is extremely concerning when they say that they're worried about creating a double tax.

I mean, have they seen how many taxes ordinary people, working people pay?

So I just was wondering if you had more to add on that.

Thank you in advance.

Thank you, Council Member Swan.

It's a point well taken.

You know, I think the framing of that article was certainly concerning.

The fact that, you know, we have used attacks that was available to us at the local level.

To your question, I think, you know, It's, you know, the stakeholders that are concerned are largely business stakeholders.

You know, I don't know the sort of specifics of who's, you know, lobbying, but I do know that's sort of the contingent.

And I would just add, you know, It is an open topic of discussion among legislators and obviously one that we're engaging on per the city's legislative agenda.

These are resources that we have booked in our budget that are going to fund critical services, especially in COVID times.

So we're acutely aware of the the preemption concern here.

And I would just say that we are continuing to highlight that and advocate for the city's interests in our conversations with legislators.

Thank you for that, Quinn.

Any other comments or questions, colleagues, before we move to the next section?

Okay, thank you so much.

I will hand it back over to OIR to take us through the next section.

All right, I'm going to I'm going to try to move a little quickly because we've got a lot of things to cover, but just moving on to education.

I want to highlight a few bills 1153 regarding language access directs to develop.

a language access program to be implemented by school districts across the state.

It also establishes several principles for a culturally responsive language access program, defines those, and requires school districts to report on them and their implementation efforts.

Senate Bill 5044 adds a equity inclusion and anti-racist training for school district directors, school district staff, and individual school staff.

It also encourages school districts to provide at least three professional training days to implement those training policies.

Senate Bill 5161 on teaching tribal history does what it says it does.

It requires that school districts incorporate Washington State's tribal history into their curricula and directs the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, OSPI, to develop an implementation program and monitor the implementation.

And then finally, Senate Bill 5237 and its companion Bill 1213 is a child care and early learning omnibus bill by Representative Sen and Senator Wilson.

It does a variety of things.

It increases the subsidies for child care providers.

It increases the eligibility for the Working Connections Child Care Program and reduces the co-pays for that program, expands ECAP enrollment and Increases the subsidies to providers.

I would add also that this is definitely a.

a significant expansion, and although discussions during the interim did include some potential revenue sources, the version that was ultimately dropped doesn't include a dedicated funding source, so this would be something that would need to be funded through the appropriations process.

I'll pause there and see if there are any questions on education.

Thanks Quinn for that.

I'm just really one quick question on the child care omnibus bill that you're referring to.

Can you tell me if the bill focuses on a particular age group?

And if so, sort of what are the what are the age groups that are being focused on?

Is it?

Birth to five?

Is it three and four year olds?

Can you give us a sense of that?

I would have to get back to you on that, which I'm happy to do.

Great.

I think it would be helpful to get an understanding of those details.

The city of Seattle has certainly been doing a lot of work on increasing the amount of supports available to child care providers, but also to families in need of child care in the zero to three space in particular.

And obviously we have our Seattle Preschool Program that focuses on three-year-olds now and four-year-olds.

And so it's a high priority for me to make sure that we are meeting the full spectrum of child care needs for the ages of birth to five.

So if we could get a little bit more information about that, that would be really helpful.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I would just add that deal staff did meet with representative send over the interim to provide feedback on the legislation and they're reviewing the current iteration.

Now it dropped late last week, but expecting feedback from them and also happy to follow up on that question.

Great colleagues.

Any other questions or comments on education?

It looks like there are none.

Moving on to environment, a few bills to highlight here.

As Lily mentioned, this is a priority area for the House and Senate Democrats.

And this, I think, is reflected by some really potent legislation that they have introduced.

House Bill 1084, building decarbonization, also known as Governor Inslee's Healthy Homes, Clean Buildings Act, requires by 2027 some significant reductions in the emissions from residential and commercial buildings.

It also largely, not completely, but for space heating and water heating prohibits new buildings from including on-site fossil fuels.

It also institutes a surcharge on natural gas used in in buildings and includes legislation that you all may recall from last year regarding beneficial electrification or building electrification, which extends the authority that is currently granted to private companies, private utility companies, to public utilities to provide incentives for switching to electric power in buildings.

Moving on, I would just highlight briefly 1099, which makes several changes to the Growth Management Act to incorporate addressing climate change and climate action into comprehensive planning processes.

Then moving on to 5126, which is the governor's climate commitment act.

This does a variety of things that I'm happy to follow up in more detail on afterwards, but just as a primer, it.

It implements a statewide cap-and-trade, cap-and-invest program.

It directs ecology to set emissions targets and develop an auction system.

It creates a priority for linking with other cap-and-invest markets in Oregon and California, most notably.

And it also allows in the cap-and-invest program for offsets, offset projects to be provided or implemented by emitters.

And then beyond the cap and invest program, it also restores another bill from last year that unfortunately didn't pass.

It restores the Department of Ecology's authority to regulate indirect or non-source point emissions, which was invalidated in 2019 after a Supreme Court case.

So this would restore that authority, which is a really important regulatory authority for meeting our climate emissions targets.

And then finally, just briefly, we'll touch on Senate Bill 5141, which is this year's iteration of the HEAL Act, which requires a variety of state agencies, including health, ecology, agriculture, national resources, commerce, and transportation, to adopt environmental justice strategic plans, adopt equitable engagement and community engagement policies.

and adopt evaluation metrics for evaluating potential projects for environmental justice impacts.

Stop there on environment and see if there are any questions.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

I just want to hear a little bit about House Bill 1075, seeing emissions from vehicles associated with on-demand transportation services.

Yeah, absolutely.

So this is a bill that was introduced last year and unfortunately got tied up in, passed out of the House, but got tied up in the Senate Transportation Committee.

The bill would require Department of Ecology to develop emissions reduction targets with TNC companies.

require those companies to submit a plan for reducing emissions associated with their fleet.

It also, I know this was an area of concern last year, it does contain a specific direction for ecology to develop program elements and rules that mitigate impacts to low-income drivers.

There's obviously a nexus there, and wanting to make sure that folks who are driving for their livelihood are not impacted as these companies reduce their emissions.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Any other questions on environment?

All right, hearing none, let's keep going.

All right, my well, last section before transportation at the end, general government, the only one that I really want to highlight here is House Bill 1056. This bill makes permanent for for future declared emergencies, the current Open Public Meetings Act procedures around remote electronic meetings.

I would just add also that the bill is specific to future declared emergencies.

The legislature adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 8402, which extends the current policies set in place by the governor's proclamation.

So for The duration of the COVID-19 public health crisis, the city of Seattle and other municipalities can continue to conduct its business as we have been under the governor's declaration, but this bill would establish for any future emergencies that those procedures are allowed to continue.

Thanks, Quinn, for that.

Any questions on governance?

All right, hearing none, I think we're going to head on over now to Robin.

Council President Gonzalez, I'll try to go quickly as well.

First, I'm going to address housing and homelessness and affordability.

There's a couple of things I think the council will be interested in.

First is House Bill 1236 by Representative Macri on just cause eviction has been reintroduced this year, and I know that is of interest to this council because of some impacts that it would have on our just cause eviction law here in Seattle.

Also, the governor's eviction moratorium, as I believe you're all well aware, expires on March 31st of 2021, and the legislature has a couple of proposals that would address what happens once this eviction moratorium is no longer in effect.

The first is Senate Bill 5139 from Senator Das, which prohibits all rent increases for six months after the expiration of the eviction moratorium.

And then for the following six to 12 months after that, would limit an increase to 3% above the Consumer Price Index increase over those next six months.

Senate Bill 5160 by Senator Cooter also provides some additional protections for tenants after the expiration of the eviction moratorium.

It would prohibit evictions for an additional two years after the public health emergency ends, so not the moratorium, but when the COVID emergency declaration ends.

would prohibit charging of late fees, would establish payment plans based on tenants' individual financial situation, would establish actually a right to counsel too, so tenants would have to have representation if an eviction action did occur, and then instructs the Department of Commerce to make rental assistance funds available to property owners.

Those are the bills that I wanted to highlight there quickly since we're short on time and happy to answer any questions.

Colleagues, any questions for Robin?

All right, hearing none, let's keep going.

I'm gonna shift to public safety.

Here, I'm not gonna go into a lot of details, but Senate Bill 5217 by Senator Cooter, once again, would prohibit assault weapons.

It's been introduced.

There's also several bills that would limit open carry of firearms, and we expect a couple more in the coming weeks.

Police reform, of course, is a big topic this legislative session.

There's more than a dozen proposals already introduced.

So very much on the minds of legislators this session.

I'm going to just highlight a couple here.

House Bill 1054 on police tactics that would ban chokeholds.

unleashed police dogs, military equipment, use of tear gas, badge covering, no-knock warrants, and vehicle pursuits was heard last week in the Public Safety Committee and is scheduled for executive session.

I will say that there have been concerns raised with aspects of that bill, so I do expect to see some amendments to address some issues that were raised by law enforcement and cities as well.

Then House Bill 1267 on police use of force.

That bill was just dropped yesterday by Representative Entenmann.

This is the bill that would codify the recommendations of the Governor's Task Force on Independent Investigations to create a statewide office on the use of deadly, a statewide office to address use of deadly force by law enforcement.

So that bill should have a hearing, I think, probably next week is what I understand.

And so certainly, if anyone on the Council would like to weigh in on that or testify, I think that would be most welcomed by our friends at the Association of Washington Cities.

The decertification bills were heard yesterday and on Friday, House Bill 1082 on Friday and Senate Bill 5051 on the oversight and accountability of police officers.

We really appreciated Council Member Strauss' testimony.

This is the bill that would create a licensor system similar to other professions like teachers and other workers, attorneys, accountants who have licensure systems, and would prevent officers who have been discharged or resigned from discharge from being employed by another department as well.

And also gives the Criminal Justice Training Commission quite a bit of additional duties and training requirements as well.

And finally, I just wanted to touch briefly on a hearing that was held last Thursday, Senate Bill 5055 by Senator Nguyen, which would establish a centralized pool of arbitrators for police discipline cases at the statewide level, and Senate Bill 5134 by Senator Solomon that would eliminate arbitration as a method of appeal in police disciplinary cases.

And also lists a number of acts that would automatically discharge officers if they were found to have committed those acts.

You know, uh, I would say that the, the hearings, um, did go well and that we are pursuing a strategy to amend, um, likely Senator Winsbill with some provisions that wouldn't completely eliminate arbitration, but would place some guardrails around the police disciplinary process.

And also just wanted to thank council member Herbold again for testifying at that hearing.

Thank you so much, Robin, for that.

Councilmember Herbold, please.

Thank you.

I'm wondering if in addition to pursuing the strategy that focuses on the amendments to the arbitration process as identified by the mayor's office and OIR, What I would agree are really important reforms, and they align with the top identified reforms related to the cities entering into our next set of bargaining with SPOG, as identified by our accountability partners.

in a public hearing held by Council President Gonzalez at the end of 2019 and codified in a resolution through my committee in early 2020. So there's really good alignment there as it relates to the city's priorities for our own contract.

I think why some of the police accountability advocates that represent the city are supporting the Solomon Bill is out of a recognition that there are impediments in state law that would keep us from further reforming or perhaps eliminating arbitration.

But mostly, I just want to speak to the fact that even sort of politically recognizing that this may not be the session where there is the political will.

I am reluctant to say political momentum because I have a hard time imagining a state legislative session where there would be more political momentum to do police reform, I hope.

But if there isn't the political will to eliminate arbitration, I would hate for the entirety of the Solomon bill to be kind of put aside because of that particular part of the bill.

And so just like we're looking to use the wind bill as a vehicle for important reforms that the city supports and that police accountability stakeholders are seeking in our next round of negotiations with SPOG.

I think there are other very useful reforms in the Solomon Bill that there may not be quite the same resistance to as there is to the element of eliminating arbitration.

That is one small piece of a very large bill that seeks to do a lot of things.

And I just think it would be very useful to engage with stakeholders, particularly labor stakeholders, to see if there are other elements of that bill that they would support moving forward.

certainly Council Member Herbold, point well taken.

And yes, didn't mean to give that bill short shrift.

Of course, we did also, you know, sign in support of that bill, have been working with some of the advocates who are working on that bill.

So we will certainly continue to pursue to see if there's any path forward with the advocates on both sides of the issue, certainly.

no mean intended suggest that you were getting a short shrift uh...

i just think that there is this sort of public narrative that the solomon bill is all about uh...

eliminating arbitration that's certainly the thing that is uh...

uh...

creating, I think, a lot of the interest in the conflict and the drama, but there are a lot of other important things in that bill.

And so I was just taking this as an opportunity to try to shift that narrative to really focus on more of what's in the bill other than just only the arbitration elimination.

Yeah, absolutely.

The arbitration piece in that bill certainly is the big sticker item, but there are many other provisions.

Any other questions or comments on the public safety policing section?

Okay, hearing none, let's go ahead and continue on.

Great, thank you.

I'm going to jump back to page four for health care.

Just a few bills to highlight here.

Senate Bill 5052 establishes health equity zones.

So that requires the Department of Health to designate health equity zones based on health disparity data.

And the Department of Health will work with community groups to develop projects and support those projects to address those inequities.

Senate Bill 5068 is postpartum Medicaid.

This policy passed last session with overwhelming support, but was caught up in the end of the emerging COVID and budget crisis, so was vetoed for implementation.

It's been reintroduced and would extend the postpartum Apple health coverage from 60 days to 12 months.

Senate Bill 5149 or House Bill 1201 is foundational health funding from Senator Robinson.

This is a governor request bill.

It creates covered lives assessment for insurers and that funding will go to supporting our public health services.

So in the 2019-2021 biennium, that's at least $12 million for foundational public health services subject to appropriation.

And that funding would go to things including substance abuse prevention, training of public health professionals, and preventing vapor and tobacco products for minors.

I'll pause there on health care if there's any questions.

Alex, any questions or comments?

Looks like there aren't any.

Go ahead, Hana.

Great, jumping down to the middle of page eight for safety net and civil rights.

A few bills to flag here.

House Bill 1072, civil legal aid funds.

It removes a prohibition on the use of civil legal aid funds by the state's office of civil legal aid to represent individuals who are in the US without legal authority.

Executive action was taken last week on that bill.

Hospital 1073 by Representative Berry expands paid family and medical leave program.

It changes the eligibility threshold for benefits for a minimum of 820 hours worked to the minimum of just $1,000 earned.

It expands the definition of family member and removes the employer size and employee hours worked thresholds to just expand that program for more eligibility.

House Bill 1151, Bolstering Economic Recovery, is a priority bill this session for human service advocates.

It does a variety of things, modernizing the standard need for cash assistance programs to reflect the current living expenses in our state, which was last updated in 1991, so well overdue there.

It extends the eligibility for transitional assistance to households with children who are leaving basic food.

It mitigates the cliff effect there, expanding the one-time cash benefits to an additional five months of food benefits.

and adopts the disaster cash assistance program to households to receive benefits more than once in 12 months when there's a declared emergency.

So it has a lot of provisions there that will help people in the midst of this crisis.

I think those are the bills I wanna highlight in that section and happy to take any questions.

Alex, any questions or comments?

It looks like there are none, so you can keep going.

I'll round it out with transportation.

The only bill currently on the list right now is House Bill 1091. This is the clean fuel standard, which has been a major environmental and crossing over into transportation priority for several years now, especially for the chair of the House Environment Committee, Representative Fitzgibbon.

It's very similar to last year.

It would require a 10% reduction in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 2028 and a 20% reduction by 2035. The only other thing that I would highlight in the transportation space right now is that we do anticipate that representative 5, who is the chair of the house transportation committee will be out with his transport statewide transportation revenue package proposal today.

What we have heard is that it is likely to include a pot of money for capital projects in addition to prioritizing maintenance and preservation, the state's legal requirement for fish passage barriers and culverts, as well as some multimodal investments.

It is likely to include a pot of money for capital investments, but it is not going to identify specific projects at this point.

So that process will continue to be discussed and negotiated between Chair Fye, Chair Hobbs, and ranking members and leadership as they continue to advance a potential transportation revenue package this session.

So that is something that we will be on the lookout for.

Obviously, the city has significant transportation needs that we will continue to advocate for, but we're not likely to get specific feedback or indication this afternoon.

And with that, I'll pause for questions.

Thanks, Quinn.

I see that Council Member Strauss has a question.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you to the entire OIR team.

You did such a wonderful job preparing me for my testimony both last Friday and yesterday.

I just really appreciate all of the good work that you have put into our legislative priorities in Olympia.

Quinn, thank you for your briefing on the transportation revenue package.

I do just want to again highlight our work and thank SDOT for being able to bring over the numbers.

that we need to be able to make a funding request for the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor.

Colleagues, for everyone's just general awareness, The Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor is the most used north-south corridor after SR 99 or I-5.

So should anything happen to either of those north-south corridors, this is how people get north and south for much of our city, extending from the stadiums all the way to the northern city border at 145th.

So Quinn, you will see another note from my office today, and just thank you for all your great work on there.

And then, colleagues, I will just make my final comment so that I don't have to pop back.

I just wanted to, again, thank Robin for all of your work.

I know that I already thanked everyone.

But the Association of Washington Cities was able to testify in support of the decertification bill, 1088, the Goodman version, 5051, the Senator Peterson version.

And it was really wonderful to be able to be there with Deputy Mayor Blocker from Tacoma and Council President Beggs from Spokane, and the general government advocate for the Association of Washington Cities also testified in support of this bill.

So I know that there has been some questions about the value of the Association of Washington City dues over the last number of years, and I just wanted to take this moment to highlight that they are indeed signing in support and testifying in support of our priorities.

Thank you, Council President.

Those are all of my comments for all of OIR.

Again, thank you to everyone's great work.

Thanks, Council Member Strauss.

Really appreciate it.

Council Member Mosqueda, I see that your hand is up as well.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for the update and apologies if you have already addressed this with the chair of transportation.

I don't see Council Member Peterson asking this question, so I'm assuming that it's a question everybody else knows the answer to.

Is there any conversation happening in the state legislature right now dealing with helping the city of Seattle acquire the necessary funds for bridge assistance for especially the West Seattle Bridge?

I know we've talked a lot about our federal partners and so appreciative of our senators and also our good representation from Representative Jayapal.

But I'm wondering, is there any additional assistance that's already been committed to by the state legislature?

Thank you for that question, Council Member Mosqueda.

And I glossed over that a bit in the transportation revenue package.

Currently, the baseline transportation budget is in a $500 million deficit.

And they're, they're currently actually pausing several projects that were scheduled to be going out for for notice of construction and bid.

So, in the, in the baseline transportation budget, there is, there is no money available for supporting the city of Seattle and the West Seattle bridge.

However, Over the interim and through this first week of session, we've been in conversations with a number of legislators in the Seattle delegation and on the transportation committees about support for the West Seattle Bridge in partnership with the Port of Seattle, Northwest Seaport Alliance, and a variety of other advocates.

I think there is a strong recognition of the importance of the West Seattle Bridge, not just here in the city of Seattle, but also as a regional and statewide economic development asset and freight mobility asset.

And I think in a potential transportation revenue package, there is support for including funds for the West Seattle Bridge repair.

The reason I highlighted that there wouldn't be specific projects named in Chair Fye's proposal that's going to be coming out this afternoon is with specific regards to that, although we have received, you know, positive feedback on the West Seattle Bridge for potential funding.

He's not going to be naming any specific projects at this juncture, so we have to sort of wait and see how that develops.

But overall, I think the environment is positive.

Great questions, Councilmember Mosqueda, and I'll be giving a little bit of an update of some other funding opportunities that are in play for the West Seattle Bridge Safety Project through the Puget Sound Regional Council, so I'll be talking about that in a moment.

Councilmember Herbold, I do see your hand up, but Councilmember Lewis had his hand up first, so I'm going to recognize Councilmember Lewis, and then we'll circle back to you, Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Madam President.

So I don't know who on the team this question will be for, but I wanted to ask about Senator Cooter's bill, Senate Bill 5138, eliminating the B&O tax deduction for financial institutions and putting that money into affordable housing.

I wonder if folks could maybe indicate where that bill is, what the prospect of it passing is, how much additional revenue that would generate in a given year, and what the implications might be for how that would be administered, if that would be, you know, grants or remittances to local governments like ours to fund affordable housing or if it would somehow go directly from the state to providers or developers.

And Robin Koski is our housing policy lead.

She may have information on this.

If we don't, we will certainly follow up with you.

But I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Robin.

Hate to put you on the spot there, Robin.

Oh, no worries.

This bill actually would create a permanent source of funding for the Housing Trust Fund.

So it would work Similarly, as it does now, you know, just like projects do now when they apply to the Office of Housing for funding, they would then apply to the state for housing trust fund money, but rather than having to you know, try to carve out and advocate every year for funding for the Housing Trust Fund, there would be a steady, normal source for that funding.

And, you know, of course, the legislature could always adopt additional capital investments in that fund, but this would create a steady funding source.

I don't know how much money it would generate, but I can certainly find that out from housing advocates.

You know, I don't know what the likelihood of success on the bill is, but the city is certainly supporting it and is engaged in conversations around it.

So we can certainly keep you posted on the progress of the bill as it moves along.

And I will get back to you on how much revenue it would generate each year.

And I don't know if I missed any of your question, Council Member Lewis.

No, no, that was perfect.

Once you guys have a good estimate on the fiscal note for that, I would really appreciate you sending it my way.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for that.

Council Member Herbold, please.

I just wanted to go back to the issue of West Seattle bridge funding.

I want to just understand how Director Majewski, your statement that there are no funds allocated for particular projects, how that corresponds to what I think I recall seeing over the winter break related to Senator Hobbs' intent to identify $75 million to assist Seattle in repairing the West Seattle Bridge in recognition that it is a regional asset that contributes to our regional economy.

Sure, absolutely.

And that's a good question, Council Member Herbold.

So, specifically, I was referring to Representative Fai's transcript package proposal that's going to be coming out today.

So, I would say just potentially to clarify, we expect that he will identify a sort of pot of money that will be for capital improvement projects.

Which could include the West Seattle bridge, but at this time, he's not going to be identifying specific projects.

So, you know, as as negotiations move along, and we expect that Senator Hobbs will release an update to his forward Washington proposal that he came out with last year later in session.

We don't have an exact date for that, but.

We do anticipate that funding for specific capital projects will be identified as negotiations continue.

We just don't anticipate that the proposal that FI is going to be releasing today will have those identified.

You're saying that you still believe that Hobbs' forward Washington proposal will identify use of revenue for particular projects, including the West Seattle Bridge?

At this point, yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lewis, I see that you have raised your hand again.

Thank you, Madam President.

I do have one more question, probably for Robin, though I'm not sure.

I don't really see on the bill summary, maybe it's just not popping out to me, but the proposal to broaden the legislation around the King County Councilmatic Taxing Authority to build affordable housing and to clarify that to also allow acquisition.

I'm curious what the status is of that effort and And if you could maybe direct me in the summary of maybe it has an odd name and so it's not popping for me.

Yes, Council Member Lewis, I'm actually not aware of that bill being dropped yet, but it is still early in the session and it is also possible that it has and that I just am not aware of it.

There's a huge volume during the first week, but I will check on that and I will check with our friends at King County and get back to you as well.

Great, yeah, it would definitely be good to know, because I have not, I know there's been a lot of discussion around closing that potential ambiguity, but I have not seen a bill yet either, so I would appreciate that confirmation.

Certainly, yes, and it's my understanding that there is intent to move that forward, but I will follow up.

Council Member Peterson, please.

Thank you, Council President.

I really appreciate all the attention on bridge infrastructure with an emphasis on the West Seattle Bridge and just want to also signal there are other bridges in Seattle that are aging and have identified needs right now.

including Ballard Bridge, Magnolia Bridge, University Bridge, Second Avenue, South Extension Bridge.

So to the extent you are talking about bridges and infrastructure, it's great.

West Seattle Bridge should have the priority.

It's just also mentioning the other needs that are here, especially as we look at an economic recovery, getting people back to work.

There's lots of jobs that could potentially be created with repairing our bridges.

So I appreciate your attention to that.

Yes, absolutely on our radar.

And if I may, I can just provide an answer to Council Member Lewis's question about the governor's capital gains tax proposal.

It would exempt not just primary residences, but all residential properties in its current iteration.

Great, thank you so much.

Council Member Mosqueda, I see that you have your hand raised.

Please.

Thank you, Council President.

This is something that just might come out of left field, so I'm gonna tee it up for Robin, our old friend from housing.

I know you've been dealing with this issue for many years, so please just remind me.

I'm sorry, I don't know the details offhand.

Is there anything that we need to do to get any legislative approval to finally secure the land swap for the inter-bay property that the Army currently uses?

have all the procedural legislative authorization transactions already occurred and we're just waiting on the U.S.

Army to enact that land swap.

Is there anything that we need to do with the state legislature this year?

Council Member Mosqueda, I will check with the Office of Housing on that for you and follow up.

I'm honestly not sure right now.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you, Council President and Council Member Mosqueda.

I'm happy to follow up with you.

I was able to have a briefing on the armory site last week and I've been tracking it pretty closely.

Great.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Councilmember Strauss, does that mean there is no legislative action on your radar that we need to support this year to make sure that swap happens?

There is a, there is legislation I believe it is House Bill 1066, if memory serves correctly, sponsored by Representative Barry.

This is a continuation of the work that representative Carlton.

took up, and so there was a draft bill in the last legislative session that was then reintroduced with some feedback for this upcoming legislative session.

That is all contingent upon the Washington State National Guard under the military department being able to receive their capital funds to move the armory to North Bend.

Um, so everything that is within House Bill 1066 is for a longer term, um, use of the armory site that is in Inner Bay, um, 25-acre parcel.

The factor that must be addressed before anything within that bill can become a reality is the capital funding to move the Washington State National Guard to North Bend and I believe it is a number either 35 or $55 million that is needed.

OIR correct me if I am wrong in any of those areas.

I think Council Member Strauss, I believe that Quinn has been working with our Regional Affairs Director Kelsey Beck on this issue and may have some additional details here.

I know he's searching for them furiously at the moment, so thank you.

I don't have a lot of details.

I think we can certainly follow up.

There is legislation.

Apologies for the correction here, but I believe it is House Bill 1173. Yes, regarding the creation of a specific public development authority for that.

Council Member Strauss, there may also be a separate legislation that you're referring to, but that's the one that we're tracking.

So perhaps we can follow up.

I just, as we're all speaking in real time, I realized 1066 was the house bill from last year, so.

Well, yes, Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Strauss, please know we're tracking House Bill 1173 and the appropriate capital budget requests, and we're happy to follow up with you in your offices.

Thanks for doing that.

If you all could follow up with each other offline, that'd be great.

We are about 25 minutes over on this presentation.

So I'm going to ask if we can move along and wrap up the presentation in the next couple of minutes here so we can get to the other items of business on our agenda.

And as a reminder, we do have an executive session today that I expect will be rather long.

That concludes our report, unless there are any other questions.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions or comments for our team over at OIR?

All right.

Looks like there are none.

I know it's very early on.

Last week was only the first week of the state legislative session, so many, many more weeks to go.

Things will continue to evolve.

And we will continue to work with our partners over at the Association of Washington cities.

Along with our delegation and other representatives on issues that are of priority to the city of Seattle that are articulated in our legislative.

agenda and really do appreciate all of the work that you folks are doing virtually this year to continue to advocate for the city's position.

So if there are no other questions or comments for OIR, we'll go ahead and give them our thanks and move along.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks, folks, for being with us.

We're going to go ahead and move through other items of business on our Colleagues, I am going to do a procedural motion really quickly before we take up reports from each of you as chairs of your committees.

We received word very late during the weekend that the proclamation related to suspending the need for Uh, for us to have in person meetings in order to be in compliance with the open public meetings act has been.

Has been renewed and for a much longer period of time and so I'm going to go ahead and make that.

that motion now so that for those of you who are having committee meetings this week so that you don't have to make the motions for the record as part of your item of business in your respective committee.

So with your indulgence, I'm going to sort of slip back a little bit here and do this procedural motion.

So again, council members, the council rules are silent on allowing remote meetings and electronic participation at council briefing meetings.

to be in compliance with Senate Concurrent Resolution 8402, which extends Proclamation 20-28 until the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency, or it is rescinded by the governor or by state legislative action.

To continue participating remotely, I will move to suspend the council rules.

If there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow remote meetings and electronic participation at council briefing meetings until the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency or rescinded by the governor or by state legislative action, whichever occurs first.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended.

Council briefing meetings will be held remotely with council members participating electronically until the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency or rescinded by the governor or by state legislative action, whichever occurs first.

All right, well, thank you, colleagues for that more to come this afternoon during our city council meeting.

So, for now, let's go ahead and shift over to preview of today's city council actions council and regional committees.

Again, as a reminder, we do have an executive session scheduled for the end of today's council briefing.

With that being said, we will go ahead and hear from each of you about work related to your regional city council and other committees.

We will hear first from Council Member Juarez, then Luis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herbold, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion with my report.

So first up is Council Member Juarez, followed by Council Member Luis.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, everybody.

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

However, I do want to talk about the Seattle National Archives, which will be going on this afternoon.

I will be joining Attorney General Bob Ferguson and Councilmember Peterson in a public forum this afternoon to discuss the recent lawsuit that was filed against the federal government and hear public comment about the harmful relocation of Seattle's National Archives.

The federal government has proposed to sell a national archives facility located in the Sandpoint neighborhood for development.

The sale would thereby relocate precious archives in Seattle to a location thousands of miles away.

I think most egregious is that this decision was made without any public comment.

Those left without a voice include state, local, and tribal governments in the region of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

As I shared, the state filed their complaint in U.S.

District Court on January 4th.

The plaintiffs of that, many plaintiffs on this litigation, but they include not only the state of Washington, but the state of Oregon, dozen of Washington and Oregon and Alaska tribes and organizations, as well as seven to eight local regional historical organizations and museums for the Asian Pacific Islander community, including the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, the Asian Pacific Advocates, the Wing Luke Museum and Memorial Foundation, which is really important.

A little bit of history here for those of you why this is so important for us, not only for us, but for three states and many, many tribes, is originally in 1942, this was a Japanese American family farm, and this family was removed under the Interment Act.

In 1945, the U.S.

Navy condemned this land and created a warehouse.

In 1963, the warehouse became the archive facility.

So the records date back before 1840 and there are millions and millions of undigitized original records which we would lose, which would lose their home in Seattle.

If you have an opportunity, I know you're all busy, the brief that was filed by A.G.

Ferguson has It's about 87, 85 pages long, but what's most fascinating are the declarations that are filed, not only from the tribes, but all these local organizations with history and who uses the archives.

And these declarations are just phenomenal in the history about what they provide, not only for this state, but for this region.

So I think it's fair to say that recent events have shared, have shown us how important it is to keep our history here.

And I think that has been our message all along.

This has been going on for well over a year.

Council Peterson knows this.

So our message has been that our history lives here, so we should keep it here.

So today the virtual event or public hearing is scheduled at 3.30, 3.30 to 5. 530 today.

The link is available online and on my Twitter feed and again from our staff can afford the link and more information as well.

I'm glad that I heard the conversation about the bridges and Sound Transit.

I want to give you an update on Sound Transit and I'm sure Council President will share what our meeting was like last week.

As far as program realignment, Sound Transit Board of Directors is currently undergoing a process they are calling program realignment.

To address the budget shortfall brought on by covet and project cost increases across several projects, including the West Seattle Ballard link extension as a board member, we're directed.

We have directed staff to measure Sound Transit 3 projects against multiplied criteria to help us evaluate projects.

No small feat.

There is a board workshop this Thursday, January 21, from 1 to 4, where we will discuss the affordability gap and criteria evaluation results.

So this is what's most important, what we've learned, what the law allows us to do under Section 2, the ballot measure.

And what the board's options are so the board's options for addressing revenue shortfalls and increased cost include.

Delaying the delivery of projects to provide longer periods for revenue collection.

Number two, delivering projects in phases, which we've done a lot.

Three, reducing project scopes.

And four, suspending or deleting projects all within the perimeters provided by the voter approved plans.

So those are kind of like the four pillars in which we will use to evaluate the realignment and projects and what has happened with this recession and how it's impacted Sound Transit.

Prior to any decisions being made by the Board of Directors, there will be a public engagement period that will begin in April and help the Board identify priorities with a realignment plan.

The Board is expected to take realignment action in July.

So there's a lot of daylight between now and July, public comment, discussion.

These cost estimates increased do not affect projects already under construction, such as light rail extension in Northgate.

These same cost pressures are not affecting Stride BRT projects on 522 and 405 at this time, which are planned primarily along WSDOT right of way.

Finally, Sound Transit is expected to publish the draft environmental impact statement for the West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions in the middle of this year.

with the board confirming or modifying the preferred alternative later in the fall.

So we'll learn a lot from the draft environmental impact statement.

I think that and the engineering will start narrowing down what the realignment decision will be.

If there are any questions, please feel free to contact our former colleague, Abel Pacheco or Lita Chatham at the Sound Transit.

And if you would like a more detailed briefing.

So I've been obviously attending the Sound Transit hearings, board meetings and the sub hearings.

And the committee hearings, and we're looking forward to seeing what's going to happen between now.

And when we start making a line realignment decisions, and I'll keep everyone apprised of what's going on.

As far as North gate, the North gate extension is starting light rail vehicle testing this week and the project remains on schedule to open in September.

Sound transit and king county metro are coordinating on the service restructure once.

Open to better serve north king county residents and connect them to 1 of the 3 stations.

Once open North residents from districts, 4, 5, and 6 will be able to access sound transit at the district.

Roosevelt, and then, or the North gate stations.

Some other news regarding carbon-free electricity.

Over the holidays, Sound Transit Link's light rail system began utilizing 100% carbon-free electricity, making it the first major light rail system in the country to achieve this milestone.

The accomplishment is made possible through an innovative agreement with Puget Sound Energy to purchase wind energy directly from the utility's green direct program.

The agreement with PSE is projected to save more than $390,000 in electricity costs over the 10-year contract, while also supporting the creation of local clean energy jobs.

Update on parks briefly.

The city is extending childcare co-pay relief for income eligible families through March 2021. This will cover about 50, well, it will cover 50% of the remaining co-pay cost for all families participating in the Department of Education and Early Learning Childcare Assistance Program, the CCAP, and scholarship eligible families participating in Seattle Parks and Recreation Childcare.

Both DEEL and SPR currently have space available for their high quality, affordable childcare programs, and families are encouraged to sign up today.

Office of the Waterfront, as you know, the contractor successfully removed the Fitzgerald Fountain on January 8th, and it is undergoing restoration.

And again, Pier 57 opened its storefront on January 7th, and the Great Wheel opened on January 14th.

Native communities, again, as I shared last week, I did get an opportunity to participate and I was honored to join the Native Action Network cohort.

for a meet and greet last Friday where I participated in a presentation and a Q&A with promising young women interested in getting involved in the political sector.

Native Action Network is a nonprofit organized and organized to promote Native women's full representation and participation and leadership across different levels of government.

Let me give a highlight.

We touched a little bit on this earlier.

Last week, Council President Gonzalez and I attended the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board.

I'm happy to report that the board voted in support of a federal funding package of $14.4 million to go to the West Seattle Bridge Repair Project.

Members from other cities understood the urgency and significance of the bridge as a regional asset and therefore its impact on thousands of drivers and workers of this economy.

The PSRC staff and the city work together and hard to renegotiate and negotiate to get this through.

And I'm thankful for them for that.

This has been going on.

I think this discussion has been going on since July.

We had a rather robust meeting on December 10th, and then we finally wrapped it up.

I also want to thank Council Member Peterson for following this from the start to finish and accurately stepping in as an alternate when the Council President couldn't make it.

And thank you, Council President, for being there last week.

Initially, we had 15 million in front of the board at our December meeting while we ended up with a slight $2 million decrease.

We were allowed more certainty that the city can fully utilize all of the grant funding for the scope of the repair project.

The PSRC Transportation Board, where these contracts come from and the federal money, I think it's the highway program.

That money is specifically designated for bridges.

I just want to share this.

There's some comments back and forth.

I think what we tried to stress the most, Council President and I, were that this was an emergent situation that happened at West Seattle that nobody planned for this bridge to be.

It isn't like we know these other bridges have issues and we're asking for money.

This was an emergent, extingent circumstances that was unforeseen.

and that we had this federal money that had to be spent that is designated for bridges.

So it seemed like a natural fit.

One of the provisos is that the city stays out of the next round.

I think they can only, please, I think Councilor Peterson or Gonzales, I'm sorry, Council President Gonzales can correct me.

I think the proviso was we have to stay out of one round or can only ask for one project in the next round.

So that'll come up next year.

So with that, that's it.

That's it, reporting from D5 up north.

Back to you, President.

It's like our very own TV show.

Thank you.

Exactly.

That's what I want to do now.

I want to say back to you, Council President.

Thank you so much for that, Council Member Juarez.

Really appreciate it.

I see that Council Member Mosqueda has her hand up already.

I know she does.

And for anyone else who wants to make comments or ask questions, feel free to raise your hand.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Juarez, just, I think, a brief question I've had a few folks ask is the realignment for future projects or does it affect projects that are currently under development like in Northgate?

No, the realignment discussion is for future projects.

Projects that are under construction are safe.

I shouldn't use the word safe.

Projects in planning, far away, possibly.

Remember the four scenarios I gave you, delay, you know, in phases.

Those are the four things we can look at under the ST3 as it was passed.

There's a resolution, I think, resolution 20-16-17 that says what the board can look at.

But projects that are already happening are already happening.

Projects that are in the future is what we will be looking at.

And the realignment, I'll be real frank with you, the probably the biggest issue that will be determining how we look at this will be the engineering and the draft.

So, I'll have more for you to be more specific, but that's about.

All we have right now, we do, I do have the.

The realignment workshop this Thursday, so next Monday, I will have better information and be more specific.

I don't know if you heard Mr Rogoff on last week, but he gave a really good interview and kind of highlighted some of the issues that are not highlighted.

He actually went a little bit more depth.

because he is the CEO of Sound Transit and knows a little bit more than I do.

But it's pretty transparent and straightforward that this pandemic fueled recession has just really taken a beating on Sound Transit and the money that was there, that we thought was there.

One of the options that's left that we will do, my understanding is that the board will do, and Mr. Rogoff said this publicly as well, is to go to Olympia to ask the state that we can raise the cap on borrowing for more money.

And also with this new administration, the Biden administration, and the new DOT, it's Mr. Budacek, Mayor Budacek, we don't believe he will be confirmed until early May, mid-May, but we believe we will have, Washington State gets the most money than any other state for transportation, I learned.

But there's reasons for that.

I think what we're going to look at is an administration that is more friendly and more understanding.

And we have a great congressional delegation, including Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who's been a big advocate for us in our transportation issues.

So we have a lot of ways to go to the state, to the county, and to the federal government for more money to make sure that the Ballard West Seattle light rail station, one of those options get built.

which one, I don't know.

Thanks for that question and that additional information, Council Member Juarez.

I do want to thank former Council Member Pacheco for emailing us information, pretty detailed information about the challenges being faced by Sound Transit.

I think I think it seems to me that the board, which the city of Seattle is represented on by Council Member Juarez and the mayor, is my sense is that you are still very much in the thoughtful stages of trying to figure out what is gonna happen next.

My understanding from Abel's email and communication is that we can and should anticipate that there will be impacts to the Sound Transit 3 project plan in light of the increased costs and the recession and the realities of the impact of COVID moving forward.

And so that does put pressure on the The alignments that we had considered as part of the sound transit 3 efforts over the last couple of years, we were looking at these varying alignments through West Seattle, Ballard, downtown.

And so my sense from reviewing the materials is that they haven't decided what the impact will be, but that they are wanting to make sure that we understand early on that there is likely going to be an impact and there are a suite of options that are being presented that can be considered by the Sound Transit Board in order to minimize the possibility of having to suspend work altogether.

Yeah, I think it's I think, you know, it's fair to say that the projects that are going to be evaluated are ones that were very, very early in the project planning stage, of which, unfortunately, several of the realignments that we were envisioning for the Seattle corridor and region are a part of.

So I recognize that this is a difficult challenge for Sam Transit.

It's a difficult challenge for our region.

And I think there's going to be a lot of work ahead of us to work with our regional partners to figure out how to deliver on the voter intent and desired intent of Sound Transit 3 under the realities of the fiscal constraints.

And I'm hopeful that we will see some help from the federal government to facilitate implementation of voter intent.

Right.

And Council President, you served on the elected leaders group, you and Council Member Herbold.

So, you know, I'm not saying that everything that happened to just throw that out now because we had this recession and, you know, it's kind of like, just hold up, just let us get our feet under us.

Let us see what projects we can, you know, we have to go through with what we promised the voters.

We promised the voters light rail for Ballard and West Seattle.

So, you know, like I said, some projects will be delayed, some projects will be done in phases, but it will get done.

But I think what Council Member Mosqueda was concerned about as well is what realignment picture or phase are we choosing?

Because I think there are three choices.

Which one are we leaning towards?

And right now, I couldn't tell you that.

And we won't know that till we look at the environmental impact statement and the engineering stuff.

So thank you.

Got it.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

I really, really appreciate this conversation.

And I just want to state back what I think I hear you reporting out, Council Member Juarez.

What we have learned directly from Sound Transit is the board's options for addressing remaining gaps include delaying the delivery of projects to allow for longer periods for revenue collection, so they would still be delivering the same projects, but over a longer period of time, delivering projects in phases and reducing project scopes.

I do want to just daylight that in its January 7th blog posts.

Sound Transit specifically said the board also retains the most extreme option, which it has not yet discussed, of suspending or deleting projects if deemed necessary to best realize the region's critical transit needs within the parameters provided by voter approved plans.

But I think what I'm hearing is Although the board does have that extreme option, it is, as reported on the 7th of January, it hadn't been discussed.

That option had not yet been discussed, and it sounds like it still hasn't been discussed from Council Member Juarez's presentation.

I just want to confirm that.

And I also, Council Member Juarez, thank you for your role as well as Council President Gonzalez's role and Council Member Peterson's role on PSRC.

I just wanted to loop back to sort of the deal that was struck as it relates to PSRC funding.

You are correct.

The city agreed to be limited to only one grant I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Herbold said, when we were briefed and more than once by Desmond Brown, legal counsel for Sound Transit, and they explained to us obviously what the law allows us to do and can't do under the ballot measure.

And when you talk about those four areas, delay a project, deliver project in phases, reduce the project or suspend or delete, you're right, that fourth one, that's the most extreme and nobody's there yet.

That's just not happening.

And it's not even happening on the sub area yet.

But I think you all know this.

I'm just going to say it one more time and then I'll shut up.

The realignment tools that we use, you know, I have to keep, I have to remember as well as the mayor, that this is a tri-county board and, you know, it's, it's Sohomish, King and Pierce.

Yes, we represent the city of Seattle and honor its needs, but ultimately we serve on a regional board for all of these interests.

So you can imagine the discussions.

And I want to thank the mayor because, you know, her and I often have to really kind of be very straightforward with other cities about what the needs are for Seattle, because Seattle is a major economic engine for the state.

I'm not saying it's the best city.

I'm just saying that sometimes It requires us to be a little bit candid and a little bit like, you know, you need to kind of step off a little bit here because this is what's happening, like, with the bridge conversation.

So don't worry.

I got you.

That's the best I can say.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Any other comments or questions on that report?

I don't think that Council Member Juarez that we were going to Digging this deeply to her committee report this morning, but I do appreciate the added conversation.

The impacts to transportation and our transportation network are so significant in this period of time and.

agree with you wholeheartedly that we're going to have to keep working on this regionally.

And that is not always easy.

Okay.

Hearing no other comments, we're going to go ahead and move down the line.

We're going to hear next from Councilmember Lewis and then Councilmember Morales.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam President.

There is nothing this afternoon from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments Just as a reminder, the committee does have a meeting on January 27th, where we'll have a public hearing on Council Bill 119975, the permanent supportive housing legislation that I put forward in December.

There was no appeal filed on the adequacy of the determination of non-significance.

for the SEPA analysis.

So we are able to proceed procedurally on that legislation at our own leisure and don't have to go through any appeals process as a prerequisite.

So appreciated getting that information from central staff last week.

I also want to thank a lot of the recent advocacy and journalism on that proposal, letters of support that I believe have been distributed to all council offices from the Housing Consortium and the Seattle Planning Commission.

And I very much appreciate that support for this legislation.

as well as favorable coverage from Ryan Packer on Bike Blog.

And just this morning, actually, on The Urbanist, an article by Sean Kuo that was published.

So thanks to all those in the community following this proposal, and I look forward to discussing it more on the 27th.

This week, I will be attending the Board of Health meeting on Thursday, along with my colleagues, Council Member Viscata and Council Member Morales.

I look forward to, I believe, the first Board of Health meeting of the year, and look forward to reporting back on that next week, on those deliberations.

I do want to give a brief shout out and call to action from our friends at COLEAD.

And I know information has been distributed to the entire council on providing an update on the efforts of COLEAD, not exclusively in my district, but extensively in District 7, but I know also in Numerous neighborhoods in district two and district three on the just care initiative and the work that co lead has been doing, which has really been a bright spot during the pandemic of collaboration between business improvement areas, service providers and community members.

The data that was shared with the council today indicates that CoLEAD is currently supporting 124 folks in hotel rooms in collaboration with other service providers through the Just Care Initiative.

These are folks generally who have very, very high barriers to accessing traditional shelter and traditional housing.

And it is a testament to the work that our partners are doing, working with very high barrier individuals in neighborhoods that have been experiencing large concentrations of people experiencing meth addiction or undiagnosed behavioral mental health conditions, and getting them into a safe, dignified place to live with wraparound services.

And I am so profoundly proud of the work.

that these folks have been doing to make this happen.

These are 124 individuals in these hotel rooms who would otherwise be sleeping in tents, under bridges, and in culverts.

And the fact that they are in a safe, dignified place proves indeed that we can come together and do something to serve all of the people of this city.

I raise this as a call to action because on January 31st, Just Care will have their sources of funding expire.

So I do want to flag for us as a council, as well as the regional entities we work with, and our federal partners in the incoming Biden administration, that as additional CARES Act money comes in, or whatever successor legislation to CARES Act comes in, that this proven and tried method that's been pioneered over the course of last year should be a priority for us to continue to support and invest in the critical public health harm reduction and housing work that Just Care has shown can be effective in the Pioneer Square and Chinatown International Districts through these critical interventions.

And just want to give a shout out and lift up that work here in this forum this week.

I want to move on just to mention before closing out that I did have the privilege of joining thousands of my neighbors for the Seattle MLK March.

They convened at Garfield High School and marched down to City Hall and the King County Courthouse.

I want to give a shout out to, I don't want to steal a thunder, but a shout out to my colleague, Councilmember Peterson, who I noticed was also there.

It was really good to see you in person, Councilmember Peterson, and not just through a computer screen.

So it was good to run into you there.

I want to thank the Seattle MLK Organizing Coalition for putting together a great event in this difficult time of COVID and civil strife and civil rights organizing to make sure we had that space to convene and have such an impactful and powerful day of organizing to remember the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and build on that progress together as a community.

I want to thank Camila Brown on my staff who was involved in organizing the march.

Thank you, Camila.

It's an honor to get to work with you every day, and I appreciated being able to attend such a great event.

So with that, Madam President, I don't have anything else and will yield my time back to you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Morales, and then we will hear from Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

Nice to see you all.

I want to thank the MLK organizing committee as well, and thank all of you colleagues for supporting them in the last budget cycle.

We did provide a small grant of $25,000 for some of that work.

I was not able to attend yesterday, but I did participate in one of the workshops on Saturday on strategies for community healing, which include, you know, increasing Black home ownership, making sure that we're supporting food security, increasing Black-owned businesses, and really looking at the way our city's systems work to throw up barriers for community.

So I think we, We are all in the midst of doing that work and I look forward to continuing to figure out how we can reduce barriers for our neighbors.

Um, there are no items from the Community Economic Development Committee on this afternoon's agenda, um, except on the introduction and referral calendar.

We do have, uh, 15 commission appointments, um, on the calendar, and we will be hearing those in my committee on Friday.

Uh, we'll also hear from, uh, Randy Engstrom, the Director of the Office of Arts and Culture, and Kalandra Childers, the Interim Director, about the creation of the Arts PDA.

and the creation of the Cultural Space Agency.

Sorry, my child is putting dishes away.

On Thursday, I'll be attending the King County Board of Health meeting where we will get a briefing from Director Patty Hayes and from Jeff Duchin, who's the public health officer, about the vaccine rollout.

I'm sure everybody heard that We are in phase 1B now, so the expansion of who is eligible is certainly very exciting, but we still have limited distribution.

So I'm hoping to get a little bit of clarity on Thursday about how we can make sure that those who are now eligible can get themselves scheduled so that we can increase the rate of vaccinations across the state.

We'll also be discussing two resolutions at that meeting.

One is a resolution encouraging the Washington State Legislature to address racism as a public health crisis, including funding for foundational public health services and other policy strategies.

As a King County Board of Health, we did pass a similar resolution last year, and so I think there's an effort to keep moving that forward.

And there will also be a resolution calling for the prompt independent review of allegations about institutional racism at Seattle Children's.

This is obviously in reference to the recent departure of Dr. Danielson, and I think there is a real commitment, as I'm sure everybody has heard, Eric Holder will be part of an investigation into the claims there, and we're hoping that that resolves in some institutional changes at the way Children's operates.

I want to share my excitement about tomorrow.

I don't know if I can say that we're having a peaceful transition of power to our next president, but I'm really hopeful that as a country we can begin to heal and repair the harm that's been done over the last four years to so many families, to our communities of color, and really to the institutions that are the bedrock of our democracy.

Looking forward to that, I want to thank Council Member Peterson for moving his transportation committee to the afternoon so that we can watch history.

I'm also thrilled that tomorrow we'll watch as Kamala Harris is sworn in as the first woman, the first South Asian, the first African American to be sworn in as vice president.

Very exciting to watch that and I hope that all the young girls across the country get to watch that as well.

And then finally, I want to send my best wishes for continued speedy recovery to Congresswoman Jayapal and to her husband, Steve.

They both contracted COVID-19 as a result of the insurrection last week.

I'm really grateful to both of them for the work that they do in our communities here and the sacrifices that they make to support our city in Washington, D.C.

and wish them both a quick recovery.

That is all I have.

Thank you Council Member Morales for those remarks.

Any comments or questions?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear from Council Member Mosqueda and then Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll start with first echoing my comments as well along the lines of Council Member Morales and wishing Congresswoman Jayapal and her family all of the best in their recovery from COVID, but also just applauding them and the congressional members who have called for accountability for the harmful acts and dangerous behavior especially of those Republicans who refused to wear masks among their colleagues, let alone the danger, the physical danger that they were placed in due to the coup and the insurrection that occurred on Wednesday the 6th, but also because of the dangerous acts within the rooms where they were confined.

I greatly appreciate her ongoing call for accountability for those behaviors and hope them a very fast recovery as well.

Today on the introduction and referral calendar from our office, there are a few items.

The introduction and referral calendar has Council Bill 119990, which is an emergency and hazard pay ordinance for grocery workers.

Colleagues, this is the legislation that I mentioned last week that I was really excited to be working on in collaboration with members at United Food and Commercial Workers.

and in partnership with other cities across the West Coast who are considering similar legislation.

This is a really important piece of legislation as we recognize there are continuing skyrocketing rates of COVID right here in the Pacific Northwest and across our cities.

So while we are extremely pleased and applaud Governor Inslee for his quick work to make sure that there's more vaccines available especially for our elders over 65 and are optimistic about the possibility of having the new administration actually create a process for streamlining access to vaccines.

Much of what we know to be occurring right now looks like it's not going to change in the near term, especially for frontline workers, frontline workers who are more likely to be women and people of color working in grocery stores and other areas.

have experienced higher rates of exposure to COVID.

And unfortunately, these grocery workers are no longer receiving hazard pay and have not been for quite a while from their employers.

But other cities are stepping in and they are acting, they are passing legislation to ensure that these grocery workers have access to hazard pay through the duration of the COVID crisis.

The legislation that we have on the introduction and referral calendar would declare an emergency in response to COVID-19 and require grocery businesses to provide employees with hazard pay for work performed in Seattle during a period when workers are most at risk.

The hazard pay would compensate grocery employees for the risk of working on the front lines in this global pandemic, improve their financial ability to access resources, and to be able to stay safe and healthy.

It encourages them to continue their vital work, which we all rely on for access to essentials like toilet paper and making sure that people have access to diapers and baby food, along with making sure that we have the access to nutrients during this time where we're supposed to stay healthy in order to avoid getting COVID.

And it supports the welfare of the greater community that is depending on grocery store employees for safe and reliable access to food and these critical services.

During the development of this legislation, I had the opportunity to hear real life experiences from grocery store workers themselves who are doing everything they can to protect themselves.

They are wearing their masks while at work.

They are doing their due diligence to make sure that everything is clean and safe.

But they're working amongst members of the public who come into the grocery stores wearing the mask below their nose, can feel the heat coming off of the people who walk by or are near them as their stocking shelves.

And we want them to be safe.

I also heard a really tragic story from a grocery worker.

She has children and she was making a decision about how to make sure to keep her children safe in this time and continue to be able to access her job in order to make sure she was making ends meet.

She made an impossible decision to not keep the lease at her apartment and instead live in her car because she knew she had to keep her job in order to make sure that her kid had access to food.

And she is driving from Seattle to Lakewood for childcare, driving back up to Seattle to do her job at a grocery store, driving back down and picking up her kiddo and where are they sleeping?

in the car because that is the type of decision that people are making right now when they are living paycheck to paycheck and worried about their kiddos not being able to access child care and wanting to make sure that they are able to keep their jobs so that they can provide for their family.

These are impossible decisions that nobody should be making in this time of crisis.

Allowing for hazard pay helps families not have to make a decision between a roof over their head in an actual apartment versus being able to put their kid out into child care and keep their job.

So these are stories of folks who are on the front line.

We call them heroes.

We call them essential workers.

Well, we should make sure that they are not actually being you know, forced to sacrifice the health and well-being.

These are not sacrificial workers.

Let's treat them as the true essential workers that they are.

Just for context, we have the city of Los Angeles who is considering this type of legislation on January 6th with a possible vote on February 9th.

Los Angeles County voting on January 26. Montebello January 27th is when they're considering their vote.

Oakland and San Jose are considering this the first week of February and these cities are acting as quickly as they can because they recognize the crisis of COVID is not yet done and they are working to pay these essential workers at least $4 more and also the city of Berkeley is considering $5 more an hour.

So we look forward to having a conversation with you all.

We know this is an urgent issue and we look forward to having a robust discussion as we think about making sure that those who are on the forefront of helping to keep us healthy and safe.

have legislation to make sure that they're able to keep themselves and their family healthy and safe.

If you have any questions about this legislation, please do let us know.

Sejal Parikh, our Chief of Staff, has been working on this.

Thank you, Sejal, and Karina Bull from Central Staff as well.

It will be on the Housing and Finance Committee agenda this Friday for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

We also have several appointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Board, the Seattle Housing Authority, and the Let's see, also the Community Roots Housing Public Development, which are on our agenda for Friday as well.

This afternoon, we do have one item on today's full council agenda.

I will be bringing forward Resolution 31983. This confirms our desire for elected officials in our local area, our state, and our national level to help work with those who are in Cuba, other elected officials, medical and healthcare organizations, and to work with the international community to exchange information related to COVID-19.

I discussed this resolution in detail last week, when describing the resolution on the introduction of a referral calendar, and just very briefly, as you know, Cuba's medical system and health information system has a long history of strong international solidarity and strength.

I described the types of delegations that have left Cuba to help other countries during this time of crisis and in years past.

I hope for your support this afternoon, look forward to sharing more comments this afternoon, and we will be bringing an amended version forward.

You should have received that first thing this morning.

Thank you very much, Asha, for your work on that.

It makes two small changes.

Thank you very much to our friends from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations and Councilmember Herbold for the language that has been included to account for the current state of relations between Cuba and the United States.

And we're also making this a councilmatic resolution.

I want to just note that, again, our Housing and Finance Committee is going to be meeting this Friday instead of today, obviously.

We moved that over due to the holiday and our council morning briefing.

We'll be meeting on January 22nd at 2 p.m.

We will have the reappointments to the Seattle Housing Authority, Dr. Paula Hudson, three appointments and six reappointments to the Community Roots Housing, Sarah, Michelle, two Michelles, Michelle and Michelle, Paul, Jillian, Bob, George, Derek, and Rachel.

And then we also have four appointments, two new appointments and two reappointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Committee, Jeanne, Sarah, Leona and Artie.

So we have the agenda that will be published very soon.

I want to thank all of the folks for their continued service there.

A short presentation from the Seattle Housing Authority on the Yesler Terrace redevelopment.

And then lastly, the hazard pay legislation, which I described previously.

Council President, that is all for me today.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Any comments or questions on that report?

hearing none.

We'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Peterson, followed by Council Member Salant.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on today's full City Council agenda.

Our committee meets tomorrow, Wednesday, January 20, at 2 p.m.

Normally our committee meets in the morning, but we moved it to the afternoon so we may all witness the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris earlier that day.

As you can see on the published agenda for the committee, we have more appointments to the various advisory boards, as well as briefings on technology items.

I'm very thankful to Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Juarez for their leadership on the Puget Sound Regional Council in securing additional funding to restore our West Seattle Bridge.

In District 4 earlier this month, I attended the North Police Precinct Advisory Committee, which enabled the captain to answer questions from community leaders about the disturbing increase in burglaries throughout North Precinct.

They're up 34% when you compare 2020 to 2019, according to SPD's crime dashboard.

This volunteer organization helps to gather and provide information and feedback on public safety concerns in the North Precinct, which is the largest geographic area covered by our police department.

Yesterday, I participated in the Peaceful March, sponsored by the Seattle MLK Jr.

Organizing Coalition.

As Council Member Lewis and Council Member Morales mentioned, started at Garfield High School and ended up at the King County Administration Building.

It was great to hear from Larry Gossett, who was recounting the story of how King County's name was properly changed to represent MLK Jr.

So having participated in marches like this, starting decades ago as a student, it's discouraging to see how far we need to go as a nation.

I believe yesterday's march in solidarity during these tumultuous times, those seem to strengthen everybody's resolve.

I support Council Member Morales' comments earlier about increasing home ownership and business ownership for marginalized communities.

Look forward to working with her on her committee for that.

As Council Member Juarez mentioned over Zoom this afternoon, there's an opportunity at 3.30 to participate in State Attorney General Bob Ferguson's public forum on how best to protect our National Archives at facilities located in Seattle Council District 4. We must not allow the last gasp of the Trump administration to cause any more harm.

And that means we have to work together to save the archives by preserving these priceless historical documents here in the Northwest.

That's all for my report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for that report.

Any comments or questions?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Sawant, and then we will hear from Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I also want to convey my best wishes to Congresswoman Jayapal and her family as they recover from COVID.

I hope it's a quick recovery.

It is appalling that people contracted COVID because of Republicans.

shamefully refusing to wear protective masks as they were sheltering from the far right violence at the capitol building.

As if having to be vulnerable to the dangerous actions by the far right was not horrifying enough.

We also heard just on this note also on twitter or from a series of tweets from a Seattle ER nurse over the weekend who said that when Seattle police officers came to the ER to obtain a statement from an assault patient, and now I'm quoting from their tweets, one officer blatantly refused to put a mask on while standing in a high traffic hallway.

There were COVID positive patients in nearby rooms.

Multiple nurses handed him masks.

When I saw he threw them away, I asked if there was a problem.

The officer put his hand in my face and said, Miss, I'm here to do my job and you interrupting me is keeping me from that.

If you need to have a conversation about masks.

It can wait.

I told him there is no conversation.

I just need you to wear a mask.

You're putting patients and staff at risk by refusing.

The officer ignored me point blank.

I escalated to my charge nurse.

He condescendingly refused her too.

Nursing supervisor got involved and he finally put on mask but stated he would be taking it off in the patient room.

Throughout all this, at least three other officers were standing right there.

None of them thought to say, hey man, maybe you should just put the mask on.

That is end quote from the series of tweets.

And the Seattle Police Department responded to this on Twitter saying they should file a complaint with OPA.

And obviously, as a lot of other ordinary people responded on Twitter, there's no hope that OPA is going to carry out any serious investigation and really hold these officers to account.

But I just wanted to convey publicly my appreciation to this ER nurse for sharing this information publicly so that the members of the public can weigh in in some shape or form.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee will be Tuesday, January 26th.

At that meeting, we will discuss and possibly vote on legislation to extend the eviction moratorium to the end of this year, as so many people have demanded.

And I'll be sending that legislation to all your offices once legal review is complete.

We will also begin to discuss legislation creating the right to counsel for anyone facing evictions in Seattle.

And finally, we will have appointments.

More than 2,000 people signed the petition that was organized by my office in coalition with renters' rights organizations to Mayor Durkan last month, calling on her to renew the moratorium and extend it to, eviction moratorium, and extend it to the end of 2021. And undoubtedly, renter organizing succeeded in getting the extension, but Durkan only extended it for three months through the end of March.

And we know the dire statistics in terms of The renter debt crisis that is going to unleash a tidal wave, you know, going in well into the recovery as well, you know, with the most optimistic projections for vaccination, dissemination and economic recovery.

Nearly 12 million renters will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utilities.

by this month.

And this was from last month from Moody's Analytics.

And last month from our Census Bureau survey, from the monthly survey, nine million renters said that they were behind on rent.

And so these are nationwide statistics obviously going to be reflected in major metropolitan areas like Seattle.

Right now in Seattle, people who have financial hardship in this emergency are protected by a law that creates a defense against eviction for six months after the moratorium ends.

Working with renters rights organizations like Be Seattle and the Tenants Union and rank-and-file renters themselves who are becoming active, my office is bringing forward We will discuss the bill that would extend the defense against eviction for our city's renters to be six months past a moratorium expiration or at least to the end of this year, whichever is later, so that renters can have a bit of certainty at a time that is extremely stressful and traumatic.

We have heard profound testimony from renters and community members without exaggeration about why extending it at least to the end of this year is necessary, and the kind of fear and anxiety that renters are facing every single day, wondering what will happen to them after a couple of months.

We have 73 testimonials so far.

We are actively soliciting renters to give their feedback.

I will read just one right now, and this one is actually from a homeowner and a small landlord.

named Evan from Beacon Hill who says, quote, I am a homeowner and landlord living in Beacon Hill.

So many renters in Seattle are struggling right now due to COVID and cannot meet the demands of their rental agreements.

These people are struggling due to no fault of their own and allowing evictions during this time will only increase suffering in our city.

If someone cannot afford to keep paying rent, how could they possibly afford the cost of finding a new place to rent?

A mass wave of evictions will come unless the city council takes a stand and blocks them.

Please extend the eviction moratorium to the entirety of 2021 to protect our most vulnerable citizens during this time.

End quote.

The bill will also remove the requirement where tenants are required to submit an affidavit saying that they have suffered financial hardship.

I mean, the whole logic behind removing this requirement is, of course, they have financial hardship.

Why else would they be in eviction court?

And those are the damning statistics of eviction that it hits very low-income people, working-class people, especially African-American women-led households the hardest.

And we also know the overarching point that the impact of such paperwork requirements, like any kind of means testing, is always to dissuade people who are in reality eligible from actually accessing the benefits that are intended for them.

And often, this ends up hitting the most destitute the hardest.

This is particularly important when taken in conjunction with the other piece of legislation that we will be discussing as part of this package, which is guaranteeing the right to counsel for anyone facing eviction.

During last year's budget, through the People's Budget Movement, we majorly expanded the funding for eviction defense attorneys, which we had started fighting for, and won funding in previous year's budgets, which has been essential.

It is unclear if additional funding will be needed, and if so, how much would be needed in 2021. We are trying to assess that.

And because it's uncertain where the mayor and governor will extend their moratoriums to, this legislation would make having an attorney in court with you when you face eviction a right, regardless of ability to pay, just like you have the right to an attorney through the public defender when you're accused of a crime.

In this legislation, we're making it clear that these public eviction defense attorneys can represent people even who are evicted by default, which means that The renter has not responded to the eviction paperwork in time or has not appeared in court.

The Housing Justice Project has sent my office data showing that default evictions or evictions that occur by default are a massive problem.

Anywhere from 30% to a shocking 65% of renters with eviction notices end up experiencing eviction by default.

Depending on the region and the time, you know, it ranges.

We have heard absolute horror stories.

It's unbelievable.

I mean, literally, there have been people who have been in comas when they got eviction notices, elderly people who haven't had the ability to pay attention to their mail because they are facing many challenges in terms of their health.

The Housing Justice Project representatives and also renters themselves will be there in committee to share these testimonies themselves.

And we strongly believe, along with the Housing Justice Project, that removing this requirement to the eviction moratorium legislation is essential because it will allow the public eviction defense attorneys to stop evictions of people who are not capable for whatever reason of appearing in court to defend themselves.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant for that report.

Are there any comments or questions?

All right.

Hearing none, let's go ahead.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you, sorry for the delay.

I just wanted to highlight as it relates specifically to the mask wearing question.

Thank you, Council Member Swamp, for raising this issue and thank you as well, of course, to the ER nurse who over the weekend daylighted the concern.

This is not a new concern with examples of individual officers not wearing masks.

And as apparently it was reported in this instance, no encouragement from the officer's colleagues to do so.

I want to mention that although the statement coming out of the police department this weekend really focused on the OPA as a means to file a complaint.

I have asked Chief Diaz whether or not there is another approach that does not rely on an OPA complaint but gets resolution to the issue.

Particularly when I say resolution to the issue, I think what's most important is corrective action and chief best over the summer.

Wrote to us and to members of the public when we were receiving these kinds of complaints.

And she wrote, the police department is fully aware of the science showing the important role masks can play.

I've directed all employees to adhere to the public health order.

In each instance where an employee is known to not have a mask on, that employee's direct supervisor and their chain of command will be notified and directed to address the lack of compliance.

a subtle but i think some substantive difference uh...

in what uh...

we heard from chief best from what uh...

we read in the statement over the weekend in that uh...

it sounds to me that chief best was making a commitment uh...

to uh...

to work to try to address the issue through the chain of command uh...

absent uh...

a uh...

an OPA investigation and sustained findings.

So I've reached out to to Chief Diaz to just find out from him whether or not there is that method as well.

I don't think that when we're dealing with a public health emergency and a pandemic, we should have to wait for the completion of an OPA investigation when the OPA is investigating hundreds of complaints right now.

We should have to wait for the completion of such an investigation in order to get corrective action.

And corrective action means safe workplace and public service engagement, public health practices as required by the state of Washington, Governor Inslee.

So I'll let folks know what I find out in that area.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any other comments or questions?

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

We'll hear from Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction and referral calendar.

There are nine items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's agenda.

Four appointments to the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority Board, two appointments to the Pike Place Market Historical Commission, one appointment to the Urban Forestry Commission, one appointment to the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority Board, and Council Bill 119978, which extends interim floodplain regulations that we adopted last year for an additional year while permanent regulations are finalized, developed, that will come before us.

We did pass an interim bill this last year, and this is a second iteration of that.

The next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is next Wednesday, January 27th.

We will be voting on the construction and energy code updates as well as a contract rezone extension.

As a reminder to colleagues, please ensure that you have discussed with central staff any amendments you plan to bring forward by today.

Again, any member of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee that is planning to bring forward an amendment to the Energy Code, please ensure that you have discussed with central staff your amendment by today to ensure we are able to bring your proposals forward next week.

Last week, And again, this week, as I mentioned during OIR's briefing, I testified on behalf of the Association of Washington Cities regarding the decertification bill, House Bill 1088, Senate Bill 5051, and as I mentioned, Association of Washington Cities government relations advocate, Tacoma Deputy Mayor Blocker and Spokane City Council President Brian Beggs also testified in support of these bills.

This week, I will be attending the Regional Transit Committee.

As well this week, as we honored Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday, it is clearly apparent to me, and I'm sure the rest of our colleagues, that we have not achieved the dreams he espoused and marched for, and that we have so much work to do to make this a reality.

Here in District 6, I meet with District 6 residents every week, and I look forward to meeting with residents this Thursday, during and after 9 to 5 business hours.

Last week, I heard from neighbors in the Finney neighborhood, Crown Hill, Green Lake, Ballard, East Ballard, and Whittier Heights.

We discussed homelessness from management approaches, permanent supportive housing, and other housing strategies.

Many residents bringing their creative ideas.

And I spoke with a member of the Seattle Compassion Network who we will be engaging with in District Six specific issues moving forward.

I also heard comments about public safety, spoke about policing and mental health and public health concerns.

Again, I will be meeting with residents this Thursday and looking forward to speaking with District Six residents.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

That is my report for today.

Thank you Councilmember Strauss for that report.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we're going to go ahead and go down the line now and hear from Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much.

As far as items that I have on the full council agenda today from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, we have six appointments to the Community Police Commission.

Two from each of the three appointing bodies, the Community Police Commission itself, the council, and the mayor.

As mentioned earlier, I have an amendment related to council member Mosqueda's Resolution 31984, specifically the amendment addressing the news that we heard last week that the State Department returned Cuba to the short list of countries that are identified as supposed state sponsors of terrorism.

The plan was to add to that list was developed outside of the State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau, which would usually play the central role in such a decision, which certainly makes it look like this was a political decision to add them to the list.

And so, My office reached out to an advocate for the resolution who encouraged us to work with Council Member Mosqueda to include language that specifically requests that the administration reverse the recent State Department designation of Cuba as a terrorist state in the resolution itself.

Public Safety and Human Services Committee has no meeting this week.

I just want to give a little bit of a preview at next week's committee meeting.

We will learn more about how the $3 million in public safety funding provided by the council in the 2020 summer rebalancing package has been contracted to leverage the work of community-based organizations with expertise in crime prevention and violence disruption.

That initiative is the Seattle Community Safety Initiative.

Again, funding for this effort was made possible by reductions made to the Seattle Police Department budget and adopted by the council during the summer of 2020. The Seattle Community Safety Initiative uses the geographic hub model in each the Central District, Southeast Seattle, and West Seattle.

in which culturally appropriate place-based organizations provide a range of coordinated violence prevention services.

It's a partnership with Community Passageways, Urban Family, Boys and Girls Club, and the YMCA.

The hub approach allows the Seattle Community Safety Initiative to have localized and coordinated interventions along with wraparound support services to stabilize and strengthen communities and clients.

and seek a decrease of violence in the focus community.

It includes a community safety specialist who serves as a critical incident responder and works in highly trained teams to monitor safety on high risk areas and rapidly respond to incidents of violence in partnership with local law enforcement.

These teams respond in real time to critical incidents and de-escalate situations.

They are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a focus on hot spots, and they assist victims of violence with financial needs, facilitate therapeutic care referrals, and create a system support for families.

And so we're going to, not this week, but next week, have a briefing coordinated by HSD, but also bringing in our partners from Community Passageways, Urban Family, Boys and Girls Club, and the YMCA to talk about the geographic hub model of community-based public safety efforts.

I want to highlight that there is another $12 million, you may remember, in funding pending.

This is another $12 million from the council that is focused on community capacity public safety investments.

And, you know, given the separation from SPD of nearly 200 officers from the last year, over the last year, given the council's efforts to support community-based alternatives to policing that focus on public safety goals, and then the upticks in crime, not just crime related to property, which is Definitely a concern, but the uptick in crime is reported to persons, violent crime, homicides.

It's really important that we look at these investments to build community capacity, to make our communities safer.

This $12 million, again, this was also included in the summer rebalancing package vetoed veto overrode an agreement with the mayor's office that we may not be able to get the full 12 million out in 2020. We haven't been able to get any of it out in 2020. I feel like there's a big urgency with getting these dollars out the door.

Appreciate the fact that HSD is working to develop the RFP with community, but I'm going to, and I hope my colleagues on the council will join me in pushing to get these dollars out the door.

The framework I've seen looks at funding agencies sometime at the end of the second quarter.

And I really think that we need to do everything we can do to speed that up.

The Seattle Fire Department COVID-19 tests administered at their four sites is now cumulatively upwards of 570,000 tests from June 5th to June 15th.

Another nearly over 10,000 tests over last week's report.

Additional updates from the Human Services Department include an announcement that the Hospitality Worker Emergency Relief Fund application is available from January 11th through February 1st for low-income hospitality workers who have lost their jobs or income due to COVID-19.

You can go to hospitality.wellspringfs.org Chesty has also asked me to uplift the fact that 120 students completed the fall quarter of the Seattle Youth Employment Program's SYEP school program, attending classes in professionalism, growth mindset, communication, code switching, collaboration, and more.

Students received a $300 stipend for completing at least 80% of participation hours.

There's a winter quarter, and that runs from January 12th through February 25th.

And if you're interested in learning more about the program, tanya.m.seattle.gov is your contact.

There's been a lot of talk about COVID vaccination this past week.

I want to just share some of the latest, in case you haven't heard.

As of January 18th, Washington State opened COVID vaccination to everyone in Phase 1B1.

That's all older adults in Washington State over the age of 65, people 50 and older who live in multi-generational households and meet two conditions.

Either they can't live independently and receive support from a relative or caregiver and lives with a disability.

or I should say, lives with and cares for a young child like a grandparent with a grandchild.

This is a very large group of people.

And so the eligibility pool, the pool of people who are eligible under Phase 1B is much larger than the amount of vaccine we have.

So due to limited supply of vaccine, not everyone will be able to access a vaccine right away, despite the good work of the state and King County and the city of Seattle to sort of build that infrastructure to deliver the vaccine.

So access will improve as the supply chart and widen and providers in county receive more doses.

Um, COVID vaccine will be considered by Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance, and the cost of the vaccine will be covered for people who are uninsured.

Maybe a copay or an office fee visit, depending on your insurance plan.

Public health is also planning free vaccine clinics when supplies of vaccine are available.

If you are in phase one, can call your doctor's office or health provider to see if they have available vaccine vaccination appointments.

Um Washington state also has a phase finer tool to confirm your eligibility and provide you with a list of possible vaccination locations.

You can find that at find your phase wa dot org.

The online form is getting a lot of traffic so you might have to try it more than once.

I have tried multiple times to get through.

Um if you can't use the online Phase Finder tool and have no one to assist you, you can help over the phone at 1-800-525-0127, then press pound.

Finally, you can learn more at KingCountyGov forward slash COVID including updates as the vaccination rollout progresses.

Let's see, other highlights, just want to, as mentioned before, say that I really appreciate the assistance of OIR in preparing my testimony to the Labor, Commerce, and Tribal Affairs Committee.

of the State Senate in support of Senate Bills 51, 34, and 50, 55. I want to thank also Mayor Durbin for also testifying in favor of both of those bills.

And I want to also Thank you.

And I would like to, as Ben mentioned before, thank the Seattle Council's representatives to PSRC, Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Juarez in their advocacy for funding on to support the repair of the wet

All right.

Hearing none, I'll go ahead and give my report in order to conclude this section of the agenda.

I'm going to abbreviate my comments since we do have an executive session and five of us have to go into a select labor committee meeting at, or I think a labor relations policy committee at 12, excuse me, a Select Labor Committee meeting at 1230 p.m.

today.

So hopefully we'll have at least 30 minutes for us to have a conversation in the exec session.

So report of the Governance and Education Committee.

The Governance and Education Committee is currently scheduled to have our next meeting on February 9th, 2021 at two o'clock p.m.

Relevant to my committee work this week, I will be opening an application period and process for interested individuals to apply to serve as a commissioner for the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

The application will be available online on the city council's website later today and will also make sure to distribute that via my social media channels.

This is a quasi judicial role and will be a great opportunity for someone who is interested in Seattle's ethics and elections system, especially in light of our public campaign financing program via our democracy voucher.

If you know of someone, colleagues, who would be a good candidate, please let us know by reaching out to my senior policy manager in my office with information about any prospective candidates.

I have no items on this afternoon's introduction referral calendar, and there are no items from the governance and education committee on the city council agenda.

However, I do have a proclamation that I would like to present this afternoon.

It's my pleasure to be able to bring forward a proclamation honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

Unity Week.

My chief of staff, Breonna Thomas, circulated the proclamation on Friday afternoon.

I want to thank the staff at the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, members of Team Morales, and our communications team, all of whom contributed to the drafting of this proclamation.

I'm honored to take a moment to reflect on the city's continued work toward Black liberation in 2020 and our shared hopes for 2021. Countless marches, petitions, and a critical examination of our work as a city toward a truly racially just society has left members of the Black community, and particularly our Black women, leading the RSGI effort in nearly every department, exhausted but determined to do more.

This afternoon, the City Council will have an opportunity to acknowledge the work of our city staff by presenting this proclamation to Natalie Hunter.

Natalie has worked at the city for 40 years, and she currently works at Seattle Public Utilities.

Natalie is an early adopter of the city's race and social justice initiative and a community advocate for social change.

Natalie has been a witness to the city's attempt to change and challenge long-held norms and has, at great personal cost, organized with others to undo the harmful impacts of racism.

And lastly, I want to thank Mayor Durkan for her concurrence with this proclamation.

Because we are presenting this proclamation at two o'clock this afternoon, signatures will need to be affixed to the proclamation before it is presented.

So I'm gonna ask that the city clerk this morning call the roll to confirm which council members' signatures may be affixed to the proclamation.

Before I do that, I'm happy to answer any questions before I request the clerk call the roll.

I'm not seeing any questions, so will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the Martin Luther King Jr.

Unity Week Proclamation.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Yes.

And then, Madam Clerk, can you call on Council Member Sawant one more time?

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Thank you.

Nine in favor.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, colleagues, for that.

Looking forward to making that presentation this afternoon.

Quick report out.

We've had a lot of conversation of the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board.

We did spend much of our time focusing on 2021 funding opportunities for PSRC.

The region is expected to receive additional federal transportation funds this year, including an estimated $50 million in regionally managed Federal Highway Administration funds that would be directed to projects on a contingency list that was adopted as part of the most recent project selection process.

In addition to that, $18 million from the Transportation Alternatives Program, which funds transportation improvements like bicycle, pedestrian facilities, historic preservation, and other community projects.

There are a few really critical priority projects in Seattle that are being considered as part of that $18 million bucket.

And then the $15 million from FHWA's Highway Infrastructure Program.

Of course, we've already had a conversation that $14.4 million was provided to the West Seattle Bridge repair.

There were also some dollars that were allocated to some of the bicycle infrastructure and pedestrian infrastructure improvement projects that are of high priority for the city of Seattle included as part of this overall recommendation.

The executive board is planning to take final action on this recommendation from the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board on January 28th.

I sit on the executive board and plan to attend that meeting to ensure that this proposal moves forward smoothly.

For any of you who might have ongoing concerns about that or hear concerns from our regional partners about that proposal, please make sure to let me know or Kelsey Beck in OIR know so that we can address and manage those concerns in advance of the executive committee.

Lastly, this Thursday, January 21st at 10 o'clock in the morning, Councilmember Lewis and I will participate in the King County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee meeting.

We are the two representatives for the Seattle City Council.

At this meeting, the Governing Committee is going to discuss and vote on another suite of amendments to previously discussed bylaws before finally adopting the bylaws that will govern the work of the Governing Committee moving forward.

And I don't have anything else to add.

Happy to answer any questions or hear any comments on my report.

Hearing none, that does conclude that agenda item.

We are going to move into an executive session now.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

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

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 1230 p.m.

today.

If the executive session is extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.