Good morning, everybody.
Thank you for being here for our September 3rd council briefing.
I trust everyone had a great recess and you're ready, willing, and eager to get back into the swing of things here.
So we'll just go around the table.
We have a light agenda.
We do not have an executive session.
So I will simply say that and make a quick announcement that I'm passing around a proclamation I think most of you are aware of it, for El Centro de la Raza Day.
And many of you know that this year, El Centro de la Raza will have their 47th annual gala, which is their biggest fundraiser supporting their programs and services.
It'll be held in the Washington State Convention Center on October 12th.
Should be probably over 1,000 people there, and they'll get proclamations from senators and state reps and King County, Council members, but most importantly, they're going to get it from the Seattle City Council.
And so we have one here for your signature.
And if you don't want to say anything more about it, please do.
But here it is.
And I started the signature process.
And we'll pass that around.
Nothing for a vote this afternoon from the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee.
So I'll just sort of stop there.
And we'll go around the table and talk about a preview of today's full council actions.
And Council Member Shawant, why don't you take it from there?
Thank you, President Harrell.
Good morning, everyone.
There are no items on today's city council agenda from the Human Services Equitable Development and Renters Rights Committee.
The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for its regular time next week, September 10th at 2 p.m.
My office has prepared legislation to expand the opportunity to create tiny house villages in Seattle.
Some of you might remember earlier this year, I chaired a meeting for the Select Committee on Homelessness in which we heard from Many of the frontline advocates and people who operate and reside in tiny house villages, and we heard how successful they have been in helping people get back on their feet.
The legislation that we have prepared will expand opportunities to build tiny house villages in Seattle, and since it is a land use, the bill has required a State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA, review.
In our understanding, just to describe some of the background, in our understanding, the mayor's office refused to allow the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections to do that review, just like I believe they did with the ADU-DADU legislation.
So I wanted to specifically thank Ketel Freeman and also Eric McConaughey, Ali Panucci, Jeff Sims from central staff who did that hard work for us.
It's much appreciated.
Unfortunately, the determination of non-significance for the SEPA review that we published on August 8th was appealed 13 minutes before the appeal deadline closed on August 29th by Elizabeth Campbell, who's the same person who appealed the Fort Lawton Affordable Housing Development SEPA review.
Just like in Fort Lawton, this sort of appeal can, as we know, significantly delay council's ability to democratically consider legislation.
And since they waited until the last 13 minutes of the legal appeal window, wouldn't be surprised if there were there would be further delays.
The appeal will now go to the hearing examiner and once that review has been settled then the council will have the opportunity to to consider this legislation and vote on it, but I expect that it will take several months.
But in the meantime, if your offices or if any of your constituents would like to review the legislation, that's definitely possible, and it's available on the council's issues page online, or my office is happy to provide you all a copy.
Thank you, Council Member Schwan.
Council Member Chayka, before you go, let me read a script here that I neglected to read.
I can now.
I can start.
This morning we are joined by Councilmember Swatt, Pacheco, Bagshaw, Mosqueda, Gonzalez, Juarez, Herbold, and O'Brien.
I had to remember all your names here for a minute.
I had a memory fail here.
And if there's no objection, the minutes of the August 5th and the 12th 2019 meeting will be approved.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are approved.
Councilmember Pacheco, sorry about that.
Interruption there.
It's all good.
Okay.
What a break.
So there are no PLEZ related items on introduction and referral today.
There are no PLEZ related on the full council agenda today.
We have a PLEZ committee meeting tomorrow.
We will be discussing SEPA reform, contract rezone, and ordinance to preserve open space.
There will also be a PLEZ committee meeting next week.
On next Monday, more specifically, September 9th at 5.30 p.m., we'll be holding a public hearing on updates to the city's CEPA policies.
Please let our office know if you plan on attending.
And then lastly, I want to list a couple of community events that we're having in District 4. We have a Laura Hearst Salmon Bake on Thursday at 5.30, Budget Town Hall at 12 inside the University Heights Center, a party in the View Ridge Park Sunday at 2 p.m., and that is the D4 schedule for the week.
Thank you.
Council Member Bekshaw.
Thank you.
I'm passing this back.
There was a second page here.
Thank you.
Good morning, everybody.
Good to see you.
It's been an amazing two weeks.
We've got a number of, I think, mostly simple items from the Finance and Neighborhood Committee today.
We've got an ordinance relating to city employment that adopts our 2019 city position list.
We have an ordinance relating to city employment that adjusts the pay zones for titles in the city's power marketing compensation program for Seattle City Light.
We also have an office of housing property transfer.
This would authorize the disposition of the Yakima Avenue South and South Irving Street property for development of permanently affordable housing ownership.
We also have a special finance and neighborhoods committee lunch and learn tomorrow, that's September 4th, At noon, there's just one item on it, and this is about affordability of long-term care.
I want to say thank you to Irene Stewart and others in our Human Services Department.
Once again, this is an effort that I've been trying to focus on, on our city of Seattle being an age-friendly city, all ages and abilities, and this particular program will look at how do people pay for long-term care, particularly for those with very low income, what the opportunities are and the challenges and where we can go for help.
So it's tomorrow at noon.
If you have any questions about it, let me know.
Otherwise, we'll be doing a report afterwards.
Our next scheduled Finance and Neighborhoods Committee meeting is scheduled on September 11th, so that's in a week.
We are getting a longer and longer list of things that have to be on that committee.
I'm hoping that we will look at scheduling a special committee before budget just so we can do any kind of cleanup.
There are items that, and as much as I appreciate everybody coming in at the last minute with good ideas, I'm going to try to encourage us prior to budget so we know what's going on and that we aren't having surprises through budget.
So, again, September 11th, 2 o'clock, and then probably a special meeting.
We've got lots going on, and as you know, that the mayor will be presenting her budget the last Monday of September, but it does give us an additional week prior to our November time to vote on the budget.
So we'll have lots to do in October and November, and thank you all for your attention.
Thank you.
Council Member Esqueda.
Good morning, Mr. President.
Good morning.
I have a few items and I want to first thank Councilmember Bagshaw for her willingness to hear a number of items in her Committee on Finance and Neighborhoods that the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee was able to pass off because they were really related to some pretty routine budget items and transactions, so thanks in advance.
We do have two items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.
That's item number six on our agenda, Council Bill 119516, an ordinance relating to City Light and authorizing the large solar program for customers with solar photovoltaic systems sized larger than 100 kilowatts and no greater than 2 megawatts.
Basically we're bringing forward legislation and there will be a substitute bill to look at technical amendments that includes clarifying language to make sure that as we as we pass this legislation we are making it more possible for mid-sized buildings to have solar panels on the rooftops.
It's a great addition, I would say, to the ongoing conversation around how do we create more green options and green energy in our city.
Item number seven on our agenda is Council Bill 119571, which is an ordinance related to City Light, authorizing the departments to enter into the Western energy imbalance market, including the ability to execute additional agreements necessary or or convenient to participate in the Western energy and balance market.
This is something that I know many of you have been interested in over the years and we are now moving forward with authorizing our ability to enter into that market so that our greener energy can be offered up and down the West Coast and really hopefully help move more folks off of more dirty options.
So then transitioning to the five bills that are coming from Councilmember Bagshaw's committee, we appreciate your willingness to take on five City Light bills, really representing real estate transactions.
These issues are not large policy, they're not programmatic or land disposition items, but really more routine Seattle City Light bills.
pieces of legislation needed to gain authorization from the City Council in order to move forward.
So I'll go through these very briefly.
Item number 10 is Council Bill 119591 which is Snohomish County's 35th Avenue sales easement.
This ordinance allows for City Light to sell a small portion of property on each side of 35th Avenue in Snohomish County but reserves an easement for electric transmission line purposes in order to allow for the county for road widening purposes.
The fair market value is just $41,000.
Item number 15 is Council Bill 119592, which is the Boundary Housing Project.
This ordinance allows City Light to negotiate for the purchase or lease of up to two houses in Penn or Oriel County in order to provide temporary housing for City Light personnel and contractors.
working on the Boundary Hydroelectric Project.
And item number 12 is Council Bill 119498, which is the 2018 Boundary Hydroelectric Project Habitat Land Deed Acceptance, allowing City Light to accept the deeds for two separate properties in that same county.
Item number 13 is Council Bill 119533, which is the plotted easement acceptance.
This ordinance allows the acceptance of 451 easements for overhead and underground electrical rights in King County.
And finally, item number 14 is Council Bill 119534, distribution easement acceptance.
This ordinance allows the acceptance of 112 easements for overhead and underground electrical rights in King County.
I'll have more to say at committee so that people understand what these bills are in full, but just want to say thank you to Councilmember Baxter again for taking these items on.
Thank you, yes.
And then today, we wanted to make sure folks had a flyer or at least information about the upcoming gig economy lunch and learn.
It's the experts in the new economy and workforce.
We're going to have a brown bag lunch and learn today at noon and hope that you can all join us to focus on the gig work, upcoming changes in our local economy that we're We've seen experience across the country, frankly.
But for example, individuals who are working on app-based platforms such as Instacart and Lyft will be joining us, as well as academic experts to talk about the impact of the gig economy.
So that's today at noon.
Later this week, Mr. President, on Thursday, I'll be, again, having our Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee beginning at 9 a.m.
Just as a reminder to folks, we're going to do the City Light items in the morning, and then at 10 o'clock we'll begin the conversation around the hotel worker legislation, take public comment then.
Our intent is to have amendments and discussion on three of the bills.
The one bill that we're still working on, and I'll be talking with all of you about, is on health care.
We're going to hold that for another week just so that we're able to get more feedback from all of you and various stakeholders.
But our intent will be to move those three items out with your great ideas, edits, and amendments that you've all sent in already.
We're going to be working that up.
I just want to say huge thanks to Karina Bull and Dan Eater who have spent various portions of the break working on various amendments from you all.
So I think we should have that ready.
later today or tomorrow so that you all have a chance to take a look at those amendments later today is the goal.
But then we'll have one more committee hearing that we'll talk about healthcare next Thursday and then with the goal of trying to move everything out of full council on the 16th.
Thanks to Council Member Gonzalez, co-sponsor on that legislation as well.
We will be sending that around to you for your review later today.
I think that is it.
Thank you very much.
sharing all that information, got our schedules ready.
Councilman Gonzalez.
My report will be very short.
Good morning, everyone.
I don't have anything on this afternoon's agenda from the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee and wanted to just sort of report out on really quickly the fact that I was in Denmark for a week on a urban livability master class and brought back a lot of really cool information, including how to be more intentional with limited open space opportunities and making sure that they are designed to deal with storm water and rain events, as Denmark has experienced.
In Copenhagen in particular, they had what they refer to as a cloud burst, which is basically flash flooding in, I believe, 2008. caused the city about one billion, that's with a B, dollars worth of damages to the city's infrastructure as a result of a lack of green storm water infrastructure.
And so they have really gone towards a model of using urban parks and gathering spaces and capitalizing on whatever possible green space they have and assuming a hundred year storm as opposed to a 10 year storm or a 20 year storm.
that could happen frequently throughout the year to really model how they were designing the urban spaces.
Also had a great opportunity to look at some of their student housing options built both on campus sites and off campus sites.
Also had an opportunity to look at how they do different scales of housing within current development.
and how they've really prioritized partnering with private partnerships, having public-private partnerships to meet the needs of affordable housing and housing in general throughout their city.
And of course, last but not least, had a wonderful opportunity to commute by bicycle throughout the entire city of Copenhagen for an entire week.
which is probably ordinarily easily, but is a little bit more challenging when you're rolling around the city with 20 people.
But their infrastructure is really something that left me in awe.
Their bicycle lanes are four meters wide, which is effectively the width of an entire car lane within the US.
There are lanes within the bike lanes for passing and adaptive bicycles.
And you saw people of all ages and abilities and genders utilizing that infrastructure.
And it just was remarkable to me how safe and how confident I felt riding around the city.
Literally all week there was rain, there was sun, there was wind, and being able to do all weather was really an amazing experience.
And one of the things that was pretty remarkable to me is that when they have snowstorms, 75% of Copenhagers still ride their bicycles to work.
and from work and around the city even in the event of a serious storm and in large part that's because the bicycle network is considered the primary transportation network in the city of Copenhagen and therefore is plowed twice by snow plows before they even get to surface streets to continue the promotion of people being able to utilize the bike lanes over cars.
But then again, they have about 60% of their total population that relies on bicycles to get around the city.
So it was pretty amazing.
They also showed us an opportunity to experience pedestrian-oriented and pedestrian-only streets.
And I know that many of us have been getting inquiries from folks here in District 7 around whether or not that's an effort we can pursue in Pioneer, excuse me, in Pike Place Market in particular, pedestrianizing that street.
And so really walked away with a lot of lessons around how they approached merchants and business owners and delivery truck drivers to really make that feasible.
Of course, they did it, I think, in 1963. So we're a little behind.
But I think it was a really wonderful opportunity and experience to learn best standards and practices from other people who are really leading in creating space for people first, and then thinking about how to make the space livable, functional, and sustainable for others as time evolves.
So it was a wonderful experience.
I brought back some brochures if anybody is interested in looking at them.
They have a sustainability goal.
They want to reach zero carbon emissions by 2025, which is pretty ambitious and amazing, but key to that strategy is understanding why density is a climate change strategy and why building bicycle infrastructure is absolutely key to their strategy to reaching carbon carbon zero emissions goals by 2025. So it was a wonderful experience.
Again, brought back materials for everybody to take a look at.
I think, you know, obviously we can't copy and paste everything that they have done, but we can certainly take away some key lessons.
And the last thing I'll say is that I push them a lot on helping me understand and the cohort understand, which was made up of people from all levels of government, state, county, city, but also a lot of folks from the private sector who do architectural work, design work, and climate sustainability work throughout the city, the state, and the region.
And, you know, we really sort of pushed folks in Copenhagen to talk to us about how they address the use of public space in a positive way versus a negative way.
And one of the things that was most remarkable to me in that context of me asking the question around how do we make sure that we're not resorting to hostile architecture to prevent people who are experiencing homelessness from using our public spaces.
I feel like that's a direction we've been heading as a city is using hostile architecture in open public spaces as opposed to thinking more creatively about how do we make the space more inviting.
And one of the things that was really notable to me is that the architects and the urban design planners in Copenhagen really emphasized to us that it's important for us to create more invitations in our public spaces to allow for more types of uses and different types of uses by all people who might access that space.
Again, centering people first.
in how we're designing spaces is really important, especially because they're long-term investments that will have a footprint in that space for many, many, many, many years to come, way beyond our time, of course.
So had a wonderful time and met some amazing people and came back thoroughly exhausted from a intensely programmed week in Copenhagen, but really I'm happy that I had an opportunity to represent the city of Seattle as part of the delegation, and there will be probably at least one budget-related request that is specific to Capitol Hill and the Eco District that I walked away with as a result of conversations and my learning experience in Copenhagen.
So looking forward to having a conversation with the budget chair and with others about about that particular proposal that I anticipate bringing forward in the budget process.
That is all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Happy to answer any questions.
Council Member Juarez.
Thank you.
I'm right here.
You already forgot me.
So I'm going to start quickly with, just before I get into the agenda matters that we have on the agenda today, with District 5 updates.
Two things.
And I'm very, very excited.
And I really mean this.
I'm really happy about this.
North Seattle College is located, as you know, in District 5. And it's undergoing a historic milestone for our youth.
Ironworkers Local 88, and I've got to put my glasses on for this.
All of you worked on this.
You don't realize that, but you did.
Our workers, Local 86, have officially announced their one-year apprenticeship pilot program.
During the 2019 and 20 academic year, they will run eight cohorts with up to 14 workers for training, instruction, and hands-on lab work in a temporary outdoor lab.
This program is happening thanks to the funding from the Seattle City Council to do this one-year program.
We all voted on this during budget, and it actually came to fruition.
This is the first time.
This is the first union apprenticeship program located north of the Ship Canal.
which is exciting.
Thank you Mayor Durkin for the money in the feasibility study in the budget and thank you colleagues for voting to approve this funding in the budget and it's actually happening.
A big thank you to Chris McLean with IW86 and Dr. Warren Brown from North Seattle College.
We work closely with them and it finally got done for their leadership and vision for supporting our youth by paving pathways for good paying union jobs.
We've been talking about this for three years, and we got it in the budget.
And this is what it's all about.
It's happening.
I'm excited.
Not all children are, not all of our, I say kids because I have kids, but you'll soon find out.
Even when they're 28, you still say children.
Not everyone wants to go to college.
Some people want to learn how to make things with their hands.
And I think it's time that we give these opportunities to our young folks that are coming out of high school.
And they'll also be able to participate through the Promise Program.
So that's great.
Second thing, as you know, and this is just a quick update.
We got rained out of live in D5 and we ended up in D2, but we are rescheduling and the Petting Zoo is on its way, Council Member Mosqueda, so you'll be there.
So we're looking at tentatively September 28th.
Everything's still going to be the same and we hopefully I'll have an update on that as something more secure.
So for the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities, this Wednesday we have three items on the agenda.
That's tomorrow, our committee.
Number one is the Victor Steinberg Park.
This resolution will improve design improvements funded through the 2008 Parks and Green Space Levy.
The second item is, this regards Thornton Creek.
Seattle Parks and Recreation is acquiring some property in the south portion of Thornton Creek for open space and recreation purposes.
And if you know, Thornton Creek has a north branch and a south branch.
So this is on the south, actually south fork.
I don't know if you all know this, but up in D5, all of our watersheds come out of Carkeek and they flow through Thornton.
And so we have a ton of tributaries up north.
So this is part of the park's plan of moving forward and keeping buying up all this green space along both creeks.
This is moving along actually quite nicely.
Third, this has been a long time in the making.
I want to thank Councilmember Mosqueda and Gonzalez and particularly Councilmember Bagshaw and Councilmember Herbold for participating in my committee and I believe Councilmember Pacheco was there as well as Councilmember Sawant regarding missing murdered indigenous women and girls.
We've been working for, I've been working before I got elected, but this isn't about what I've done.
It's about this movement that's been going on for well over a decade of missing murdered indigenous women and girls.
We had it in committee.
We now have a resolution that is teed up that highlights the issue and dives actually into what are the actual things that we want to do with this legislation in areas of reform.
This resolution 31900 regarding Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
This is an opportunity for my fellow council members to attend and join us on this important conversation so we may hopefully reach a potential full council vote on a clean final resolution for Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls on Monday, September 9th.
Just briefly, Seattle, as you know, may be the first major city to dedicate such resources and actual staff to address this long-standing crisis in the city and in Indian country.
And I really want to thank Esther Lacerro and Abigail Elkahot from the Seattle Indian Health Board.
Nagin and Diana did a great job with the media, research, and coordination.
And central staff, Greg Doss and team did a phenomenal job of drafting this.
We looked at the state law and the federal law.
And even though two pieces of the federal did not pass, we borrowed heavily from that.
But mainly we borrowed from the state law, which I'm really proud of that our state passed legislation that focused on hiring two liaison workers within the Washington State Patrol.
And we'll have more information on exactly what you'll get a copy of this resolution.
But I think we've finally gotten to the point where we're done talking about it.
And now we want to, as a city, say, what do we actually physically do to address this issue?
What resources?
So it looks like we will be working with the Seattle Police Department, which is great.
We'll continue working with HSD and the mayor's office.
And we also have been in close communication with the tribes and the state folks But mainly it's going to be on training of law enforcement, having a liaison.
data collection.
And I can't say how proud I am of my colleagues in this city that we've actually moved this far forward quickly and plan to do more.
And I also want to thank SPD and Chief Best and Pete Holmes.
They've been great in working with us.
So I think we might be able to say next Monday that we were the first city to actually put some teeth in a legislation to hire actual people who have subject matter expertise and trauma-related in Native communities and work government to government with local tribes and funding sources to continue this so it isn't just a one-line budget item, that we actually have this within our institution, that these lives not only matter but are no longer invisible.
So, thank you.
Thank you for all of us that helped me get there.
Well stated.
Council Member Bakeshaw.
Thank you.
Councilmember Juarez, thank you so much for all your work on this.
Tomorrow, during your committee, we have a conflict, a number of us, with our regional governance.
Can you tell me what your timing is on this or what order you're planning to take the various pieces of legislation so that I can get back for that one in particular?
It's the last item.
OK.
And I think the big turnout that we'll have won't be tomorrow.
It'll be Monday.
That's where we'll have tribal leaders.
Elders and people organizations that have been working on this, but it is scheduled to be the third item on the agenda So you'll have plenty of time.
All right.
Very good.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you.
Kessler Morris.
That's right her boat.
All right.
Thank you so much And good morning and welcome back, everybody.
It's good to be back.
So for full council today from the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee, we only have one piece of legislation.
That's Council Bill 119584. And that is a bill that fulfills several of the eviction reform recommendations from the losing home report that the council supported funding, the Seattle Women's Commission, and the subsequent passage of Resolution 31861 last year.
And so this bill It does several things.
One, it extends the three-day pay or vacate notice for non-payment of rent to a 14-day pay or vacate notice.
It defines rent as recurring and periodic charges identified in a rental agreement, and the reason that's important is sometimes when people fall behind in rent, but are also behind in late charges, a landlord will apply money towards the late charges and then show that they're still behind in rent and proceed with an eviction.
So this allows all rent to be applied before other costs like late payments, damages, legal costs, and other fees.
This bill also extends the minimum notice to 60 days in advance for all rent increases.
So some of you may be aware that in Seattle and Seattle only, we have a 60 day notice of rent increase for increases above 10%.
And now the law will be 60 days advance notice for all rent increases regardless of the size.
Just again on the background, last year we heard the losing home report from the Seattle Women's Commission and the King County Bar Association.
We passed Resolution 31861. endorsing the reflection of what some of the problems were without actually identifying what all the solutions necessarily were.
The state legislature then had an amazing session for tenants' rights last year and actually moved on several of the remedies necessary to identify the problems identified in the Losing Home Report.
This legislation will, what we call, harmonize our Seattle Just Cause Eviction Ordinance with the new state law.
So this is really important for the City of Seattle, but also important are some of the remaining Losing Home Recommendations.
that we're going to continue to work on here in Seattle, and I've been working on them through my committee.
In our next committee meeting on September 10th, we actually are going to be discussing some of those other bills.
One of them is a bill related to protecting domestic violence survivors from being held liable for rental unit damages caused by their perpetrator.
This will be the second discussion on that particular piece of legislation.
And then we also have a bill related to the rights of roommates and family members from categorical denials and evictions in rental units within the legal occupancy limit.
So a bill that allows primary leaseholders to have family members on the lease or roommates on the lease.
But again, it's subject to legal occupancy limits that exist under the housing code here in Seattle.
And then finally, we'll be having a first round of discussion on some bills to support renters.
One will strengthen compliance under the rental regulation and inspection ordinance.
Another addresses the needs for enforcement for requiring rent receipts and non-electronic payment options of rent.
A lot of times we're seeing that some landlords are requiring rent payment in certain formats that aren't always accessible to all renters.
And then finally, the third bill is about the promotion of information about city resources on various notices that tenants get.
So those are the items coming up on next week's committee agenda.
As far as events that are going on out in the community, Tomorrow I'm really, really looking forward to my annual participation in the Be There Rally, which welcomes young people back to school at West Seattle Elementary.
It's a fantastic event.
We roll out the red carpets for the kids.
and educators and people, parents, people in the community come and just give everybody a high five before they come to school.
It's just really, it would be great if it happened every day.
Get to hear some music and it's a really fun time.
Also, on Thursday, the Regional Water Quality Committee, and then also because September is Food Action Month, I will be representing District 1 at Food Lifelines Hacking child hunger event in South Park at their facility there.
And then finally, on Sunday, the Admiral Theater in West Seattle is going to be hosting a viewing of the documentary On the Brink by filmmakers Jeff Schulman and Stephen Fong.
And this is a documentary that's getting some attention focused on gentrification in the CD.
So that's all I have for today.
Thank you, Council Member Herbold.
Council Member O'Brien.
Thank you, Council President.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee has four items on this afternoon's agenda.
The first one is a piece of legislation around the Mercer Mega Block.
This is just a minor adjustment to shift some of that parcel back into right-of-way before we sell it.
So there were a few square feet that were caught here and there that should have been a part of the right-of-way as we went through the street vacation.
So this will fix that to make sure that we have the right right-of-way alignment on each side of that block.
I'll get back to more on the Mercer Mega Block because we'll have some legislation in our committee on Friday.
We will also be considering legislation and ordinance around complete streets.
So this would require that when the city is doing a major repaving project, so a project over a million dollars, if there is a designated bike facility on that from the bike master plan, That there's now a requirement that the department complete that bike facility while they're doing the repaving.
It does allow, obviously there's plenty of opportunity for community input.
Where does the alignment go?
Which side of the street?
Is it two one ways or is it a two way on one side?
So there's lots of opportunities to refine the design in the community, but it's not a should we build this or not.
The understanding is no, this has already been decided.
This facility should get built.
And so when you're repaving it, that's the opportune time, the most cost effective time to actually do it.
So let's do that.
It does allow that if the department comes back and says no, we actually think there was a mistake made.
conditions have changed or whatever it is, but a process by which they would say we think the bike master plan is wrong and want to redo that for that individual infrastructure.
But the default is going to be that these projects get built.
That's the goal.
I also have a piece of legislation, Council Member Pateko has been leading on this, working on on-street bike and scooter parking, and I don't know if you want to speak to that.
Sure.
It's just to get an SDOT to give us a plan for, excuse me, doubling the bike and scooter parking in our city by the end of next year.
That's great.
And I appreciate your leadership on that, Council Member Pacheco.
Obviously, We're seeing a lot more bikes, there's the potential that someday we might have a lot of scooters sitting around our city, and it's great for certain people to have access to mobility, but if they're parked incorrectly, which is too often the case, they actually hinder other people's mobility, which is not how we want to proceed.
And so one solution to that is ensuring that there's lots of designated parking for these mobility devices, bikes, scooters, whatever else.
And so I really appreciate your prioritizing that and getting SDOT to come back with a plan on that.
I think Councilor Herwald had a comment.
I do.
If we could roll back to two bills ago.
The bill related to the Bike Master Plan.
Yes.
Just a couple things.
One, I met with the Mass Coalition a couple weeks ago and we noted that although South Park is identified in the recitals, The Georgetown South Park Trail is not included in the bill.
You may recall that back in the 2018 budget under Council President Harrell's leadership, we approved $600,000 for the outreach planning and early design of the project.
And I just took a crack, my staff took a crack, I should say, of adding reference to that particular project.
reached out to your office in your absence.
I'm sorry we haven't connected on this.
Hopefully this is okay.
And then the one other thing I wanted to reference is that your resolution references what SDOT has to do in those cases where they decide not to build bike lanes, and how they have to explain their reasoning to the council, and I think that's really, really great oversight.
But I think it might be useful to have just a few words, and I'd love, if you agree, I'd love to work with you between now and noon.
about what we do expect for community engagement, similar to what we've been doing around the Delridge multimodal corridor project.
expressed what our expectations are for SDOT for community engagement.
I just think, you know, including language like the package will reflect continued community engagement input in the project development.
It's the council's intent to review the project to ensure that the final scope and design reflect continued community engagement and input in the project.
I think that's an important part of the story, and I think it's an important part of what community members would like the reassurance that we are also holding SDOT responsible and accountable for doing that kind of work as well.
That's great.
Would love to work with you between now and noon to get that done.
Can I throw one more thing in since we're piling on here?
You certainly may.
Thank you very much.
Item F here, Council Member Herbold, two-way protected bike lane on 4th Avenue.
Main Street, Divine Street, I'm assuming you're talking downtown here?
Sorry, so the Council Member Herbold's adding H, and so this actually is a resolution I haven't spoken to yet.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
So how do I do that?
That's okay.
There's...
I'm so excited.
Yeah.
I know.
So there's two...
There's actually three pieces of legislation that link up to bike infrastructure.
There is an ordinance that would...
There's an ordinance that I mentioned that would require that when you build a bike facility, sorry, when you do a major repaving, you do the bike.
So that's the first thing.
There's Council Member Pacheco's legislation, which is outstanding, which asks us not to come back with a plan on street parking.
And then there's a resolution related to the implementation of the Bike Master Plan.
And so I'll speak to that, and then we will pull in Council Member Herbold's amendment, which I fully support.
And I think my community engagement is the first one, but the H is, yes, the one you haven't spoken yet.
That's right.
So historically, we've had an annual report on all the modal So the transit master plan, the pedestrian master plan, the bike master plan on what the implementation schedule.
And it's usually a five year rolling with a commitment of what are the timeline when the department's going to build out those pieces of infrastructure.
Because these plans are multi-year plans.
The pedestrian master plan by some measures is 100 year.
200-year plan because we're just not building it very fast.
But the idea is that each year we want to come back and give clarity about what is actually in the pipeline to get built.
The mayor and the department came back last spring with an implementation plan for the bike master plan that was somewhat underwhelming.
And there was a lot of community pushback on that.
They did a great outreach process over the months of, I guess, largely around April, where they did, I think, five community meetings, got a lot of feedback on it.
came back with an updated implementation plan in June, which I think addressed some of the concerns.
But it still didn't address just the fiscal reality that they face, which is because of some of the changes to the Move Seattle levy, there's just some projects that were anticipated to get built that aren't getting built in the bike master plan, unfortunately.
And what this resolution does is says we understand that there is that fiscal reality.
Unfortunately, there's some facilities that are critically important that are currently not slated to get built in the next five years, so before the move Seattle levy ends.
One area to highlight broadly is that Southeast Seattle will have no connections all the way through to downtown as currently envisioned.
There are lots of things that are planned, but they're not scheduled to be built.
And so there's also downtown connection, 4th Avenue, Council Member Bakershire, you mentioned, which is also something that, you know, in theory was going to actually get built a couple years ago.
and now it's not even on the plan to get built in five years.
And so what this resolution does is says in addition to saying we appreciate your work on the implementation plan, we're also asking you to find additional resources to fund and then it lists a series of things.
So there's a series of projects, three on Beacon Avenue South, the Georgetown to downtown connection, project on Martin Luther King Way, all in southeast Seattle, well Georgetown's not quite southeast Seattle, but south Seattle, to make those connections.
I fully support Councilmember Herbold's addition to the Georgetown South Park Trail on there.
And then two projects downtown, the Alaska Way and a two-way protected bike lane on 4th Avenue.
These are all critical things that we believe need to be done in the next five years.
And there are a variety of ways we can find some additional funding and just ask the mayor to do that and Speaking to your other comment on the the second item I mentioned the complete streets ordinance that I think let's work together to find some community language and we'll work swiftly so we can get something out to everyone in the next hour, so All right, so those are the four pieces of legislation that I will be speaking to this afternoon's agenda.
We also have a committee meeting on Friday.
Today would be our normal committee meeting, so because of the holiday we're pushed to Friday.
We're going to start at 1 p.m.
on Friday just because we have a lot of agenda items and our goal is not to go beyond 5 p.m.
on Friday.
So really quickly, we will take up legislation on the Mercer Mega Block.
We had a discussion in committee last month.
This is the actual piece of legislation that would give the executive authority to sign and execute an agreement to actually sell the Mercer Mega Block.
So we had a good briefing in August on what the terms of that agreement are.
And so if folks have any questions or concerns about that, just to let the public know, we are talking about what the proposed buyer would be paying us in cash and other amenities that the proposed buyer would be providing.
We talked about a community space that they'll be providing in the building.
There was some discussion at committee about the ability to do daycare in that facility and so we asked the department to come back with some more clarity on how that can proceed.
I know there's folks at this table that are very excited about that opportunity.
There's a commitment to fund to build affordable housing on part of the site.
There's a commitment for $5 million towards homeless services.
There's some environmental remediation, building a bike infrastructure along the south face of one of the blocks.
So anyways, those are all the conditions that are going to be part of this that we have the opportunity to review and ultimately hopefully approve the sale.
The sale will generate significant revenue.
over $100 million of beyond all the amenities I talked about that the mayor has some proposals that she's discussed publicly on how she plans to spend that.
Some of that money is repaying gas tax money that was used to purchase pieces of this.
So when we pay that, it has to go towards gas tax eligible projects, which is generally transportation projects.
There's about $50 million that's of that flavor.
And then there's probably another $75 or $80 million that's more general fund money.
The specifics about how that will be spent will be something we'll just take up in the budget.
So the mayor has talked at a high level of the types of things she wants to do.
We will see the specifics about that when she proposes her budget, and then we will have a chance to put our stamp on that.
And so the legislation on Friday is really about the transaction, not about where the money's going to go.
But I am certain we will have a lot of talk about where the money would go.
And one of the places that some of those transportation dollars would go to would be to completing some of these projects that we're also talking about this afternoon.
A few other pieces of legislation and committee on Friday.
We passed the Green New Deal resolution last month, which made a number of commitments, actually quite a large number of commitments on how the city wants to move forward.
We have an ordinance that would establish a Green New Deal oversight board that was discussed last month, and that'll be back in committee on Friday.
And so that'll be one of the next pieces of the Green New Deal work.
We will also be having our first discussion on legislation.
We're calling Healthy Homes, Healthy Buildings.
And this is work to, the Green New Deal resolution said we're committed to eliminating all climate pollution by the year 2030. The biggest sectors of climate pollution in our city are transportation is the first and buildings are the second.
What that means is our transportation system needs to be all electric in the next decade and it means our buildings need to be all electric in the next decade.
What healthy buildings, what healthy homes, healthy buildings legislation would do would a set of data in the near future that say, hey, we're not going to, as we build new buildings, we're not going to hook them up to natural gas.
We have a lot of buildings that currently use natural gas, and we're going to have to figure out how to transition those.
But let's not make that problem worse starting in the near future.
And so that'll be the first discussion on that.
We'll have that in committee two more times after Friday this month.
And so more to come on that.
We also have a couple pieces of legislation for street vacations.
And I think that is it in the committee on Friday.
So thank you all for sticking with me on all those things.
All right, thanks Councilman O'Brien.
All right, everybody good.
So we'll adjourn and we'll see everyone at two o'clock and everyone have a few good couple hours break and we'll see you this afternoon.