Seattle City Council: Select Budget Committee 11/1/19 Session II

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back.

This is November 1st.

I'm Sally Bagshaw.

I'm chairing this budget committee.

Thank you to my colleagues, all the council members who are here, Council Member Juarez, O'Brien, Gonzalez, Herbold, and Pacheco.

Thank you for being here, and thank you, good audience, for being here.

Can I ask you to open the doors again?

That was really quite lovely.

So this morning we covered a lot of ground around housing, services, LEED, and this afternoon we're going to start with the Department of Transportation.

My stretch goal is for us to be done and have opportunity for public comment and to be out of here before dark.

All right, so Council Central staff, thank you again for all your hard work.

Lisa, do you want to start with introductions?

Lisa K. Council Central Staff.

Calvin Child Council Central Staff.

Eric McConaghy Council Central Staff.

Excellent, thank you.

So we are on item 39 and this first one is for $150,000 for school safety traffic and pedestrian improvement fund and I assume that Calvin that you are going to frame it for us.

Sure, I'll be walking us through these.

Item 39 is sponsored by Council Member O'Brien.

It is to add $150,000 for an active transportation coordinator at Seattle Public Schools.

This will be funded from the School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement Fund and it's intended to be funded for five years.

Thanks.

Council Member O'Brien.

Colleagues, you should have a number of pink sheets in front of you.

I direct you to one from the Seattle Public Schools, from the superintendent, and it states their support for this position.

There's also an attached letter from the city's School Traffic Safety Committee, also supporting this.

we're doing this at their direction again this was not take general fund money but allocate existing school safety funds and just dedicated to this position typically we're making crosswalk sidewalk ramp improvements with this money but what they said is a person in Seattle Public Schools who can work with schools to get kids throughout the entire school district, feeling safe and comfortable walking and biking to school would be a great win.

We've talked about this before.

There are some schools in our city who have active volunteer parents or even teachers that organize, you know, group walks or walking school buses, bikes.

to school day, but those volunteer investments do not fall equally across the school district.

There are lots of schools where there simply aren't the parental resources or other resources to make that happen.

So by having a position at the school district to focus on this and frankly focus on filling in the gaps to the schools that don't have access to us, it can address both kind of an equity reality that a lot of kids face and help with the kids' health and help with our transportation system too.

Good, comments?

I would just like to add, Council Member O'Brien, I support this, and I'm wondering about the amount of money.

We're talking about one position, and I would assume it's an administrative position, not a high-level or senior teacher, and for 180 days of school, do we need $150,000?

That's a good question.

I do not have the details in front of me, so why don't I work with that.

Calvin, do you have any more details?

I think there might be some incidental expenses that were assumed for program costs or that type of thing as well in this, but I don't know that we have a specific position title that is appropriate in Seattle Public Schools attached to this yet.

So I guess my my question in this Council Member Bryan and Calvin is if if we were to scale this down to say first year we want to try it we want to get it started for the school year next year so whatever lead up time you need before September I would like to know what what they need how much money would be usable to them and not just say oh we don't have enough so we're not going to do it.

The one thing I would say is, again, this isn't general fund money.

This is money that's already in the school safety that's dedicated there by state law.

And so my preference would be to defer to the School Traffic Safety Board and have them, if the idea is we want to make sure they have reflective vests that they can give out to students that are walking at certain times a year, or buy bike helmets for kids so they can bike, whatever that is, to allow that.

But I can look into the specificity.

If we move it down to 130, that will leave some other money in another school safety pot, but this has been identified as a priority for folks and it won't help out the general fund.

Thank you.

Those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

All right, thank you.

Next item is $40 million for appropriation of maintenance bicycle infrastructure.

Item 43 is also sponsored by Council Member O'Brien.

It would add a proviso to the SDOT Maintenance Operations BSL.

This BSL provides the appropriations to maintain the streets and sidewalks and right-of-way.

It contains almost $39 million in 2020. This proviso would restrict $1 million of that funding just to maintain bike lanes and bike trails.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien.

Again, this is coming from SDOT's existing budget, and it would just simply say of the $38 million that you use for maintenance, a million of that would go to bicycle infrastructure.

What we've seen over the past number of years as we continue to build out more robust bicycle infrastructure, specifically protected bike lanes, paint posts, all those types of things need maintenance.

And up to this point, there hasn't been a dedicated stream of maintenance for that, and we're at the age of some of these facilities actually doesn't take too long where people start knocking over the posts and they're not being replaced.

And so we want to make sure there's a funding source within SDOT to go ahead and address those concerns.

Great.

Thank you.

Other comments?

I support this and particularly the potholes on Western on the bike lanes.

They're teeth-chattering.

Those who would like to add their names to this as co-sponsors, raise your hands.

Okay.

Thank you.

Item 41.

Item 41 would add 750,000 in one FTE to implement SDOT's transportation equity agenda.

In 2018, council added 230,000 in one position to establish an equity work group and develop recommendations for the equity action, excuse me, the equity agenda.

This work with an associated funding will end in spring 2020 and the proposal provides resources for implementing those recommendations.

All right, thank you.

This is Council Member Rimes.

Colleagues I direct your attention to another of the pink sheets in front of you this as Below my name it has s dot 3a 1. It's a letter to the City Council from the transportation equity work group and It's a page and a half, so I don't expect you all to read it right now, but this Transportation Equity Workgroup is doing some great work in an ideal world that would have started earlier this year and have been completed in time for the budget, so we could be actually, as part of our budget, anticipating recommendation or contemplating recommendations that they made but like some of the processes in the city this got started later than expected and so they aren't expected to deliver their set of reports until the spring.

This funding and in the current budget the position that is overseeing the workgroup would sunset in the spring and then the work group would end and they'd have a set of recommendations but no one there to advocate for it and there's no specific dedicated pool of money to actually implement that set.

There are a list of items that are on this agenda.

pink sheet in front of you, including things that may come out as their suggestions in the work group, such as a less punitive approach to fare evasion that does not involve the criminal justice system.

More outreach and education about the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

Creating stronger city partnerships to increase access to parking where private parking spaces are underutilized.

develop a technology that can translate transit information into multiple language for non-English speakers.

So there's a number of bullets that this group has been discussing, and I'm really excited to see what that work group comes out with this spring.

This funding would allow the ongoing retention of the staff member who oversees the equity work group, and allow some funds to hopefully implement some of the recommendations and not have to wait till next year's budget.

Thank you.

Comments?

Those who'd like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Very good.

Want to move on to item 42, redirect $2.5 million of the Mercer block proceeds to the master plan.

So item 42 is also sponsored by Council Member O'Brien.

It would redirect $2.5 million of the Mercer Mega Block proceeds to the Bike Master Plan Protected Bike Lanes Project for a total of $10.85 million of Mercer Mega Block proceeds for that project.

It would also add a proviso restricting the use of these funds for three identified bicycle facilities that serve South Seattle, including MLK Junior Way, Rainer to Henderson, Beacon Avenue, Jose Rizal Bridge to South 39th Street, and the Georgetown to South Park Trail.

This action would also reduce the proposed commercial parking tax backfill that was the proposed use of some of those funds from 9.2 million to 6.7 million.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien.

So colleagues, as Calvin just described, this would redirect some of the transportation dollars that currently, or of the Mercer Mega Block dollars that are currently slated for transportation, two and a half million away from the reserve fund for commercial parking tax potential shortfalls, to more robust funding for the bike infrastructure.

The goal here, in the resolution we passed earlier this year, we called on SDOT to, by the end of the transportation levy, the Move Seattle levy, to fully build out at least one protected bike route in Southeast Seattle.

SDOT has three projects that are on that list.

One is the Georgetown to South Park connection, which I would say is a great project that I hope can be funded but is not a complete connection to downtown Seattle.

The other two are Beacon Avenue and Martin Luther King.

Beacon Avenue is broken into three segments, and with the existing funding of $8 million, the only connected project that could be pulled off is essentially the three segments of Beacon Avenue.

That would not leave enough funding for South Park to Georgetown or anything on Martin Luther King.

With the $10 million, they could either do Martin Luther King or the combination of the three Beacon phases and the South Park Georgetown phase.

So the additional $2 million essentially gives the department more flexibility to figure out which of the projects they want and hopefully do a little more lane miles too.

Very good.

Thank you.

Comments?

Council Member Herbold.

I strongly support this effort to get funding for these bike projects, in particular the South Park to Georgetown project.

I do have some questions about what the impacts are of the redirecting of these funds.

Calvin, you explained that they were in the mayor's proposed budget programmed for a commercial parking tax reserve.

I think I understand that to mean there's an anticipation that we, well, I think we actually, we know that we're not getting as much commercial parking tax revenue as we expect.

And so by filling those revenue, filling those revenues, the mayor's proposed budget intended to do what?

I imagine those revenues are supposed to go pay for something.

Well, the commercial parking tax is coming in about 2.7 million below expectation this year, and it's expected to come in about 3.3 and a bit more next year.

And so this resource was intended to sort of backfill for those new projections and save a little bit more in case there's continued under collection of, well, lower collected revenues in 2021. So it's hedging against the future revenues that might come in with commercial parking tax.

I can say that there's about 6 million that would cover 2019 and 2020. And then beyond that, it would be, future revenues.

So, but we're not, we're not just, the mayor isn't proposing to just backfill for the sake of backfilling.

There's an anticipated use of those funds.

It isn't directly tied to a specific item.

It does fund the regular work of the department, but it has sort of a longer term, at this level, it's really affecting sort of what their long-term financial plan looks like.

So it puts them, it means that in 2021, they have less cushion for when they bring that budget forward.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, other comments?

Those that would like to add their name to this is item.

Okay, sorry, item 43.

43, I'm sorry.

No, it's my fault.

I was reading ahead for something else.

So, item 43, raise your hand if you'd like to add your name as a co-sponsor.

Sorry, this is 42.

Item 42.

We're at 2.5 million.

Sorry.

I think we've got it now.

Good.

Thank you.

All right.

So, the next one is Council Member Pacheco and the Pedestrian Master Plan.

Calvin.

Item 43 would add $200,000 for crossing and safety improvements in the vicinity of Northeast 45th Street and Interstate 5. The funding is intended to implement recommendations from SDOT's planned 2020 study of traffic movements in this area.

Very good.

Council Member Pacheco.

Colleagues, there are zero crosswalks in the three-block stretch of Northeast 45th Street between I-5 and on-ramp and on 7th Avenue and Roosevelt Way Northeast.

This is a pedestrian-heavy corridor in busy arterial with pedestrian-oriented small businesses, multiple bus stops, two future rapid ride lines, a protected bike lane, and is three blocks from a future light rail station.

The lack of a crosswalk causes many people to run across a busy street with cars exiting the freeway.

A community-led proposal to construct a crosswalk in this location was submitted to the Your Voice, Your Choice program and received the most votes and most positive votes in District 4 and was in the top five citywide.

The broad community support included the support of every business along the intersection and over 1,500 residents who have signed on to support.

Unfortunately, while SDOT agreed that this is a critical need, the cost estimate of $150,000 for the crosswalk and signalization disqualify the proposal from the Your Voice, Your Choice.

However, SDOT has programmed $25,000 to review pedestrian, bike, and transit movement for the area around Interstate 5 and Northeast 45th Street in 2020. SDOT has said the review, quote, may yield limit on-street improvements given funding limitations.

This action would add $200,000 for SDOT to implement improvements identified by the review, including installing a crosswalk on Northeast 45th Street between 9th Avenue Northeast and 7th Avenue Northeast.

Thank you.

Additional comments?

Those who'd like to add their name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Okay, very good.

Moving on to provide a status report on Georgetown to South Park Trail.

And I think this is Council Member Herbold.

Item 44 is a statement of legislative intent requesting a status report on the Georgetown to South Park Trail project.

It specifically requests for a schedule for the design of that project and a spending plan for the $600,000 that was approved in the 2018 adopted budget.

It requests a report to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee or the successor committee to Council Member Herbold and to the Central Staff Director by April 1st, 2020.

All right, Council Member Herbold.

Nothing really to add other than this slide is an expression of my interest in stewarding this project as it moves forward.

I love this.

Nothing to add and done in 30 seconds.

All right, those who want to add their name as a co-sponsor in support of Council Member Herbold's recommendation, raise your hand.

Very good.

Next one also is Councilmember Herbold and it's a West Marginal Way safe street accessibility item.

Item 45 would add $750,000 for planning and design of pedestrian safety improvements at West Marginal Way near the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center.

The project would include a pedestrian activated signal, marked crosswalks, sidewalk, and railway crossing improvements.

This funding here would be for the planning and design of the project but not for construction.

SDOT's initial estimate is that the project could require an additional $2.5 million for construction.

And I'd also note that as this project involves crossing the BNSF tracks, implementation would require coordination and approval from BNSF.

Great.

Council Member Herbold, jump over that one.

Yeah.

I've got a little something to say about that.

So we've heard from SDOT that with $750,000 in 2020, they can actually do the planning and design work that would be necessary for this project.

It includes a pedestrian-activated traffic signal, a marked crosswalk, sidewalk pavement on the west side of West Marginal Way, and an ADA-accessible crossing of the rail track to the Duwamish Trail and ADA-accessible connections to the tribe's Herring House parking lot.

We've heard a lot of public comment about this at both of our public hearings.

We're gonna hear a little bit later on today as well.

This is a project that is I think really unique in its support of, strong support of everybody from all over the West Seattle Peninsula, both as it relates to the budget process this year, the District 1 Community Network has come together and that is representative of community members from all over District 1, and this is the top priority that they as an organization have been advocating for.

Similarly, during the Neighborhood Street Fund application project, there was a huge level of support when they applied through that funding round for this project.

At that time, SDOT Felt the project the the budget for the project was was too large for that particular funding source Although they worked with the community to come up with this other scaled down Project so Multiple occasions the entire community is coming out in favor of this project.

Very good I'm gonna ask a similar question to one I did with councilmember O'Brien on Do we need to get the BNSF approval prior to going through the design review?

I'm just thinking, I know how difficult that particularly entity can be to get approval and to get them to work with us.

Is there anything we can do to make sure we've got that before we invest the money, three quarters of a million for design?

I don't believe, I believe the design as it is, is a different design that had some of the same, the problems with Burlington Northern, but I will check on that and get back to you.

I think there is still a need to work with them, but I don't, I think the barrier is so high as with the previous version of the project.

But I'll check on that.

And maybe folks can speak to it when they come up in public comment at the end, if they know the answer.

I'm going to support moving this forward today, but then if, Calvin, can we just do a little deep dive into that to find out?

Because I know I've been stopped by BNSF and some other projects.

I mean, the history on a lot of our projects that do affect BNSF is that railway companies just can be very hard to get a final answer from.

Typically, though, you have to have the design that they can respond to to be able to get the approvals.

So.

Right.

I know we've got a chicken and egg, but I just hate it when we invest money and then they say no and then they fold their arms and we can't move forward.

So but let's let's move forward with the to see who wants to add your name as a co-sponsor on this.

Great.

Thank you.

And thank you, Council Member Herbold, and for all in West Seattle that have been supporting this because it's been really important.

All right.

Next item is the proviso spending on the Center City Streetcar.

Calvin, do you want to frame it for us?

Item 46 is sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

This is a proviso on the spending for the Center City Streetcar project.

This would prohibit spending after March 31st, 2020 until SDOT has provided to Council a written funding plan for the operations of the streetcar and identified a contingent source of construction funds.

Vestat does not receive the 75 million small starts grant from the FTA.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

So this requires a written funding plan for the operations of the Centre City streetcar.

including specific funding sources and contingent sources for construction if SDOT does not receive the $75 million in federal small starts grants.

I fully understand that a council majority has approved spending funds to advance the project design, but I think it's really important that we not go all in on this unless we do so with our eyes wide open.

It's reasonable to require this information as it impacts our future budget decisions in advance of allowing for more spending.

Last year, the council requested information about a funding plan for streetcar operations as part of any operating agreement.

SDOT has not yet proposed an agreement, so that's why we haven't received a reply.

Nevertheless, the information, I think, is still useful to the council prior to an operating agreement in our decision-making process around future spending.

The first quarter 2019 watch list capital report required by the council notes that the federal funding grant would expire in September 2020 if a grant agreement is not executed.

SDOT notes that they do not expect to have an agreement by then.

So in other words, they expect that the federal funding grant will expire because again, they themselves are saying they don't believe that the grant agreement is going to be executed by September 2020. And if that being the case, the funds will need to be reallocated in the federal budget.

In 2017, the council received a funding contingency plan and the response was not substantive.

So, in fairness, we have a different SDOT director and a different mayor and they've been both been much more transparent about project costs.

So, hopefully, that transparency can continue.

Great.

Thank you for continuing to beat the drum on this.

Other comments?

Just to make sure I understand, so we approved the $9 million a few months ago to continue design and planning work.

In my understanding, that will not be complete by March of this year.

So this would require that they have the operating plan in place if they want to continue.

This would require that they provide a written report to council stating what their proposal for how they would operate the streetcar is before they could continue to spend money after March 31st.

It's not the operations plan, which I think is a separate, it is a proposal for how they will fund operations that we're asking for.

Because we don't, we wouldn't, I don't expect the operations plan itself to be in place by the next 90 days after.

But hopefully a plan for how they are going to fund operations.

And I want to acknowledge that you have been out front on this and I appreciate it.

And I think it's a completely reasonable request.

We talked about it three years ago when folks were putting operating assumptions in and we know that Metro Transit and Sound Transit are not too enthused about continuing to pay the operating costs up to 2023. We need to know what those are, not just for the link downtown, but also for Broadway and South Lake Union.

And we need to look at the whole thing.

And I just want to acknowledge many of my neighbors in D7, some are just adamant supporters of this.

And I've talked with business community, Pike Place Market representatives, some of the waterfront businesses.

And then on the flip side, there are people that are adamantly opposed to it, including some of the same group, some of the people in Pike Place Market, some of the business folks.

And so I think it's having an operating, agreement or at least an explanation of the direction we're going is a perfectly reasonable request.

So I'm going to not support this.

I think there's a question of what is the, we're a few years out from knowing if this project is even going to move forward with federal funding and other things and there's a question of what are the pieces we need in place before we move on to the next step.

And I view the, I know that we will need some operating subsidy to make this work.

I don't need to know exactly where that funding is going to come from, what source it's going to be, because it's a few years out.

And I think figuring out if we have a viable project that will compete for federal funding is a question that I think makes sense to do first before we stop and come up with a plan.

Just to be clear.

There are a lot of different agencies working on transit in the region, including in Seattle.

There's a lot of money that changes hands in both directions.

The city currently spends about $40 million to buy additional bus service from King County Metro.

We are going to be working on arrangement with Sound Transit almost certainly on how we complete the West Seattle to Ballard light link program.

And I think this is going to be in the mix of things and it's not going to be that someone is magically going to show up and pay for it.

Similarly, we're all going to have to put some money in to get the transit system we want.

And I think there's a fair question to say, is the Center City Connector a piece of that transit system we want?

And obviously, folks are divided on that.

But I don't think holding up the ongoing design work to get funding plan for operations that is multiple years from now is the right sequence of things.

I think the first thing to do is to finish that design work to see what that design looks like, if it makes sense, how much it's going to be, and then go on to see if we can get federal funding for it.

Great.

Council Member Herbold, I think you've got some clarifying points.

Yeah.

I understood that this proviso does not touch the money that the council voted very recently to allow for that design work.

Am I wrong about that?

That is the only money remaining in the budget that they have to spend.

That's the only money remaining, okay.

So I was under the impression that since we voted on that funding in 2019, that we were authorizing the spending of that money.

If you want to not put the proviso on the $9 million, we could absolutely do that.

There is no planned spending beyond that $9 million in SDOT's budget.

So for me, if the intent is...

I just don't want to have the spigot on beyond the action that the council has already taken.

And I would support that.

I mean, I believe that this council has decided you have $9 million to complete design and engineering work, but there's no money beyond that to be spent.

And I'm more than happy to belt and suspend a proviso that makes it clear that beyond that, but I don't want to stop the $9 million.

So can we talk more about how to do that?

Okay, thanks.

So we will not vote on adding sponsorship here.

You'll have an opportunity on our form C's.

All right, thank you for that discussion between the two of you, appreciate it.

Item number 47 is another proviso, spending on the Delridge Way Southwest rapid ride line.

And again, this is Council Member Herbold.

And the proviso would, proviso spending on Delridge Way, it would prohibit spending on construction until authorized by future council ordinance.

So this council has previously approved two spending provisos for this project, one at 10%, one at 30% design.

And I think it's been a really useful approach for me to act as advocate of community members to get their questions answered about the design.

The challenge here is that in a presentation at the Sustainability and Transportation Committee, In recent weeks, SDOT indicated that the final design would be completed in fall 2019 in line with the budget, which will allow for final review and approval.

Final design is now scheduled for January.

SDOT has indicated that this could result in delay in additional costs so my staff will be meeting with them in early next week about this but nevertheless this proviso again allows me to continue working with the community to make sure that concerns and questions that stakeholders in this area have about this this project are answered prior to the completion of the design.

Okay.

And I appreciate that the timing has slipped on this Council Member Herbold and I think it's totally appropriate to have it come back to Council.

I also continue to hope that there are some opportunities and as they do the final work to perhaps extend the protected bike lane on Dell Ridge a little further with some design work there too.

All right.

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

And this is item 47. Okay.

All right.

So the next three are mine.

Item 48 would add 400,000 and establish a CIP project for reconstruction of Fortson Square.

The project would coincide with the completion of the adjoining Chief Seattle Club renovation in spring 2021.

Very good, thank you colleagues, you've heard a lot from me about this over the last year.

Fortson Square is right at the corner of Yesler.

And second, it adjoins what is going to become Colleen Echo Hawk's extension on the Chief Seattle Club for 42 units.

very low-income housing.

And we've been working with Parks and SDOT and with the Pioneer Square Historic Preservation and with our arts group to de-assess the art that is there, redesign it so it's going to be a community welcoming space.

And I really like something that Colleen Echo-Hawk had recommended is that we do one of the brown signs down there.

Her building is going to be called All All and that means, Council Member Juarez helped me with this, it's welcome home or a welcoming place, but the idea of renaming that area something that just recognizing the people that are living there and what they have brought to us.

So this is $400,000 we put in money last year for Yesler Crescent.

Some of this money went to redesign and moving this forward, so I'd ask for your support and any other comments.

So go ahead.

I think this is an outstanding project, and I think it supports the housing project, which I'm thrilled about, too.

My only question is transportation dollars versus other dollars.

But I'm voting to support it, but I wanted to think about the mix if there's other ways to support that.

Great.

Thank you.

And this first funding amount that we did for Yesler Crescent had no transportation money in it.

It was all from parks.

So those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor of this, please raise your hand.

Very good.

Thank you.

And the next item is one of my very favorites, Market to MOHAI, if you'd like to set us up.

Item 49 would add $400,000 for the Market to MOHAI project.

This would be to fund four blocks of pedestrian lighting along the pedestrian corridor.

Great.

Thank you.

And I want to recognize my buddy, John Pearson, who's sitting out here.

And thank you for all your good work.

He's the genius behind all this.

And he has raised so much private money for this.

And it's a mile and a half corridor from the north end of Pike Place Market down through what is going to become our Bell Street Parkway.

And again, John Pearson was the mastermind.

helping that get going, and then taking a pedestrian walkway that is going to be the first age-friendly corridor in Seattle for a mile and a half down to South Lake Union.

His organization applied, once again, similar to what you were talking about, Council Member Herbold, had applied for grants.

They've received some over the years.

They applied for something that would help them complete it this year.

The dollar amount was considered too high.

but we're looking at adding the pedestrian lighting.

They've gotten the poetry written and underwritten by some of the private money that will be put into the sidewalks, and I'm thrilled that we'll get the benches, the pedestrian lighting, and get this completed in the next four blocks with your support.

Any other comments?

Okay, for those that will join me in co-sponsoring this, please raise your hand.

All right, team, thank you.

Item 50 is also from Council Member Bagshaw.

It would add $2 million and establish a CIP project for redevelopment of Thomas Street, the Thomas Street redesign project.

The project has several elements.

The main elements include a half-block closure of 5th Ave and Thomas Street, a 36-foot-wide pedestrian bicycle promenade from 5th Avenue to Dexter, and a protected intersection at Duxter and Thomas.

There are a number of different funding sources available for some of these projects, but it has an estimated gap of about $3.8 million remaining.

Great.

Thank you.

So many of you remember that we had a design charrette this summer.

It was supported.

Rick Cooper, thank you for being part of that.

Many others from the neighborhoods came.

We had about 45 people there.

And I really want to say thanks to SDOT because they were out in front and also Seattle City Light who has stepped forward and agreed to help fund through their 1% for arts.

some of the lighting that is needed along that.

The pedestrian path is going to really connect what we've got down at Westlake all the way to Seattle Center, and the goal is to have this functionally completed before the hockey puck drops in October 2021. The monies that have been identified have been worked through with SDOT, and I want to acknowledge Susan McLaughlin, in particular for helping us get there.

So, any other questions or additions?

Those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor with me on this one, please raise your hand.

Thank you.

Okay, Calvin, you're moving on to 51, and it's the Waterfront Transit Service, and I think Council Member Pacheco, are you speaking to this?

Okay.

Item 51 would add $1 million to purchase waterfront transit service and would direct SDOT to procure waterfront transit service that is similar to the free waterfront shuttle that's currently funded by WSDOT.

Very good.

Thank you, Council Member Pacheco.

Colleagues, since July 18, WSDOT has funded a free waterfront shuttle service shuttle as part of the mitigation for the Alaskan Way Viaduct removal.

The service runs every 20 minutes from 10 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

seven days a week from Seattle Center to Pioneer Square.

and the Chinatown International District with an additional loop through downtown Seattle.

With WSDOT funding scheduled to end in October 19, this budget action would add the same level of funding to the city budget to continue providing this free service.

Great, thank you.

And I'd just like to add to that we've had much private funding helping and will help us through the end of the year if WSDOT is unwilling to continue this.

It was part of the deal with waterfront development because parking was going away, the 99 bus was going away, so the downtown Seattle and others stepped in.

And especially since we're not going to have the waterfront streetcar as people had envisioned 15 years ago in that area or on First Avenue completed.

This is one way where we can backfill where Metro has not been able to serve downtown.

Thank you for bringing this forward, Council Member Pacheco.

Any further conversation on this?

So last time we had a conversation about this, I flagged a list of concerns, none of which have been answered or I think addressed in this particular Form B. So my focus was really around the fact that what we are proposing is a million dollars to fund privatized transit services on the waterfront.

And I have a lot of concerns about that.

So both from a labor standards perspective, from sort of the legitimate policy question of around Should we be using public dollars to fund public transit services?

Again, none of those questions have been answered and I don't think they're addressed in this.

So I'm gonna continue to object to this and oppose the proposal until we have clear answers on what the structure is here.

If it's just a perpetuation of the status quo, then I think it's important for us to publicly acknowledge that what we are doing is funneling taxpayer dollars that are intended for transit to a very wealthy private transit operation.

So I would just articulate I don't have an answer about the labor issues and those are well taken and those are questions that need to be addressed.

This is not just a waterfront but it actually picks people up at the waterfront from the West Seattle water taxi, and the loop goes into downtown up to the key arena area, but I think it goes up to Mercer and back.

And it's providing transportation that isn't otherwise there, and it has been completely underwritten.

It is free.

free for riders and I think that it's a worthy project to continue since there's nothing else that's serving the public.

Council Member Herbold.

When we had this discussion in the first round, we had talked about attaching some sort of a proviso to these funds that would require that these questions regarding the labor implications be addressed before we released those funds.

and whether or not that would mean some sort of a labor harmony agreement or some other mechanism to make sure that our public dollars were not being used in a way that don't align with our expectations for public dollars using to hire people.

And I thought there was widespread agreement that that would be a good way to go.

And you are absolutely right.

So I'm going to ask that that proviso be prepared and we'll bring it back on form C's.

Council Member Pacheco.

I was just going to say, you know, I think that while it's a private entity, it does provide a public good, which is why WSDOT helped

fund it.

Well, I mean, if folks in downtown are moving around, I think it is by definition providing a public benefit.

And so I will continue to support it, but I will put an asterisk to my support with regards to depending on what happens on Tuesday.

Great.

So I just want to clarify that I'm very familiar with the service.

I understand it.

It's not like I don't understand how the shuttle service works.

I take issue with creating the equivalency between public good and subsidization using taxpayer dollars of privatized for-profit services.

So just because you can write it for free and it's ostensibly a public benefit, those are different issues than what I'm flagging, which is that there is this proposal the way it's crafted now, would effectively release a million dollars of SDOT taxpayer dollars that are intended for public transit to a for-profit private entity that provides transit services in a particular corridor.

I get that there is value to these services.

I'm not questioning the value to the general public of those services, and it does help with modality.

I am flagging a different issue, which is that given that the structure currently is one that is privatized, I think that that is a a divergence from what we ordinarily do in this space, which is purchase these transit services from King County Metro, as opposed to going down the path of privatization of what we anticipate to be public transit services.

I mean, we have a history of making sure that there is accountability and that there is truly some public benefit here.

We do this in our public-private partnerships around Occidental Park and Westlake Park, where we have agreed to sign up, have programming done by the Downtown Seattle Association, but that was done with a concrete contract, a plan, an agreement, and commitment from these private entities that have no constitutional obligations at all to make sure that they are complying with our expectations around what it means to be providing a public benefit using public dollars.

And I have concerns that none of that currently exists.

This is just sort of a blank check of a million dollars.

and maintain the status quo, and I have no sense of what their labor relations are.

I have no sense of whether they are kicking people off their buses, for example, because they're homeless.

I just don't have a sense of how they are operating in a way that would be consistent with the same constitutional laws and restrictions that apply to us as a government entity.

Councilmember Pacheco and I'm definitely meaningful to adding that language.

So just if we can add that language That'd be helpful.

And I think it's fair what the questions that you are asking I don't think anybody ever pretended that we were gonna write him a blank check, but Since the questions have been raised.

I would like to pull this as is we will deal with To get the information that we can get, we will consider a proviso and just see if I can get some more information that will address my colleague's questions.

So I would like to move on to item number 52.

Item 52 is sponsored by Council Member Gonzalez.

It would add $150,000 for a neighborhood-focused public life study of Capitol Hill.

Public life studies are used to evaluate the design characteristics and public uses of public spaces, and this study is intended to be delivered in partnership with community organizations such as the Capitol Hill Eco-District.

Very good, thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, so I have talked about this one in the past.

I'm circulating a letter on this brown beige paper, which is my assigned color in this budget process.

There are a couple of letters here.

One is signed by the Seattle Central College, signed by our good friend Dr. Sheila Edwards-Lang in support of this.

funding and the other letter is signed by a consortium of folks and individual and organizations mostly major institutions that are on that's all I have, sorry, Jodi, that are major institutions on Capitol Hill.

So we have signatories from the Capitol Hill Housing Organization, Capitol Hill Eco-District, Seattle 2030 District, Kaiser Permanente, Seattle Central College, Bird Bar Place, Seattle University, and GSBA, all signaling their support for this funding.

This all stems from the study mission that I took with many of these organizations or representatives of these organizations to Copenhagen as an opportunity for us to really take a serious look at how we can center sustainability and climate resiliency and in these neighborhood planning processes, but also importantly making sure that we are taking a hard look at developing models for some of the densest neighborhoods across the city, how we are able to center community wishes in really creating a footprint that centers people and not cars first and foremost in terms of how they move around.

the city.

So this is really about public safety and about climate resiliency and sustainability and it makes sense I think after a lot of discussions to partner in this work with the Seattle Department of Transportation since it may involve some pedestrianizing, for example, of streets, repurposing public spaces that are currently prioritized for cars, for bikes, and people might be another outcome.

So this is a collaborative, broad effort amongst a lot of different stakeholders on Capitol Hill who want to sign up and get going on this work and create an implementation plan to be able to get something across the finish line and start transforming this neighborhood into a people-oriented neighborhood that feels safe and vibrant and sustainable, rooted in economic development strategies and concepts and sustainability ASAP.

I like everything about this and I think we brought up last time about connecting with the Pike Pine Corridor folks and the people that are designing that.

So, I think this is a good idea.

Yeah.

This is just an opportunity to provide some resources to actually allow for the opportunity to create that coordination and that and those broad connections and really important spines of our city.

Really.

Further comments?

Those in favor of adding your name as a co-sponsor to item 52, raise your hand.

Excellent.

Moving on to 53, public transit in Seattle free to ride.

So item 53 is a statement of legislative intent that is sponsored by Council Member Sawant.

It requests that SDOT develop a plan and a budget proposal for making all public transit in Seattle free to ride.

The slide requests that SDOT report to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee or successor committee and the central staff director by June 1st, 2020.

Council Member O'Brien, are you pinch-hitting on this?

I have some talking points that I will read.

One of the proposals of the Green New Deal resolution passed by Council is calling for a massive expansion of public transit and making it free for all to use.

It's not possible to substantially reduce the number of cars on the roads and the time people spend in their cars unless we invest in making other forms of transportation effective, efficient, and affordable.

Now, are these your words or are these Council Member Sawant's?

I am channeling.

I am actually not channeling.

I am reading Council Member Sawant's words.

Thank you.

Although, so far, I agree with everything I've said.

And make housing affordable.

I support this ad.

I think us moving towards free transit for everyone is a good investment.

Those are my words.

So the SLY asked us to make recommendations for how to make all transit in Seattle free for all to use.

Options include requiring employers to supply ORCA cards to employees, taxing big business to fund ORCA cards for all, coming to an intergovernmental agreement to make Seattle a ride-free zone.

The reality is rider fares are right now a minority of the revenue used to operate our public transit program, so it's not impossible to make a transit free for all just like the roads and sidewalks are.

A couple things I'll just personally add.

I do agree and share the vision that one day hopefully soon everybody in the city could ride on transit for free or at least everyone could ride it without minimal impact to themselves depending on their income level.

So some way to do that I think would be outstanding.

The other thing I'll add in light of potential funding changes if initiative 976 were to pass is that doing providing free transit but having a lot less transit to provide because you have to cut service is something that We'll have to think of in the mix.

And so that's something that's that will balance we move forward for this does not allocate money It's a sly and I think it's a great thing for us not to be working on further comments My my concern is that

Metro has been looking at this for years, and I hope that if we're doing something like this, that we reach out, talk to Metro, and also consider what the cost would be in some ways that I would rather vote on this after next Tuesday to know what we've got to deal with.

So I'm going to ask other comments.

So who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor?

Oh, Council Member Pacheco, did you have something?

I would love to ask Council Member Sawant, but if there's, or Council Member O'Brien, through you, I'm asking, if you would be amenable to adding language about including Metro in the discussion?

Certainly, I would be amenable to it.

I imagine that Council Member Sawant would be amenable to it too.

I don't speak for her, but I think I can take that back to her and see what happens.

Chair Baxter, the only thing I was going to say is that because there's no money associated with this in terms of the potential of adding this, I'm not sure what the connection is to the initiative related to funding for transportation?

Oh, just if we're having to suddenly do a complete redo of how much money we have.

And I appreciate the slide doesn't have money attached to it, but somebody's got to do the report.

And that it definitely takes time away from others that might be doing work that they've already have in their work plan.

Yeah, I think the exercise that we're asking to be done might change.

Based on the outcome.

Yeah, it might be next Tuesday, it could be...

tell us what it will cost us to pay for the current level of service that we have that is not free and that that might be a higher priority.

We could still ask the other question.

It just is a question that might seem much harder to attain if we have an immediate challenge in front of us just to maintain our current level service.

Thank you for that.

I would say that there's a caveat over everything we're doing with ASTART right now that until we know more clarity on the outcome next Tuesday.

I mean pretty much everything we raised our hand on to say that we want to co-sponsor since we started at 2 o'clock is questionable at this point.

But I do, as you mentioned Council Member Gonzales, I do think that a long-term vision of how we achieve More better economic access to transit whether it's free for everybody or however that looks is it is a worthwhile study?

Regardless of where we go and this will influence what we do in the sale transportation benefit district renewal next fall Which obviously will depend on what happens on Tuesday also.

Yeah, I mean, I think the issue becomes even more frankly, in some ways, more acute if we have a financial shortfall as a result of the passage of 976 in terms of determining the disproportionate and disparate impact on low-income transit riders.

So I don't think that that eliminates the need to do this work, I think it does require sort of a slight tweak and evolution of it.

But I'm speaking up just because I agree with the intent of the slide to sort of better position ourselves and strategize around how to make transit accessible to more people by removing that financial barrier.

That's obviously, I think, a good goal that I think all of us up here share.

So, happy to sort of take a wait-and-see approach if that's the most prudent way to proceed.

I think that, you know, all of the work we've done around ORCA passes, I want to – that would be my first – my first concern is, well, let's not talk about 976. Let's move forward with this today, and I'm going to ask, are there others who want to add their name as a co-signer, co-sponsor of this right now?

Okay, and we can come back obviously in form Cs to do what we need to do.

All right, item 54 is 1.4 million transportation fund for bike master plan.

Item 54 would add 1.4 million to install 3,000 parking spaces for free floating bike and scooter share parking.

SDOT is currently deploying 1,500 spaces in 2019 using bike share permit fees and is deploying an additional 1,500 spaces through the Move Seattle projects over the next several years.

This is Council Member Pacheco's question.

Good.

Council Member Pacheco.

By the end of this year, SDOT plans to have added 1,500 micro-mobility parking spaces around the city in 2019. Throughout my term, I've worked closely with transportation disability advocates, disability rights advocates, and one of the most common concerns is the lack of parking infrastructure for micromobility devices, particularly the sidewalk clutter that bike shares leave throughout the city.

The city must invest in the infrastructure as we have the car parking across the city for places that park bikes and all micromobility devices like scooters.

SDOT is preparing for an e-scooter pilot program in spring of 2020. So with more micro-mobility devices coming to our streets, this budget request will increase the funding for in-street parking corrals.

Earlier this week at the ScooterShare public forum, we learned that the biggest concerns from the public about a ScooterShare program and lack of adequate parking and micro-mobility parking guidelines.

This will allow SDOT to double their micro-mobility on-street parking corral goals for 2020.

All right, thank you.

Council Member Runt.

Calvin or Abel, can you just walk through what the impact of this would be on the Bike Master Plan, Protective Bike Lanes, CIP?

That is the CIP project that SDOT is spending out of to, it's essentially where they capture the appropriations for this type of spending, so it would add, this is proposing to add more money specifically for that purpose, and it's housed in that bucket.

And is there a vision on where the $1.4 million would come from to be added at this point?

There was not one identified at this time.

OK.

I love the idea of more of the bike or micro-mobility parking, and I think SDOT's doing a great job of really stepping it up, and we'd love to see them accelerate that work.

My concern would just be at the expense of what at this point, and so I wouldn't want to take this away from some of the investments that we talked about a few items ago about completing a Southeast Seattle bike network.

Council Member Morris.

First of all, I have a couple of comments.

I was going to, Council Member O'Brien raised one of them.

I wanted to make sure that this didn't take away from any of the funds that we had set aside for the bike master plan.

And my other issue was about the multimodal parking spaces.

I do support Council Member Pacheco's budget action to fund these spaces for bike share and scooter share, but my main concern is where they would be.

I can tell you right now in District 5, and I know I don't represent the whole city, but I am on city council, and I do have one vote for everything, so not just in D5, but everywhere, continual complaints everywhere about the scattershot, bike-share bikes, blocking sidewalks, pedestrian right-of-ways.

I myself have witnessed elders people in wheelchairs, people sight impaired, children not being able to get across the street because these bikes and scooters are just laying like litter everywhere.

So I obviously agree with the intent that it's needed.

I guess my concern is if you're going to put in 1.4 million, I'm concerned about where they're going to be designated, how we're going to determine in the city how we go out and move these or put these the parking spaces, how are you going to determine that?

Have other cities done it?

And they say, look, we took a map of the city.

We worked with the vendors, the bike share providers, or scooter share providers, because I think we have like three or four now in the city.

I know they go around in vans.

and they pick up the bikes or scooters or whatever.

I'm wondering what modality we would use to determine where in the brick and mortar we would place these.

So in the current program, SDOT has a program manager that has access to some of the ride data from these bike share companies and does use that.

They do look for opportunities to find available right away space near schools, near business districts.

They do run a, Sort of an outreach program to say here are the the places that we're looking at in one area when they first did this I believe one of the areas they did was in Ballard and they highlighted a few specific areas some were in the streets somewhere on the sidewalks and they talked to people to try to see if these were the the types of Corrals that would be used but it's It is a new thing and it's it's managed.

It's sort of an ongoing evolving thing the department funded this program using scooter share, or excuse me, bike share fees, and so it was not funded through other transportation funding, but they don't believe that this scale of program could be funded through those fees in the future.

Is there a way that we can talk about, and again, I do agree with Council Member Pacheco's intent and why we need this for the city if we're going to be moving towards bikes and the bike share programs, to incentivize people to put the bike, like an economic incentive, like I know that I'm going to date myself here, like when you would return a glass bottle and you got a quarter.

Is there a way to incentivize people putting these electric bikes and bikes back in some stall where they get 5% back or something instead of us physically having to get out of our cars or moving them ourselves off the street or off the, you know, I had just last week somebody parked two of them in the Starbucks drive-thru.

Not that I'm complaining about the drive-thru, I'm just saying it was ridiculous.

So is our other, is anyone exploring anything like that?

The old car share, the old bike share model was bike rack that had to be docked before you could stop paying for that bicycle, so that was the old model.

This model is relying on you being able to leave that device wherever.

I will say there are hybrid models like you discussed where you could, you know, you could leave it wherever but you could leave it somewhere designated for less money.

Obviously, we have regulatory authority over them and so I think the idea is that you suggested and that we've heard from others.

I would love to see SDOT be more intentional, more assertive maybe with the folks that are licensing to really get this in order and I think there's some opportunities to do that.

I mean, it's a very evolving market.

This did not exist a couple years ago, and it's rapidly changing.

There have been talk about whether folks could do things like geofence-specific areas, and it's a question of how fast is the technology making that something that can be done at, like, where on a block face could you do it versus larger areas of the city?

But it appears to be a very fast-moving industry.

Madam Chair, may I just make one more point?

Because it is a fast-moving technology, which the word means, and it often takes society a long time to catch up with technology, let alone how to regulate it and manage it and monetize it.

What I'm concerned about is that we add $101.4 million and then four years from now, We're not doing those anymore.

You know, we get sued because somebody fell and broke their neck or what we saw in the southwest with storms and tornadoes that all those bike companies had to move all those bikes out because they're flying projectiles and they're where they're going to kill people.

So I guess that's those are the kind of things I think about.

Besides where these play, and I don't want to belabor the point, I apologize, but belabor the point about where we would locate these stalls.

So I'll leave it at that.

Councilmember Pacheco, then Councilmember Herbold.

Oh, just, we passed a resolution earlier this, or late this summer, I believe, that did ask SDOT to work with the private companies to try to incentivize, or find ways for us to work with the companies to get more people to do the right thing in terms of parking.

But I hear your concerns of just, you know, because this market is and this technology is shifting.

I just think that as we're, We know that to get more people out of cars, we have to build the infrastructure to support people out of those cars.

So that's why I brought this proposal forward and so just hope to have the support.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, I was going to say I don't have a problem funding infrastructure that will then be used to store bikes and scooters because that accomplishes our goal of making sure they're not littered all over the sidewalk and interfering with our ability to walk on the sidewalk.

It's called a sidewalk because we're supposed to be able to walk on it.

But I do feel really strongly that we should not be permitting any more of these things until they figure out a way to make sure that the customer is charged.

unless it's put in a place where it needs to be.

There's got to be a way, technology-wise, that the meter keeps running if it's not parked where it's supposed to be parked.

And I think our sidewalks are becoming more and more littered.

And for somebody like me who has no mobility problems at all, it drives me crazy.

And I feel terrible.

that we are not being, I think, more prescriptive on behalf of the folks who do have mobility problems in our city, and making sure that we are, as a public guardian of these street right-of-ways, being more prescriptive with what our expectations are of this innovation.

So can I just ask a question?

Does that mean that you are in support of installing the parking spaces that Council Member Pacheco is recommending, or are you directing SDOT to someone else?

We've already got bikes.

These parking spaces will be hopefully used for the bikes.

There's no turning back right now as it relates to bikes.

I'm saying I don't think we should be moving forward on scooters until we figure out a way to make sure that they're not on the streets.

Thank you so I I wanted to sort of move the conversation in a way that was perhaps a little bit broader and and more reflective of the different kind of modes that aren't cars that need parking.

So I think we got into a little bit of a rabbit hole around scooters and bike shares, and then sort of went from there to say this market is evolving.

It's constantly evolving.

Well, folks, we've had the bicycle since 1817. I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

And so the reality of bikes and people needing a place to put them exists regardless of whether we're talking about a sharing program or whether it's a scooter that's electrified or not, or whether in 10 years from now or three months from now, it's flying like a hoverboard.

I don't know.

But the bike has been here since 1817. And people need places to park them.

And I think that if we take a look at Council Member Pacheco's through the lens of where do people...

park or need to park their bicycles, which is an alternative mode of transportation, then does it merit an investment in this level of infrastructure to allow that to happen?

I sort of see that as the lowest common denominator, for lack of a better phrase.

And then sort of allowing other modalities to take advantage of that parking space is still going to be available to us as a city.

So that's kind of how I'm thinking about this approach.

And I think when I spent a week in Copenhagen, I was just blown away around the intentionality of creation of spaces for things that aren't cars that need to be stored properly.

So we can't expect to change people's behavior if the only option we're giving them is a sidewalk.

And so, you know, where else are people supposed to put their bikes or whatever else they're taking that isn't a car?

I mean, if we didn't provide parking, massive concrete, multi-story parking carriages and parking spaces on public streets.

Lord knows what kind of litter we'd see with cars all over the city, right?

But we we rose to the occasion at some point and created parking spaces and parking garages and now those cars are fairly orderly organized when they're not being driven around.

We should do the same thing for things that aren't cars and I think there are places that have done much better than us and thinking about this and not overthinking it but just simply thinking of it as how do we utilize current space like for example King Street Station or Union Station.

It's a ton of just empty space there.

If we were in Copenhagen, there'd be like bike racks for 100 to 200 bikes available for people to use that could also be utilized in the manner that I think Council Member Pacheco is advocating for.

And we'd minimize that litter that isn't a machine operated car.

take us home, Council Member Herbold.

I don't think I was saying anything in conflict with that.

And I just went off on my a little rant on my fears if we do, if we move into the sphere of doing scooter share or other types of shares without using our ability through the permitting process to reduce, do more than we're doing right now to reduce the litter.

And I do want to say that as it relates to cars, we didn't just provide parking spaces.

We also found a way to sanction people who would leave the cars where they're not supposed to.

We don't have a way to sanction people who leave their bikes or leave their scooters where they're not supposed to.

So, who would like to join Councilmember Pacheco as a co-sponsor on item number 54?

1817, folks.

Thank you.

Good.

It's good to know.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to remember that.

All right.

Thank you.

Moving on to 55. Can I ask just a procedural question here, Elise?

Passed council bill on free floating car share permit fee ordinance.

Are we?

Are we going to be adding any names here, or are we just acknowledging that this is out there?

This is a new piece of legislation.

So what action do we need to take up here?

So Councilmember O'Brien is sponsoring this piece of legislation, and so you are free to ask for sponsorship.

Okay, thank you.

So item 55 is legislation to reduce the RPZ fee, excuse me, the restricted the restricted parking zone fee component of free floating car share permits.

So this reduces the RPZ fee from $700 per vehicle to $200 per vehicle.

The total fee for these car share companies would, or vehicles, would reduce from $1,730 per vehicle to $1,230 per vehicle.

In 2019, two operators have left the Seattle market, so there is only one vendor left.

So this action would also reduce the anticipated permit revenue to account for the fewer operating vehicles and the lower RPC fee.

Great.

Council Member O'Brien, explain this to us.

I will do my best.

So we've been collecting this fee in anticipation for making a series of investments to help make the free floating car share more accessible to folks.

We've struggled to figure out an actual viable path for making those investments and so there's a couple things going on that why I support this legislation and why in fact I asked this legislation to be created.

One is until we have a way to spend, to realistically invest those monies, I don't think it makes sense to continue to collect it.

I also think that free floating car sharing has provided flexibility in the mobility sector for a lot of people in our city.

And I would hate to lose the last of our free floating car share companies.

As Calvin mentioned, two have ceased operating in Seattle while one's a month away from ceasing operations.

The remaining one, which is Cardigo, has ceased operating in the majority of their United States markets.

Seattle, they've maintained.

And I think this is an effort to try to also be competitive and fair.

Okay, thank you.

Comments?

Council Member Herbold.

So my understanding was the intended use of this fee originally was all about marketing to neighborhoods where they anticipated there might be less use of car sharing and that that money was never spent that way.

And because that money was never spent that way, they are now charging folks who live in those neighborhoods, and often they're low income neighborhoods, more if they're not returning the car to the neighborhood.

So why don't we just use the money the way we said we were going to use it in the first place?

And in doing so, make sure that we have equity in our city on the cost of ride share.

Instead of charging one part, well not one part, a couple different parts of the city, I think it's four bucks more a ride, because we did not invest these dollars the way we should.

I would like to use the funds to get equitable service, rather than reducing the fee and not getting equitable service.

I agree.

I think probably the answer that you're looking for is going to require more detail than I have knowledge about.

And so I think I know there's some folks from SDOT in the audience, and so it may make sense for you to connect with them and understand.

I'll give you my short version of what I understand.

The efforts to try to design a program that would meet the objectives that you talked about was particularly challenging.

I think the city would like to be, wanted to be making those investments themselves, but didn't have the access to the customers that they wanted to do.

And the alternative was to hand the money over to the companies to market it.

And whether it was for lack of trying or lack of access is not totally clear to me, but what is clear is that they never found a programmatic way to make the investments that they thought could serve the populations that They want to serve, and you've identified, now want to serve too.

The goal was exactly what you said, would be to how to make sure folks, especially folks in lower income communities, would also have equitable access to this, including perhaps some funding subsidies to make them use it, in which case there would be hopefully more usage in those areas.

No one has figured out how to actually do that in a way that would have been effective.

And so I believe that there continue to be opportunities to do that.

And I don't know if the challenge was a technical one about how to get people.

qualified to use a vehicle that's worth tens of thousands of dollars without a credit card or whether I don't know exactly.

I mean, I just I think the issue just from what I know of my own neighborhood is there are lots of people using the cars, but they're using it in one direction.

And we're not in neighborhoods that have like a super busy commercial district.

So unlike some of our urban centers where it might get used in the morning but then it gets used all day for all kinds of errands that people run during the day or, you know, various different things, it's going out in the morning and not coming back in the evening.

I think it's less of fewer people using it I mean, it still is fewer people using it, but it is, I think, less of a symptom of people being low income, because I know lots of low income people use Car2Go.

It's more of what their patterns are of use and the fact that these aren't necessarily super developed neighborhoods that you see a lot of during the day use.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm not an expert here, but my understanding of the model is it's very successful in very dense neighborhoods, where there are thousands of people within a few blocks of a few vehicles on the street, as opposed to dozens or hundreds.

I believe Seattle is the only city in the country that requires any of the free floating car share companies to have a service area that includes the entire city.

And so they have, you know, I'll let them defend themselves about how hard they tried and what they tried and what worked and what didn't work.

But they will point to the fact that they are serving areas that they think fundamentally do not work for this model because of the lack of density or ridership, if you will.

And that's a challenge that we're also trying to figure out.

And so, yeah.

I see Council Member Pacheco is raising his hand too.

Please, go ahead.

If only we could add more density around certain neighborhoods.

I like it.

So, in order to move this forward, since we still have lots of items to discuss, what would you like to do, Council Member Bryan?

So I support moving forward and in 2020 eliminating this portion of the fee.

To be clear, the other portion of the fee that would be $1230 is also actually dependent ultimately on the actual parking usage.

And so this is the estimate of the upfront cost, but we true up at the end of the year and get additional revenues usually because there's excess parking fees.

But I support this adjustment with the hopes of us, I would love to see the ultimate goal that Council Member Herbold talked about, which is the increased ridership in some areas.

I would love to see us continue to work on ways to increase usage or other models in those neighborhoods, but I would also hate to lose this opportunity and it's always hard to decide what the right balance is but the fact that two other of our free-floating car share companies have are about to leave and this is the only one left caused me to think that it's appropriate to at least for one year make this change.

So I guess I'd love a hands up hands down and then we'll have to figure out where it goes in the budget.

Okay who would like to add their name as a sponsor to this?

Raise your hand.

Okay, very good.

Thank you for that.

All right, let's move on to the next item, which is 56.

Item 56 is from Council Member O'Brien.

It's a statement of legislative intent that touches on some of those issues.

It requests that SDOT evaluate the impact of drop-off fees in car-sharing pricing structures.

Car-sharing companies have implemented differential fees to incentivize customers to leave cars in denser parts of the city.

And the slide asks that SDOT assess the accessibility, cost burden, equity, and distribution impacts of this pricing structure and recommend any changes to the SDOT's permit program.

The request is to report to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee or the Successor Committee and the Central Staff Director by April 1st.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Nothing to add.

Okay.

Thank you, Calvin.

Love that.

So this is a slide.

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Okay.

Next item is also a slide.

Next item is item 57. It is a statement of legislative intent requesting that SDOT evaluate the Complete Streets policy against current national best practice.

The Complete Streets ordinance was adopted in 2007. The report would go to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee or the Successor Committee and the Central Staff Director by April 1st.

This is also Council Member Bryan.

Nothing to add.

That was perfect.

Thank you, Calvin.

But it's very important.

I support it.

Those who want to add their names as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

All right, item 58 is also a sly, and this one's going to get pitched to Council Member Pacheco.

Item 58 requests that SDOT develop an alternative to traditional level of service transportation analysis to better account for greenhouse gas emissions, multimodal transportation, safety, and walkability.

It would report to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee or the Successor Committee and the Central Staff Director by June 30th.

Good.

Council Member Pacheco?

What he said.

I love it.

Okay.

Those in favor of adding your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Excellent.

Good.

And the next is Council Member O'Brien, red light camera.

Back to you, Calvin.

Item 59 is new legislation to increase the amount of red light camera fee funding that is directed to the school safety traffic and pedestrian improvement fund over time.

In the 2019 adopted budget, council suspended the 20% contribution for 2018, 2019, and 2020. This legislation would establish new policy and an escalating scale that starts at 10% in 2020, escalating by 10% each year to 100% in 2029. This council budget action will also transfer $500,000 of general fund to the School Safety, Traffic, and Pedestrian Implementation Fund that would be consistent with this proposed legislation.

Great.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien.

We have a pink sheet on this one.

We do have a pink sheet.

Thank you, Council Member Begichau.

This is the third of the pink sheets you have from us.

It's some anecdotes and some of the stories about what would happen about pedestrian safety.

Just to remind colleagues in the public, last year, as part of the final budget package to get to balancing with a lot of competing interests, the budget that the council passed suspended our previous rule that allocates 20% of red light camera funding to school safety projects.

I believe that the analysis at the time was because of the school speeding cameras had taken in excess revenue.

They were able to maintain the level of spending that had been anticipated without the red light camera, and so that got reallocated.

We suspended it for two years for the 2019 and the 2020 budget with the understanding that we return to a 20% commitment in the 2021 budget.

What I'm proposing here is that we partially reinstall for 2020, dedicating some of this red light funding to additional of these traffic safety programs.

I believe 10% is around $450,000-ish.

And then continue to ramp that up.

What we've seen this year, and what you can see on the sheet in front of you, is that despite our commitment to Vision Zero, it's been an atrocious year for folks in our community.

11 pedestrians and bicyclists were killed between the first of the year and last week.

70 serious injuries to pedestrians and cyclists.

There's a number of other things to talk through.

And those numbers alone are horrific.

One is a bad number, especially if it's someone you know.

But these numbers are showing a significant increase over previous years.

And so it seems like that it's an appropriate time to up that investment.

Unlike the previous transportation budget ads, Council Member Baggio, that have been essentially revenue neutral from the general fund.

The red light camera funding that we took out was into the general fund, and so the only way to restore this would be by putting general fund money back into it.

So this does have implications on the overall balancing package.

I just wanted to flag that.

for my colleagues.

I do think making a strong commitment that we will continue to ramp this up over time is also something that makes sense.

I recognize that's putting off some harder decisions to future years, but I think until we see the trend turn drastically in the other direction when it comes to safety for all of our roadway users, this is an area that I think it's important to invest in.

Thank you for that.

Any comments?

Okay, Council Member Herbold.

I strongly support moving in this direction, not only because of the great need that we have to address pedestrian and bike safety, but also because for automated traffic enforcement, it is considered a best practice to use the revenue generated from that enforcement for traffic safety projects.

Studies show nationally that people have less resistance to automated camera enforcement if they believe that that enforcement isn't being used as a cash cow for the city's revenue needs.

If they believe that those dollars are being plugged into addressing traffic safety impacts, they're less resistant to that form of enforcement.

I want people to be less resistant to that kind of enforcement.

And I want people to see how those dollars are being spent in a way that benefits the safety of our residents and of our state.

Very good.

Thank you.

Comments?

Okay, those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor to this, raise your hand.

Moving on to number 60.

Item 60 is a statement of legislative intent that is requested by Councilmember Juarez.

It requests that SDOT report on progress for improving pedestrian safety in District 5. This slide specifies a number of specific locations and questions to be answered.

It requests a report to the Sustainability and Transportation Committee or Successor Committee, Councilmember Juarez and the Central Staff Director by June 30th.

Very good.

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

I want to just refer quickly back to Councilmember O'Brien's number 59. and the pink sheet that he handed out.

Maria Banda actually lived in North Seattle and I actually knew her as one of our elders and she recently was in a hit and run in September 30th, 2019. In fact, this morning I drove by her memorial which is still standing.

What we have in front of you for item number 60 is the asking SDOT to request, provide a status report on the implementation of District 5 transportation priorities.

As Councilmember O'Brien shared, I'll be a little bit more specific.

In the first 10 months of 2019, 10 pedestrians were struck and killed by vehicles in Seattle.

Six of those deaths occurred in District 5, three were in Lake City, and three were on Aurora.

And as we know, each pedestrian death is preventable and unacceptable.

You've all heard myself and other folks talk about constituents in the north and other sidewalks across this great city about the lack of pedestrian infrastructure and sidewalks.

So this statement of legislative intent requests that by June 30, 2020, that SDOT provide a report and presentation detailing action and progress on improving pedestrian safety in Seattle's District No. 5 as one of their top priorities.

I would just add I also have 61 and 62, and I just do want to give a shout out to SDOT.

I have been working with them.

They've been great on the material and the requests that we have put in, whether it's your voice, your choice, find it, fix it, crosswalks, stop signs, home zones.

They've been great about that.

But what we've never had and what we've been trying to work with SDOT and I would encourage other district representatives, just anyone actually, is that one of the first things we did when we were elected and continue to do is to do a kind of a yearly inventory, not just a brick and mortar or economic indicators or social indicators or what social organizations exist in our district, but also what doesn't exist as far as pedestrian safety.

So I'm looking forward that my colleagues support me on this.

so we can get a better snapshot, if you will, about what is outstanding and what we would like to have strategic resources directed for pedestrian and a commitment to pedestrian safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Comments?

Council Member O'Brien.

Council Member Juarez, thank you so much for bringing this forward and thank you for highlighting the disproportionality of the Collisions that have happened district 5 in North Seattle.

I absolutely support this I I would suggest that we Consider asking us not to go even further and help us to design a framework for how we look at investments the Parks Department, you know has a gap analysis where they're looking at and areas where people don't have access to parks, and that's where they prioritize investments.

Obviously, we know we have good data on where sidewalks are missing, and so that's one analysis.

But another analysis would be to be looking at where we're seeing more and more of these collisions that are causing fatalities or serious injuries, and having that be part of the metric of how we allocate our resources.

Thank you.

Great.

Good.

Other comments?

Okay.

We're just adding our names to item number 60. Who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor?

Great.

And did you want to speak further on 61?

Item 61. Item 61 would add $350,000 in one-time funding to implement home zone projects that were identified during the 2019 pilot program.

SDOT's 2019 work evaluated 20 locations, developed concepts for four locations, and ultimately funded two locations.

The endorsed and the proposed budget did not include continued funding for the home zones in 2020. This is Council Member Juarez's report.

Thank you.

Again, because many of our neighborhoods lack sidewalks, I am happy to say that D5 is the poster child and the success story that home zones work.

We have found that this traffic calming measure, since we do lack sidewalks and particular infrastructure, has actually, we've had such wonderful neighborhood and community support And the information we get from our constituents, thanking us, thanking SDOT, quite frankly, for putting in the home zones to slowing down traffic, particularly around our elementary schools.

We have 12 elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools.

However, we've also learned that having these calming measures to one street sometimes just causes the problem to simply move over to another street.

Hence our reasoning of why we want to keep the funding going for the Home Zone Program, so we treat and address the entire neighborhood, not just particular arterials.

And so with that, I'm asking that my colleagues support me in continuing the Home Zone Program, which has been very successful.

Thank you.

comments?

Council Member Herbold.

Just a clarification because South Park was also a recipient of home zone funds last year.

This is not additional home zone funds for a particular district.

We are relying on SDOT to use their equitable investment policies to determine how to best spend these funds.

Council Member O'Brien.

No, I want it all for me.

That's what I'm saying.

Council Member O'Brien.

Well, of course we all do.

Calvin, can you help me understand?

My understanding is these investments are largely capital investments, and so the money invested in 2019, while the program is currently not slated to continue, those home zones will stay in place indefinitely, right?

There's no operational cost.

That's correct.

And the capital investments, is it a combination of traffic circles, one-way streets, speed bumps?

All those things.

So I assume it's custom to the neighborhood and depending on the layout.

It may be often the most cost-effective, you know, in places where putting sidewalks in is cost-prohibitive, it may be a way to deliver similar safety measures.

I think this is...

This is this has been a program where the department's been able to sort of bring a lot of its different Ways that it touches neighborhoods together in one area and and have a conversation about what that would look like in a very focused area I Think it does draw on a lot of other different parts of the agency to kind of how it all puts together But it is I think the strongest piece of it has been in how it engages communities about a specific area and saying, here's how it could look for one for several blocks at a time, which these have often been sort of spot locations.

What can we do with this crossing?

What can we do with that intersection?

And I think this is more of a network approach or a more community-focused approach.

I think it's great.

And the thing that the spot approaches that we've traditionally done have also been good, Sometimes we'll have the impact of, hey, I fixed my block at the expense of a block won over because you just diverted people to another neighborhood street.

And by really focusing traffic to stay on their arterials is great.

So I totally support this.

And my hope is that we can learn from some of these pilots that were done, some of these poster children, and continue to get more of them.

And this seems like an area that would be ripe for expansion in future years, too.

Just briefly two things it isn't just complaint-based and I like what you said Calvin that it's a network conversation so you're not just saying well my street got fixed so I don't really care what happens one block over one block over or I It happened next to my child's elementary school, so I don't really care what happens to the elementary school three miles away.

And that's actually what, for me, has been inspirational hearing, is that it's brought people to come together and not just complain about their corner, but about their whole, and this is what we're supposed to be doing, building community about what's important and what's bigger than ourselves.

So with that, I'll leave it at that.

Good.

Thank you.

Any further comments?

Those who would like to add your name as co-sponsors to number 61, raise your hand, please.

Okay, very good.

Thank you for that Councilmember Juarez.

Moving on to item 62.

Item 62 would add $200,000 for walkway improvements along Northwest 132nd Street near Broadview Thompson K-8.

Proposed funding would come from the School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement Fund.

This is Councilmember Juarez.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Morris.

Thank you.

The Broadview, well last year neighbors and city officials came together to do a walk, and we've done a walk in Broadview and Bitter Lake more than once, to do a walk audit of the area surrounding Broadview Thompson Elementary School, that's K to 8. The report from the walk audit identified nine recommendations to improve the safety of children walking to and from school, several of which are already in progress.

I should add that we also just completed, I believe they're up and moved in this year, our low-income housing units that went in last year in Broadview Thompson, which makes it more denser for our children that are across the street from the elementary school.

This budget action will fund one of the most important recommendations, building a new sidewalk on the heavily-trafficked Northwest 132nd Street.

I hope you will support this low-cost budget addition to protect children from being hit by a car on their way to school.

Thank you.

If that doesn't tug at your heart strings, I don't know what.

My heart strings are tugged.

Thank you.

Any further comment on that?

Those who'd like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Good.

Thank you.

Well done.

All right.

Colleagues, we've got 14 items left.

So let's dive into the next one.

Is this one yours, Eric, or still Calvin?

No, we still have three more items that are more tied.

So the next three items are budget legislation that was transmitted by the executive with the proposed budget, so they don't necessarily need sponsorship.

Item 63 would recommend amending and passing a council bill to increase the commercial vehicle load zone fee ordinance.

So this increases the fees from $195 to $250 per permit.

It would also increase the temporary no parking fee, which is sometimes called meter hooding, by $2 per day, resulting in a fee of between $17 and $27 per day, depending on the location.

The proposed amendments were requested by the executive to eliminate consideration of the infraction penalty that was in the legislation in order to run that proposal through the Seattle Municipal Court rules that govern changes to infraction fees.

Comments?

All right, do we need to take action on this?

Do not.

Okay.

Item 64 is a recommends budget legislation that would extend the $12.2 million Interfund Loan for Mercer West from December 31st, 2019 to December 31st, 2020 to align with the anticipated sale of the Mercer Mega Block property.

Great, thank you.

Item 65 would do the same thing for a 3.6 million Interfund Loan for the South Lake Union Streetcar.

Both of these we expect when that sale closes will be able to be paid off, but it probably won't happen in 2019.

Hi, I'm Eric McConaughey of the Council of Central Staff.

I'm addressing items 66 and 67 on the agenda.

These are both sponsored by the Budget Committee, don't necessarily need sponsorship.

I'll describe them both quickly, and then before I do so, I just want to mention that they go together.

Overall, these two deal with Interfund Loan that deals with projects on the Central Waterfront.

The net effect of these two bills would not increase the amount of the Interfund Loan.

It would just break off a piece of it and put it toward another fund, and I'll talk about that right now.

So, Council Bill 119677 would recommend passage, excuse me, this Council Budget Action number 400A1 would recommend passage of that Council Bill.

It would authorize the extension of the term of Interfund Loan to the Central Waterfront Improvement Fund.

It would change the source of that funding to the real estate excise tax one.

It would also reduce the amount of this fund from $31.2 million down to $12.2 million.

Let me jump to the next one and explain where that money went.

with the passage of, or would go, with the passage of Council Bill 119678, $19 million, that difference would, from the real estate excise tax, would go to fund the local improvement district that was formed earlier this year.

And so the net result, as I mentioned before, would be about $31.2 million.

You may ask yourselves, well, why bother doing this?

It's because it's prudent to have the dollars being spent on local improvement eligible projects be sequestered or sort of separate from the other dollars.

And we expect that in the future, these inter-fund loans will be paid off with proceeds from the LID, which through a future action may be formed up, excuse me, may be a final assessment loan may be passed next year with taxes being gathered.

And then there's other sources like philanthropy and other city funds that would pay these loans back in the future.

That wraps it up for me.

All right.

So we are moving on to item 68 Seattle Police Department and we have 68 through 77 and then we will turn to public comment.

Greg Doss here council central staff to talk about item 68 and the next 10 items that are with the Seattle Police Department The first item SPD 1a 1 would request that SPD in conjunction with other city departments in the criminal justice arena lead an evaluation of the charged by officer program and And by way of background, SBD's charged by officer program allows patrol officers to refer a completed misdemeanor investigation to the law department without booking a subject into jail.

And so this slide would take a look at that process to determine whether or not there are any backfire effects or unintended consequences with the program.

Okay.

Is this Council Member Pacheco's?

Colleagues charged by officer, also known as citations in lieu of arrest, is a program that in some cities like New Orleans make use of that that allow police officers to issue citations directly rather than arresting suspects for low level offenses.

These programs have many benefits, including the physical interaction between officers and alleged offenders, saving officers the multiple hours it takes to book someone into jail, reducing jail populations, and potentially avoiding an individual's entry to jail altogether.

On the other hand, these programs could have unintended consequences if alleged offenders are less likely to appear in court after receiving a citation, which could lead to an increase in failure to appear charges.

Seattle has a charged by officer program in its SPD policy manual, but is unclear to the extent to which it is utilized, if at all.

This slide would ask SPD to partner with law, the municipal court, the criminal justice equity team to examine SPD's charged by officer program, including how it is utilized, if there are any unintended consequences, how it compares to other jurisdictions best practices, and whether it is consistent with the principles of harm reduction and restorative justice.

Thank you.

Comments?

Those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Good item 69 please.

All right, 69 SPD to a one would cut 3.3 million from the proposed budget one time to the Seattle Police Department to eliminate three of the mayor's proposed staffing and emphasis patrol initiatives.

The first one is the sworn officer hiring initiative for $814,000.

That's the incentive that SPD hires have upon signing with the agency.

The second would be the emphasis patrols for $848,000.

And the third is the recruitment and retention initiative for $1.6 million.

And this is Council Member Sawantz.

And I think Council Member O'Brien is going to speak to her points.

I'm just going to read a statement that Council Member Swann asked me to read.

This year the mayor's proposed budget expands police spending by almost $10 million.

It is now $410 million of the city's discretionary general funds, far more than any other department.

This year there is additional funding proposed by the mayor to more rapidly expand policing.

There is $1.6 million added to fund the efforts to recruit more police officers.

There's an additional $800,000 added to give hiring bonuses to attract new police officers.

It says on a side note, where is the hiring bonuses for social workers who are paid so little?

All of Seattle Human Services are woefully understaffed.

I agree on that point.

This budget also includes 800,000 for emphasis patrols through business districts.

And to be clear, this is not used for increased patrols where there are shootings.

This is about increased policing of business districts.

This budget amendment proposes to redirect these expansions of repressive policing to free up funds for the policies that are far more effective in reducing crime and recidivism, such as LEAD, and not expand the crisis of mass incarceration.

Thank you.

Comments?

Any who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Okay, seeing none, let's move on.

All right, item number 70 is adding 48,000 general fund ongoing for one FTE strategic advisor position to SPD to work with data systems that record interactions with indigenous people and impose a proviso.

As council members are aware, the proposed budget identified resources and added one position for a Native American liaison position.

This proposal would upgrade that position to a strategic advisor two, that would focus on technology.

This upgrade would also change the nature of the position.

The Strategic Advisor, too, would work inside SPD to examine data and work with investigatory units to determine if missing and murdered women may have been misclassified if they were indigenous.

And this action adds $48,000 to bridge the salary gap between the original position and the Strategic Advisor.

Thank you.

Council Member Warren.

Yes.

First of all, I want to thank Greg for working with on this for at least the last year.

Greg, thank you so much for diving in and assisting.

The mayor's proposed budget to handle missing murdered indigenous women and girls.

Casework was an existing vacant position at SPD with the base budget.

My proviso, our proviso adjusts that position classification to reflect the true responsibilities of a role like a planning and development specialist or a strategic advisor.

This position goes well beyond more than a liaison.

Not to say liaisons are not important, but these are particular specialists, experts in their field with expertise in the area of identifying, working with law enforcement, social workers, and the urban community for missing, murdered indigenous women and girls, as well as tribes.

Again, I want to just state that we've been working meticulously with Greg Dawson a position classification and the range of salaries as appropriate in accordance with silly city policy so with this we would have the This position would ensure that a Native American is responding to this case work.

The proviso would make sure SPD is correctly capturing interactions with indigenous populations, groups, tribes, organizations, not just within the city but also leveraging the work and the services that are to offer from tribal governments.

This position would be responsible for developing best practices for data reporting, collection, and management so that the data around missing murdered indigenous women and girls is represented accurately so we can not only be first in the country to have this position and this expert to share this information and this data.

so others may use it as a template to attack the same crisis.

This specialist would also work in conjunction with the Seattle Indian Health Board.

And with that, I would like to, I would ask my colleagues to support me in this request.

Any comments?

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor on this, raise your hand, please.

Looks like you got what you needed, Council Member Juarez.

All right.

Did you get this handout?

All right, let's move on to 71. All right, item number 71 is SPD 4A1.

This would add $175,000 general fund to contract with an indigenous-led organization.

that can assist the city with its effort to end the murdered and missing women's girls crisis.

Native American murdered and missing women's girls crisis.

I always stumble over that.

And pose a proviso.

We got it.

We got it.

We got it.

I am, before I go into my prepared notes, which I, Nagin, I love you, but 18 pages is awesome, but I don't think my clients want to, or my colleagues want to hear that again.

Let me just make a few comments, and then I'll read from some of my notes.

But what we just handed out to you, and I, Thank you, Nagin.

You did a great job.

And again, like Councilmember Gonzalez said, this orchid was the color assigned to me as well.

You see item 70 on there with the budget action title, and then you see item 71 to the right of that.

And the reason why we have them and they go together, and then when you turn the page, which I really like, you see item 71 and item 70. On the left, where it says item 71, which we're talking about, the $175,000 for contract services, you see the turquoise octagons.

And as you can see, as Nagin did, the octagons represent the services or how we may partner with SPD.

There are 12 service locations.

And then on the right, it says item 70, Juarez.

That's where we have the $48,000.

to make sure that's a specialist, that's strategic advisor two for indigenous purposes, and that's the circle.

So actually, if you looked at my chart, I made my circle into a happy face.

So going back to item 71, now I'm going to go to my notes.

Now, the reason why Nagin did this is because she was trying to show where we do, when we do contract services, the services represented by the turquoise octagon to show where and how SPD may partner with the flowchart as you see below you.

So you see Chief Best, and you see how it's all broken down, and then you see where the turquoise octagons are like.

Let's give it an example.

under Adrian Diaz, Public Affairs, Community Outreach, Direct Outreach, Crisis Intervention.

So you see where they're spotted there.

This is information that we got nationally from the state and, of course, working with Abigail Elkahok and her team at the Seattle Indian Health Board.

So with that, let me go quickly to my notes and then we'll go ahead and thank you for indulging me, Council President.

I mean, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much.

Just got promoted today.

Thank you.

Can I just move forward?

Yes, you can.

Absolutely.

Any further comments from your colleagues?

This is a great handout.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez, I want to thank you for the thing about the bike.

Because as a Plains Indian, we had horses, and we didn't just leave them in the middle of the street.

So I'm just saying.

And they've been around a lot longer.

It's because you had a place to put them.

Thank you.

Those who want to add your name as a co-sponsor to item 71, raise your hand.

Lord, getting this troop going today.

Thank you.

OK, 72.

All right, 72 is SPD 5A1, which would impose a proviso on SPD in 2020 related to the emphasis patrols.

Members may remember that the mayor's 2020 proposed budget would add 848,000 to pay for neighborhood emphasis patrols.

This action would restrict 100,000 of that amount to ensure that patrols are provided in the university district.

And it's Council Member Pacheco's.

Council Member Pacheco.

So earlier this year when the mayor announced neighborhood emphasis patrols, I heard from many community members in my district asking why the university district was not included.

The district has higher levels of both real and perceived crime.

than many of the neighborhoods that were included.

And the mayor's office has expressed that data drove this process and that it was an emphasis of both the Department of Neighborhoods and SDOT.

With more density and light rail coming soon to the U District, I believe that we as a city should be putting an emphasis in this neighborhood.

This action would provide 100,000 of the 848,000 of emphasis patrol funding in the proposed budget to go specifically to patrols in the U District.

Nice.

Anybody have any other additions?

Council Member Gonzales, do you want to talk about this?

I just wanted to say that, sorry I just, sorry to catch you.

Protein, I know you had a protein break.

It is not, it is a Twix.

I'm trying to cover for you.

I will fess up.

I admit that I needed a little bit of sugar in addition to this pillow behind my back.

I was just going to say that I really appreciate Councilmember Pacheco's continued advocacy in this space when we had the presentation around the emphasis patrols.

you really honed in on the need in District 4 as it relates to this.

So, I hope that the police department takes this request seriously and does actually utilize this overtime bucket of dollars in the way that you envision it to be used and look forward to monitoring that next year in your absence.

Those, any other comments?

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor on this, raise your hand.

Well done.

Thank you 73 All right.

The next budget action SPD 6 a 1 would impose a proviso on SPD training appropriations and this action would Restrict $200,000 so that it may only be spent on training related to sex work The council intends that SPD would collaborate and contract with a community-based organization that has a subject matter expertise to deliver training to SPD leadership and relevant leadership and sworn officers.

And I might also mention that central staff is currently working with the department on this and there may be a way to reduce the number down from 200,000 to something more in the 120 range.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez, I believe this is yours.

It is.

So Council Member Mosqueda and I have been working together to engage service organizations like the Sex Workers Outreach Project, excuse me, and the Person of Color Swap about the development of a collaborative training model.

and curriculum that could help SPD leadership and rank-and-file officers to improve both their policies around and interactions with sex workers.

As with many other issues, the nature of public policy around sex work involves a complicated and nuanced set of circumstances and requires evolving language, evolving understanding, and evolving competency.

We're in ongoing discussions to determine the appropriate scope and depth of this proposal, as Greg Das just mentioned, and engaging both the advocacy organizations that will likely end up conducting these trainings, as well as the Seattle Police Department to define the best path forward.

However, I think we envision separate trainings being provided to SBD leadership and then to patrol officers based in the North End where we are seeing a surge in street-based sex work and commensurate arrests, unfortunately.

So ultimately, I believe this investment will result in better informed policies and practices over at the police department in addressing the safety and needs of sex workers, as well as those of victims and survivors of human trafficking.

Interesting.

Thank you for this.

Supportive, I've also heard that there's some interest in training on this topic within the municipal court.

Oh, OK.

Great.

Training for everyone.

Right.

What's that?

It would appear that 73 and 74 are the same and you could combine them again for purposes of co-sponsors.

Okay, I thought the one from Theresa Mosqueda was different, but can you speak to that one as well?

74?

It should be the same.

I think they're almost exactly the same.

If there's a difference, then it's a staff mix-up.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think it's just a product of our weird budget rules and process.

But they're the same, and we're working hand in hand.

Great.

All right.

Any other comments?

All right, so we can do 73 and 74. If you'd like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Great.

Thank you.

We just got two for one on that.

And then moving to 70.

Item number 75 is adding $127,000 general fund in 2020 to SPD for a regional domestic violence firearm enforcement detective and it comes with a proviso.

The idea here is that the department would send an experienced detective to the enforcement team and then would backfill with either a new officer or overtime for the existing officer.

Great.

And Council Member Gonzalez, I believe this is yours.

It is.

This item is being proposed in tandem with a different Form B that was labeled CBA Law 2-A-1 that we discussed on Wednesday.

And I believe all my colleagues up here raised their hands to co-sponsor.

that on Wednesday.

This proviso would add, would allow the Regional Domestic Violence Firearms Enforcement Unit, that's a handful, mouthful, to have the benefit of a second dedicated SPD detective to conduct investigations into risky individuals in situations where firearms are present.

As I've discussed a few times during our budget deliberations, this unit is a national model.

It's a first-of-its-kind model, and it is a model for how we can take firearms away from so-called red-flag situations, as well as in instances of domestic violence and suicide risk.

I'm eager and excited to help expand the capacity of the unit to do this life-saving work here in Seattle and across the region in partnership with many of our county law enforcement officials, and hope that you will all join me in supporting this addition.

Any comments on this one?

We want to say thanks to Chris Anderson.

I know his team was here yesterday.

Thanks for all who've been involved in this.

It's making a difference.

Those who want to add your name as co-sponsors, raise your hand.

Good.

76.

All right.

Item number 76 is a statement of legislative intent from Councilmember Herbold that would request that the Seattle Police Department develop a citywide approach to collect and report on theft, damage, or vandalism of city assets, including copper wire theft and damage caused with the theft of copper wire.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, do you want to talk about, since both of them are yours, 76 and 77, are they...

They are connected.

And so these two statements of legislative intent, they're related, we're asking for two different bodies of work, and this request stems from constituent casework I've done, and I've, in doing so, responding to constituents requests for streetlight repair or park sliding repair or repair of lights that are missing on bridges or under bridges.

We've noticed a trend, and that trend is a pattern of copper wire theft.

We've used the budget process to try to get a handle on how much that's costing the city, and we're looking at this year theft from Seattle City Light, street lights, 19 locations, costing at least $654,000.

theft in parks at 13 locations costing at least $100,000.

Some of these thefts are not being reported by our departments to SPD and It's interesting.

The reason why we figured out that this was happening is because we've put in requests for streetlight repair repeatedly at the same location.

So Seattle City Light has gone out, made the repairs.

A few months later, they have to go back out again.

So, again, it's making us realize that there's a pattern that we need to have some sort of a response to that pattern.

And we've done a little research as it relates to specifically the regulation of scrap metal businesses.

And so we have a two-pronged approach.

One, we're asking that SPD develop a citywide approach to collect and report on wire theft, damage, or vandalism of city assets, including the theft of copper wire and damage cost to the city infrastructure during the theft.

Departments know that they need to make these reports to SPD, so SPD can then quantify not just the cost, but get a handle on the patterns of where this is happening.

It also recommends how city departments can most effectively track damage to city infrastructure, and we also request a recommendation from SPD and other departments on how we all, all the departments can work together to deter theft and identify and address frequent offenders of copper wire theft.

The second slide relates specifically to the obligations under state law of scrap metal recycling businesses.

That's where A lot of times folks take the stolen copper wire and get paid for it.

But those, much like pawn shops, as a way to defer, deter theft, there are requirements in state law for the things that those businesses are, required to, records are required to maintain.

And so, specifically, they're supposed to maintain accurate records of the transactions, and they are supposed to have policy, internal policies within the department to deter, make sure that they're not buying stolen metals.

And so, this slide asks that SPD examine the records of the businesses that do scrap metal recycling and we've done some research.

There are half a dozen?

Eight.

And so they are required to maintain these records and they are required to allow law enforcement to review these records.

But to our knowledge, that hasn't been happening in a way that's systematic.

And so we're asking that SPD go out and do so for all eight businesses and work with those business to see whether or not their internal practices are sufficient to deter the purchase of stolen wire.

Good.

Thank you.

You want to vote on these individually?

Whatever's easiest for staff.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other comments?

Those who would like to add your names as a co-sponsor to these two items, raise your hand.

Very good.

Congratulations.

We've gone through 77. And for those of you who are in the audience watching and you think that this was long, we have gone through 197 items in the last three days.

So well done, team.

And yeah, really.

I know, really, bowing, bowing.

Thank you.

So we are going to start off.

We have over 50 speakers.

We are going to ask you to stay within a minute.

And one of my colleagues just whispered to me that there will be a prize for the most persuasive, shortest speech.

Oh, no.

It's a twist.

Very nice.

Okay.

So, we have Janice Wilson, Temaris Lane, Dennis Saxman, Peggy Hotz, Bruce Gogel, in that order.

So, Janice, and if more people are signing up, that will take us to over 60 now, maybe getting close to 70. Okay.

Janice, Tamara, Dennis, Peggy, and Bruce.

You can take any one of those three microphones.

Janice?

Do we not have speaker number one?

Is your name Janice?

Okay, then grab a microphone, my dear.

Hello, my name is Janice Wilson.

I'm an advocate and learning to be a lobbyist.

I came here because I'm interested in being creatively constructive about how to help gap in government, corporations, businesses, in partnership with all of we the people, and me the people of course.

And I ran into Jonathan, I forgot that he had his, it's the smart wallet, it's the 31. I have a lot to say, but I'm just gonna keep it real short about the Samaritan Beacon program.

I can't tell you how much it's important that people have their own gained independence, to be homeless and begin to breathe again, to partner up, even to go into a store and start buying something or go into a public place of a restaurant of some sort and have a communal meeting or food, to appreciate that part of partnership.

Janice, I'm going to have to ask you to get the bottom of your sentence.

Your last sentence, please.

Okay, thank you very much.

All right, thank you for coming.

Temras, Dennis, and Peggy.

Hello, good afternoon.

My name is Patricia Allen-Dick.

I work at Chief Seattle Club as the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness Advocate, as well as the Chief Seattle Club Community Advocate.

I'm here today to urge you to vote yes to the green sheet sponsored by Councilmember Juarez.

Our request is to expand our HSD contracts by $1.23 million.

City Hall sits on Coast Salish land.

Our city is named after a Native leader.

We live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, so how can we continue to fill our homeless Native relatives?

As you know, American Indians and Alaska Natives are 10 times more likely to be homeless than the rest of the population.

We have the highest rates of being unsheltered.

We have the lowest rates of moving into permanent housing.

For decades, we have depended on mainstream providers to serve our communities, but they only have a 24% success rate moving Natives into permanent housing.

In 2018, Chief CL Club received transitional funding from HSD.

We now have almost two years of data from HMIS.

Our success rate for rapid rehousing is 90%.

Our success rate for homelessness prevention is 97%.

We spend an average $1,151 per household for diversion to quickly move people out of homelessness.

Our day center has already served over 950. Excuse me.

Yes, sorry.

No, wait, wait, wait.

You did great.

You did great.

And we've already voted for it in terms of getting a full on co-sponsorship.

So we're convinced.

All right.

Awesome.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Stop calling you all then.

Never stop.

No, we love you, Colleen.

Dennis Axman.

Dennis, still here?

Peggy Hotz, I know you're here.

And let me just name a few more names.

Bruce Gogol, Katie Wilson, Laura Lowe, Bernstein.

Please.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Peggy Hotz, and I'm a Nicholsville founder and volunteer.

Nicholsville pioneered the Tiny House Village program over a decade ago.

We fought with the city to provide shelter that would accept families and pets.

We know we can operate two tiny house villages with the same services that Lehigh provides for the cost of one tiny house village.

Thank you for voting in favor of the intention to build 20 more tiny house villages.

But you must do more than express an intention.

You know the road that's paved with intentions.

You must do more than open one new tiny house village.

We must increase tiny house villages dramatically before more homeless people die outside.

Please don't spend money to shut down two tiny house villages, stopping real expansion and solidifying one corporate monopoly.

Shift the $1.2 million in shutdown money in the way Councilmember Sawant called for, to start more tiny house villages run by the people and for the people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peggy.

Bruce Gogol, Katie Wilson, Laura Bernstein, and then Jolene Haas.

Good afternoon, City Council members.

My name is Bruce Gogol, and I am leaving Occupy Othello Village.

Denied case management because I've spoken the truth.

My grievance ignored because I've spoken the truth.

My character assassinated because I've spoken the truth.

The monopolization of tiny house villages has silenced the truth for now.

This boils down to one simple thing, desire.

Do you, the City Council, have the desire to solve the homeless crisis in Seattle?

I, for one, believe you do, but you have to recognize that one size does not fit all.

Self-managed villages have proven to be cost effective.

The money that was spent to end self-management at Othello Village could have been used to open another village.

It's a fundamental contradiction to vote to close two tiny house villages and only open one.

How does that make any sense?

Because of your desire, you can do better, and you must.

One new village versus 20 new villages.

I know you have the desire, so now is your opportunity to show the people of Seattle.

Figure out a way to compromise among yourselves and have the desire to agree somewhere in the middle.

The truth has been silenced, but we'll always Find a way.

It always does.

It's just waiting for you to have the desire to listen.

Thank you.

Where's my candy?

Thank you.

Get that man a twitch.

Well done.

Like it.

All right, Katie Wilson.

Bruce Gogol, well done.

OK, Katie?

Nice throw.

Yeah, that was good.

All right, keep going.

Keep going.

Hi Councilmembers, my name is Katie Wilson.

I'm here speaking on behalf of the Transit Riders Union.

I'd like to briefly express our support for several of these items.

We support SLY HSD 5A1 requesting a report on subsidizing transit passes for employees of HSD contracted service providers.

We believe this is necessary to be consistent with the City's climate goals, reduce congestion, and achieve transportation equity.

We support funding for mobile pit stops and more funding for tiny house villages.

And finally, I'd like to express our support for CBA S.3A1, dedicating money to support the implementation of the transportation equity agenda.

We think it is super important that, you know, all the work that has gone into the equity agenda so far is able to be implemented department wide and this funding will help that.

to happen.

We also support all of the MAS coalition priorities that some of my colleagues from MAS and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways will be speaking about shortly.

Thank you.

Great.

Katie, thank you.

Laura Lowe, Bernstein, Jolene Haas, and then Francesca.

Do we have Laura Lowe?

Raise your hand if you're out there.

She's gone.

Okay.

Jolene?

Haas?

It doesn't look like it, but glad to have you.

I want to apologize.

Ms. Haas, I'm Dr. Perkins, consultant to the tribe, and this is our coalition, one of our coalition partners in West Seattle, Mr. Don Bubeck.

Ms. Haas had to leave.

She was here all afternoon.

She had some very important business, but she just wanted us to stand around and hang around and just thank the city council members for sponsoring the legislation.

And on behalf of the tribe, we thank you.

And Ms. Gonzalez and I think Ms. Mosqueda, in a hundred years you have made history like those bicycles you talked about.

You know what I'm talking about.

So congratulations, okay?

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Perkins.

And this is for the West Marginal Way Safety Project at the Duwamish Longhouse.

Also, if you need any help in that research on the stolen copper wire, there are several hundred bike riders who are going to have a very dark ride under the under the Spokane Street Viaduct in just a few minutes where that wire has been stolen.

We can show you who stole it, where they sold it, and where it's happening.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Francesca?

Hi.

Yes, I'm Francesca, and Sophia here is speaker number 12. OK.

We're allowed to go together.

We'll bring in.

OK.

Hi.

Hi everyone, my name is Francesca Murnan.

I'm the Government Affairs Manager at Seattle Indian Health Board.

I'm Shani, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation.

And I'm Sophia Locklear, and I'm a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, but I was born and raised here in Seattle, and I work on research and evaluation at the Seattle Indian Health Board.

And we are here representing the Seattle Indian Health Board and our research division, led by Esther Lucero, our CEO, and Abigail EchoHawk, our Chief Research Officer.

And we wanted to thank you for your support and co-sponsorship of item number 70 and 71. We'd really like to emphasize that on 71, we're asking for this to ensure that this work is truly informed and guided by the Native community.

We're requesting $175,000 for contracted services to the health board that will fund data and policy technical assistance in the areas of training and consultation activity.

And we think that this will really ensure that this work is truly community-directed, data-driven, and culturally attuned to the needs of the local community.

Great.

Thank you.

Well, we're out of time, but we cut it down from four minutes, so I think we did pretty good.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Rick Cooper, Mark Austro, Virginia, Erickson.

Thank you.

I'm Rick Cooper, president of the Uptown Alliance, speaking on behalf of the Redefine Thomas Street Project.

Council member Bagshaw, thank you so much for sponsoring item number 50 And thank you so much council members for your great support You got an email this morning with an updated list of our 25 or so sponsors in our coalition I was going to stand up here and read through a sample list, but I think I'll pass on that and simply say a Lot of folks think this is a really good idea, and thank you so much for your support.

I

Great, Rick.

Thanks for coming down.

And I appreciate your help at the workshop that we did in July.

Hey, Mark.

You too.

Hi, Sally.

I was there too.

Hi, my name is Mark Ostro.

And I'm here to speak in support.

And thank you for your support of the Thomas Street design.

The Thomas Street is an essential pedestrian link between South Lake Union and the new Key Arena.

Currently, Seattle is projecting that more than half of the people attending events at Key Arena will arrive by car.

We know this is unsustainable.

Building a pedestrian-friendly Thomas Street means more people will walk from work, more people will walk from home, more people will walk from transit, and more people will use bikes and other non-polluting modes to get to events at the arena.

So this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And I really thank all of you for your support of this.

Great.

Thanks so much for coming, Mark.

Virginia Erickson, Reverend Pat Simpson, Clara Cantor.

John Pearson, you've been here for a long time.

Did you sign up?

All right.

Well, I'm going to put you right into Bob Donegan's slot, because he's left.

Virginia, Reverend, and then Clara Cantor.

Good afternoon.

I'm here representing University Temple United Methodist Church, and I appreciate your support for item number 72, establishing the emphasis patrol in the university district.

Our church has the dubious honor of having it said that we have the most dangerous alley in the university district.

And that is in, well, our background is that we provide services to eight nonprofits, providing services to those in need.

Over the past, and we want to continue that, by the way, but over the past two years, a more dangerous element has moved into our alley, violence and drug dealers who, in particular, prey on youth from the Roots Youth Homelessness Council.

We've taken many steps, including security guards.

Everything culminated on August 14th when a youth was surrounded by Sikhs and stabbed to death.

Things are better when the guards are there, but there are gaps.

We've got them coming eight hours a day.

We cannot continue to employ them.

We need help.

Thank you.

This security patrol would be one of the solutions to helping us continue to support our service.

Thank you for coming and thank you for all your hard work.

Reverend Pat Simpson?

Hi.

Same church, same alley in the University District.

In reference to item number 20, we love our REACH worker doing average mental health work now funded by BIA money.

We want that to continue as it depends on the building of relationships to be effective.

In relation to the Roots shelter relocation, we are thrilled that they're moving out of the church into a new home in among the fraternities.

We think they'll improve the neighborhood and these funds for one time help getting the facility ready for upgraded services that will improve outcomes for the young people is very helpful and Finally, University Heights is open to starting a vehicle residency camp, and we're considering helping, so please say yes.

Okay, thank you so much.

John Pearson.

Hi, I'm speaking on Market to Mohi.

First, Sally, thank you for sponsoring this, and the rest of you, Councilman Miniver, for supporting her.

This is a community-driven public-private partnership to build a great pedestrian corridor from the Pike Place Market to Mohi through the most rapidly growing, densely populated part of the city.

It has public money of about 300,000, private money of about 300,000, competitive grants of about 200,000, and this will finish off the capital funding.

So I hope in your future deliberations, you'll be able to support it, and thank you very much.

Thank you for coming, and thank you for being here all day.

Clara Cantor, Mark, and then Maureen.

It looks like Maureen and Mason.

Thank you.

Hi, Clara.

Hi, my name is Clara Cantor.

I'm here on behalf of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and I first want to just express extreme gratitude for the council for all of your enthusiastic support for so many of the pedestrian and bike-focused pieces today.

It's super important for our climate, for our safety, as you all highlighted, and also for equity in our city.

I also just wanted to throw our support behind the safe paths of school, home zones, Georgetown South Park Trail, and Beacon Ave projects in particular.

and all the other projects from the mass transportation package that you've heard about through other public comment over the past couple of weeks and today.

And I also just want to talk specifically about the two slides, the alternate evaluation for streets other than a car-focused level of service and the complete streets policy.

Both of these are a little bit wonky, but they will truly be transformational in how we're planning for and designing and evaluating our streets going forward in the hope that we can create the kind of urban utopia that Councilmember Gonzalez was speaking about.

Thank you, Claire.

Mark, Maureen, and is it Maureen and Mason?

Are you?

Okay, Don, Perry.

Go ahead, please.

Hi, my name is Mark Crawford and I'm the Executive Director for the E-District Partnership, a local community service not-for-profit.

I'm here first to ask for your support for item number 20, a two-year commitment to fund 60% of the cost of deploying REACH mental health and drug addiction outreach workers in the U District and in Ballard.

I testified on this program last week, so I won't repeat all the details right now.

However, the program is completing its pilot phase, it's proven highly effective, and it enjoys widespread support in our community.

The support is strong enough that we can commit to raising the remaining 40% of the costs.

It is effective because the REACH workers create relationships with individuals in crisis.

Individuals who cannot navigate our complex service systems and are distrustful of those systems or simply don't know where to turn for help.

David Delgado, who testified last week, has had tremendous success, is seen as a resource by everybody, the individuals in crisis, the police on our streets, and the business and property owners who want the help.

Please help make this public-private partnership continuing possible, and a quick shout-out and support for the safe lot from U Heights and the infrastructure request for the 45th intersection.

The UDP supports both as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Maureen and Mason, so if you'll give them two minutes, please.

Good afternoon, I'm Maureen Ewing with the University Heights Center and I'm here again to support the safe lot on our property to reach the over 2100 minimum vehicle residents in our area.

Safe lots are a proven method across the west coast and beyond that not only give folks a safe place to sleep but a pathway to housing.

This proposed project will be essentially surrounding our vehicle residents with the shelter model with case management and hygiene services.

These residents are often forced to choose between paying rent and for their cars, and their cars often offer the only stability.

and their transportation to work.

This program could be the difference between someone who is newly homeless falling further into poverty or getting back on their feet.

We need to meet these folks where they are and know where they are when housing becomes available.

U Heights is also supportive of the REACH program.

We've noticed a dramatic difference in our relationship with our social worker, David Delgado.

It's been a win-win for our neighborhood, and we're supportive of the comparable worth analysis as well as the emphasis patrols that are very much needed.

Thank you.

Good.

Thank you.

Hi, Mason.

Hi, Mason Wiley.

I'm the Associate Director at University Heights Center.

One of the questions that frequently comes up when people ask when we say we want to open a safe lot is why don't the people that are in their cars just go to shelters?

There's very practical reasons why they don't frequently.

Two of them you can think of is if they have a family, they're very often split up when they're in the shelters.

I think If you have a family, you can understand why you wouldn't take that option.

Another reason is that the car is their most prized possession, and so it's something that they just want to be near because it could be towed or taken or broken into.

And so for those reasons, they end up in their cars, but they don't get the same services that people in shelters typically do.

So for that reason, I think a safe lot in the U District is extremely important.

And U Heights would also like to give a shout out to Roots.

We do a lot of work with them as well, and we support them too.

Thank you.

Thanks to both of you, and I really appreciate the fact that you understand why people want to sleep in their cars.

Sometimes people don't get it, but we do.

Thank you very much.

Don Perry, and then Tim, who's going to be talking about the shuttle?

Thanks for this chance to speak.

My name is Dawn Perry.

I own and operate a small business on 45th Ave.

NE at the intersection with 8th.

And I'm here representing the voices of eight businesses as well as 1,900 residents who have given me their names and email addresses in support of Councilmember Pacheco's request for $200,000 for pedestrian improvements in the U District on 45th.

Specifically, we're looking for a safe crosswalk.

I see this out my window of my business every day.

People are running across the street, dodging cars.

People have their dogs going from the vet, which is directly across the street from Petco.

People have their kids going to the daycare that is right there.

And FedEx is also there, so we see folks with their packages running across the street.

There's no safe alternative within six blocks.

It can take eight minutes to do a direct crossing in that area.

It's very dangerous for pedestrians.

I personally witnessed a woman go flying when she was hit by a car.

It's also very dangerous for drivers.

Once you're driving down this gauntlet, you have no idea when a pedestrian is gonna hop out from behind a van and get hit.

So please support this request, and please support the 1,900 people who have asked for this safe crosswalk.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Tim, then Naomi, Jessica McCoy.

Hi.

Thank you Council Member Begshaw.

I'm here with my name is Tim Keona-Holm.

I'm the Public Affairs Director at the Seattle Aquarium and here to support the free shuttle for the Seattle waterfront.

I've prepared comments for two minutes and I'm a lousy editor so I'll submit those in writing but wanted to also offer with Bob Donegan the over 5,200 signatures that we have supporting the free shuttle along the waterfront.

It's been a tremendous service.

We have looked for transportation options along the waterfront for a long time.

This one works.

It carried nearly 400,000 passengers in the first year.

For comparison, that's about half of the annual attendance of the Seattle Aquarium.

So we believe strongly in it, that it's a much-needed alternative for people driving their single-use cars to the waterfront and being able to have access to the waterfront, Pioneer Square neighborhoods, at Market and Seattle Center.

Great, thanks so much, Tim.

Naomi, Jessica McCoy, and then there's a whole list of first names, which I'll read.

Okay, be sure to hold up the sign when they get to the end of the minute, okay?

Please, go ahead.

My name is Naomi See, and I'm a student at the University of Washington and a volunteer at the Low Income Housing Institute.

I would just like to thank the council for your continued support for the tiny house villages.

Thank you for listening to community members, supportive service providers, and residents and their voices.

You continue to show up for a community that matters, so thank you.

I just want to say, know that your support matters, that your decisions make a difference, and that there's always room for the heart in government.

So thank you.

Let's continue this work.

Give that woman a twitch.

Let's do it.

Thank you.

So, and your name is?

Jessica McCoy.

Okay, thank you, Jessica.

Can I just give you the list of first names?

And I don't even know if people are here.

Emily I., Raven Ken, Robert D., Albert, Christina, and Crystalyn.

Anybody here by those names?

Okay, so, okay.

Please go ahead, Jessica.

Hi, I'm Jessica McCoy.

I'm the COO of Samaritan.

This is in reference to proposal HOM-12A1, the smart wallet pilot, and I have a statement from a housed resident that supported an unhoused pilot participant.

Hello, Seattle City Council members.

I am the CEO of a local startup, and I have lived in the Seattle area for the last 20 years.

For much of the last five plus years, I've been involved with the Union Gospel Mission and their Search and Rescue Vans.

I believe the Search and Rescue Vans fill an important role in Seattle, but I personally have shifted my support to Samaritan and their Beacon Program.

Over the last two years, I've been able to safely financially support dozens of people in need and create personal relationships and connections with people.

Kristalyn, who is here today, is one of those people.

While I have not met Kristalyn personally, we communicate via the Samaritan app quite often, and I'm able to ensure her core basic needs and occasional special needs are met.

It is my hope these personal relationships can be a source of optimism.

My goal is to continue to support these individuals in the Samaritan app as we navigate and create solutions that can permanently help people get off the streets.

Thanks for your consideration, and I hope you vote to support more beacons.

Daniel Todd.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we have just one more round on names.

Emily, Raven, Ken, Robert, Albert, Christina, and Crystal, and we know is here.

Thank you.

Yes, I put my name on there twice.

I'm very sorry about that, and I'll keep this short.

I understand that the budget line item on number 31 for the beacons, which I am a beacon holder, is $175,000.

I can't imagine more satisfaction for the people that you could help if you pass that budget to support 750 beacons.

So thank you, City Council.

Thank you.

And what's your name?

Did I win a Twix?

Yeah, you did.

You did.

All right.

Yeah, you did.

And what's your name?

Emily Shiki.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Emily Shiki.

I'm a community advocate all genders at REST in South Seattle, but also a partner provider for Samaritan.

I've utilized Samaritan Beacons with my clients both at REST and partner agencies since I moved to Seattle in 2018. I've lived in Hawaii and also the Bay Area and San Francisco.

I know that unaffordable housing is a national issue.

The common denominator for unhoused folks in all of my lived experiences has been trauma, lack of support, and limited resources given to marginalized people groups.

Our unhoused neighbors in Seattle are not all transplants.

Some have grown up here in Seattle, seeing and experiencing the effects of income inequality increasing and their chances of success decreasing.

As an advocate at RESS, I'm thankful for tools like Beacons, and not only to connect folks in outreach interactions, but also meeting the basic needs, allowing Seattle neighbors and also community partners to have genuine conversations around the client's story.

which gives ways to seeing their strengths, addressing their needs, and starting the process of achieving their goals.

In my time utilizing the beacons with my clients, we've been able to pay for bills that would have stacked with overages if not paid, winter coats for months in Seattle that aren't favorable for unhoused folks, and paying for first month's rent, housing items to fill their unit.

Great.

Thank you.

Emily, can you give us your last sentence?

It's creative in nature, and I'm hopeful that you consider the work they do and for our city.

And here's the decision.

Emily, thank you for coming.

Is there a raven?

Okay.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Raven.

I've been the beacon holder now a couple years.

I've been on the streets almost 16 years.

The beacon has helped me pay bills.

It's helping me start my business blacksmithing.

Helped me get a job with Nintendo as of today, basically.

I see this as a step for those who are homeless to actually get back in the community, those who don't have anything because of whatever.

The beacon actually does work.

It does help.

I've seen so many things fail.

The beacon does work.

And I really support, and I feel you guys should too.

Thank you, Raven.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

What's your name, sir?

Robert Burrows.

Got it.

I have a Robert D. Is that?

Robert B. I know that's Robert.

You're Robert.

Come on up.

Hello, my name is Robert Burrows.

I'm also a beacon holder.

I've been Chronically homeless several times.

I guess you'd call me chronically homeless swear, you know, but anyway, I I'm not trying to just sit around and do nothing.

I'm going to school.

I'm a student over at Seattle Central.

I'm studying IT networking, and I'm trying to do something better with myself.

Sometimes there's gaps between student loans.

I've been getting the beacon for probably a year now, so sometimes it really helps.

Yesterday, for instance, I went over to grocery outlet up on, whatchamacallit, Martin Luther King, and I was able to buy a few things because they take my beacon, and I just go over there.

see what's the best deal, you know, and when I check out, I say, hey, I'm a beacon holder, and they pull out their phone, look for me, and just.

Thank you, Robert.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you.

And what's your name?

All right, and can I just run another list of names here?

Glenn, Michael, Anita, Jamie, Terry, Dawn, April, Derek, and Henry.

Please, go ahead.

Okay.

Not all homeless is by destructive life choices.

Some are by life happenings, such as death and a health crisis.

I don't believe anyone is immune.

The process of help is broken, filling out application after application.

I have found myself in these gaps of these helping services as I navigate an oversaturated, not housed population.

with a process of defeation and never reached the top of any vulnerability help list.

Sometimes it is about money, money to make one's own choices of priorities in order to find the strength and courage to have the resiliency to get out of their situation.

The Samaritan Beacon program is the only helping service to which is not about handouts, but about hand ups.

With its money forward help, it has provided me the dignity of choice.

Dignity not given due to the desensitization of the surprising mass of homelessness here in Seattle.

I am here as a strong example to request support forward for the Samaritan Beacon program for more funding to increase beacon holders, as I truly believe that the city of Seattle needs to support creative opportunities necessary for the solution of this vast people-based problem.

Thank you very much.

Well done.

Well said.

And what's your name?

Don.

Don Fugate.

All right, please, go ahead.

I want to first say that I never came to Seattle to become a dependent on the system.

I came here to better myself.

And the beacon, looking up, coming across the Samaritan and getting a beacon has helped me in ways that I thought was not going to be possible.

I'm still trying to work through my own issues of obviously obtaining housing because I have everything else taken care of.

But I'm for you supporting 750 more beacons to help other peoples in need and that for the ones that are not included that you can have a one-on-one and they can help you with other things.

For example, your phone bill or whatever needing because obviously we have to have a phone if we want to be able to better our life and work.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Good evening.

My name is April Jean.

I appreciate your time.

I myself received a beacon when I was nearing the end of my homeless transition.

It was a long and one that I incurred a lot of trauma.

I was a survivor of sex trafficking, and I didn't have a real solid idea of how to make money outside of that industry.

And I was homeless, and I'm just navigating new life skills and having the support of caseworkers that I meet with.

I even know of instances that like a friend that suffers so much trauma that she has agoraphobia, not able to leave her home and deal with even household situations, but the beacon has been used to order things for her household and her personal needs from Amazon and delivered to her.

They meet us where we're at and they stay the course beside us while we overcome homelessness.

They challenge us.

I mean it's been such an encouragement.

Thank you April.

Thank you very much for coming.

Great.

Come on up.

What's your name?

My name's Henry.

Henry Mack.

Thank you Henry for being here with us.

Yeah so I'm just here to let everyone know that I appreciate everything that the City Council has been doing for the City of Seattle.

And I'm really grateful to be here in this city today because I moved from Houston in 2017 and I've been here ever since.

And I've been happy to be a part of this city.

And it's been a big lift me up since I've been here.

I'm really grateful today, you know, to be able to say that I'm able to work and be able to function.

as a normal human being, as far as having some of the things that I need, you know, like money for food, money for clothing, and stuff like that.

Beacon Samaritan has helped me a whole lot.

It has given me an opportunity to be able to afford extra things, you know, as far as food and clothing for work.

And it's something I feel that, you know, this city could really use, you know, to help those who are not able to have, you know, extra.

Great.

Thank you, Henry.

Hi, what's your name?

All right, Derek, good to have you here today.

Thank you.

And I think you guys are doing a wonderful job here in the state.

Thank God for you.

Thank God for the people of Good Samaritan, because my wife and I moved up here four years ago, and she died two years ago.

And that made me be homeless, because I couldn't afford to pay the rent, because we were splitting it.

But thank God I met Danielle Montrose, and she's got me in housing.

I'm in a nice apartment now.

And she hooked me up with the Beacon, and I was able to furnish my apartment and buy clothes every month.

You know, I could get food, and I think it would benefit a lot of people.

And I know that, you know, I just thank God for it.

And you guys do a wonderful job in this state.

I've lived in nine of the states in the United States, and this is the best one.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

And that was a very nice uplift for us at the end of the day.

Thank you.

Are there other people that want to speak about the beacons who are signed up?

Okay.

Honestly, I've completely lost control of the beacon speakers.

So, are there anybody else?

Ken?

You're welcome.

Ken, Robert, Albert, Christina, Glenn, Michael, Anita, Jamie, Terry, or Dawn, if I've missed you.

Okay, not here?

So just the speakers come forward now.

Yeah, please do.

Just so we're not waiting for you.

Just come on in and then we'll start with the next list that goes back.

Yeah, please come on up.

Jonathan, you might as well come up too.

Because, I mean, if you want to speak, you're about three down.

Please go ahead.

Hello.

My name is Eva.

I am a domestic violence survivor, also a current beacon holder.

I just wanted to tell you how the beacon has helped me get connected with community.

people in the community.

Also, I have experienced some amazing acts of kindness from the good Samaritans all over the city that use this app and it's really simply set up.

So it's just amazing how it happens.

I am very grateful personally as it helps me with food essentials and As I get stable housing, here's that housing word again.

Well, sometimes I, as a human being, we all need a little hope, encouragement, or to know that someone out there cares.

And that's been a case for me.

I just maybe needed to know that there were people out there that did care.

I appreciate the beacon.

It has continued to be a great blessing in my life.

And I thank you for listening.

I appreciate you.

Thank you, Eva.

Thank you for coming.

Please.

Hello.

My name is Brian Thomas, and I have been a beacon holder for now a year plus.

It helped me out of a lot of situations.

I really appreciate the program and I'm here to support you guys to give them for the 750 more beacons.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Please come on up.

Hi, my name is Danielle Montrose, and I work at the Pike Market Senior Center, and we're one of the organizations partnered with Beacon.

I'm here to ask for you to please fund the 750 new Beacons.

Being homeless is a full-time job.

There are a lot of hoops that people have to jump through in order to get housed.

The Beacon assists people who are jumping through those hoops to be able to do so in a way that they can get money on their bus tickets to get bus rides to come see me, to go meet with Housing, you know, there's so many ways to get to a job if they have one, to get to training if they're in training, to get clothing, food, shelter.

get two-way shelter.

Most importantly, it gives them hope and it reminds them that they are a part of this community and there are people in this community that care about them and want them to succeed.

It is also the only resource I know that people do not have to be in a specific demographic to receive it, and it gives them something that all of us have every day, and that's the power and choice of how we are going to get our needs met.

A lot of times it's the people in power, it's the funders, and it's us deciding for them, so.

Well done.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Danielle.

Thanks for all the work at Pike Place Market.

Hi.

Hello.

My name is Jacob VanRaphorst.

I'm a student at the University of Washington.

I first read about Samaritan a year and a half ago, and the impact since then has been nothing short of astounding.

Of those who held onto beacons, over 20% have received employment, treatment, or housing.

And I'm here to request that we grant the opportunity for 750 people to receive access to the relationships, tools, and other connections to help lift themselves out of poverty.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Steven Peterson, and I help support beacon holders.

To me, it's gratifying to be able to read their stories, to be able to add a sense of who they are, aside from just a face that you might encounter on the street.

It's also allowed me to give further than the people that I just pass.

In a stark dichotomy, I can actually donate to these individuals from the comfort of my couch.

It's amazing for them, and I hope that you support the expansion of this program.

Great.

Thank you for coming.

Hello, I'm Rogers Weed.

I'm a resident of Seattle, and I've been a Samaritan's App user for over two years now.

And I just wanted to come in, and it's been an unexpected treat, actually, to hear from all the beacon holders about how this is impacting their lives.

But I represent, if you will, the giving side, and I just feel like this system is a very powerful opportunity to unlock a lot of private giving to this issue that doesn't feel comfortable doing it otherwise.

Because when I give money through the Samaritan system, I know it's going to be used for good things.

I know the person I'm giving it to is actually going to be able to keep it.

And I know that they're also checking in with somebody that's trying to help them figure out how to find a path forward.

So that has allowed me to give hundreds of dollars to homeless people that I don't think I would have been able to give otherwise.

And I think it's a great way to bring the private sector in and individual giving in alongside what the public sector is trying to do.

So I hope you'll seriously consider funding those extra smart wallets.

I think it's a great system.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Wink.

Thanks for being here.

Jonathan, nice to see you and thank you for your tenacity and for bringing your friends.

Thank you for your leadership and for this time.

I've been obviously bugging you guys for the last year and some change about getting involved with some of the work that we're doing.

We started this 500 Beacon pilot.

From that, we saw 274 of those individuals, chronically homeless individuals, hold onto their beacon and enroll into services and address relational and financial needs.

From that 274, we have seen 50 of those individuals actually get into full-time housing, employment, or treatment.

we took an average of what it took to get to those 50 outcomes, it was $444 over six months.

That's $80 a month, that's $1,000 a year.

And so beyond the statistics, which I think speak for themselves, we have these stories, but really we have friendships.

I need these people in my life.

I need to know what they're going up against.

I need to know the challenges they're experiencing on a daily basis.

Otherwise, the house that I live in becomes a prison and I am the prisoner.

So I hope that you, if you want to get everyone in this city involved with homelessness and investing into someone who's experiencing homelessness on a daily basis, this is how you do it.

Thank you guys.

Jonathan, thank you.

Well done.

Thanks to all of you who came to tell your stories, share them with us.

Jonathan, you've been a hero for many.

Okay.

And we may have some duplications here.

Michael Seaworth, Capitol Hill Public Realm.

Good.

Thank you.

Michael, after you.

Nellie Pearson, Nancy Woodland, and Tara Hoy.

Thanks, Council Member.

Michael Syrath.

I'm the Interim Executive Director of the Capitol Hill Eco-District and with Capitol Hill Housing.

I want to thank you all for your vote in support of the public life planning process for Capitol Hill.

Councilmember Gonzalez, you spoke very powerfully about it and you and Councilmember Pacheco were able to join us for a walking tour of the neighborhood that you're all invited to.

Capitol Hill is a great neighborhood with downtown size problems.

And so we're looking to have a public life plan for the neighborhood that will really activate the space from the light rail station through Cal Anderson Park, which has seen a lot of safety challenges up through Pike Pine.

And we really appreciate all you've done for it.

We had a coalition of businesses and anchor institutions coming out in support of it.

So I have copies of those letter here.

So thank you all.

Great.

Thanks for your leadership on that.

Council Member Gonzalez, I think it's great, a great idea.

Nellie Pearson.

Hi all.

Excited to go home and become a Samaritan donor.

I hadn't heard of the program so thank you for coming out.

My name is Nellie Pearson.

Thanks so much to the committee, Chair Berkshaw, Berkshaw, pardon me.

My name is Nellie Pearson.

My husband and I are D7 residents.

We walk, drive, bike, take the bus.

We're multimodal.

For the last 10 years I've been a professional advocate for biking and walking.

Because I just want that to be easier for everyone.

I want everyone to be multimodal.

Most recently, I was Jump's head of local marketing and community affairs, launching Jump e-bikes and scooters worldwide.

I'm no longer with them, but I'm here as a resident to thank you so much for leading the way.

on micromobility and transportation.

When I was at JUMP, Seattle was one of our prized cities.

It shows that you can really innovate when you provide cheap, easy, affordable transportation.

And I want to thank you for funding or looking into the funding of on-street bike corrals.

These corrals are the next step in facilitating safe, popular, and orderly bike and scooter share, and more importantly, making our city more safe.

Often the racks don't take up car parking because they sit in what's called the daylighting space.

Compared to car parking, corrals are cheap and they serve exponentially more people.

They park 20 times as many vehicles, each utilized two to ten more times a day than a privately owned car.

My time is up, but thank you for helping normalize biking and walking.

Great, thanks Nellie.

Nancy Woodland, Tara Hoy, Leslie Bain, I know she was here, I'm not seeing her now.

Go ahead, please.

She would be talking about Thomas Street, I would say.

Go ahead.

Hello, Council.

I'm Nancy Woodland.

I'm the Executive Director of Westside Baby, and I'm here to talk with you just for a second about diapers and to express my thanks for actions that happened this morning to Councilmember Jurez for making sure that you were including not only menstrual products but diapers with your allocation request this morning.

I ask that you approve that.

That was an addition by Councilmember Herbold, so thank you for that.

Diapers are not covered by food stamps.

They cost $75 to $100 a month.

That request was connected to homeless services and tiny house villages, so that is one of those basic need items that we'll be able to help provide.

We will be able to help provide it to only about 250 children with the allocation that's being discussed, but I celebrate that because it's 250 children that may not receive that diaper support.

In addition, I just want to throw out the support for the menstrual products and be willing to talk with you about that as well.

And just really glad that you were able to do that for us this morning.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks for coming, Tara.

Leslie, I don't see her.

So, and Rogers Weed spoke.

Christy Hamilton.

And that's number 49, Derek Drexler.

They've already spoken.

And what's your name?

Oh, all right, please.

Thank you.

Yeah, so my name is Tara, and I'm a case manager at New Horizons.

I could spend all day talking about how so little separate my cubicle from the mats on the floor, but I'm here on my day off from two jobs to tell you all how infuriating and offensive it is that the case manager of Seattle are flaunted by elective officials and public policy influencers as magic bullets for vulnerable people that the city's money and programming doesn't support.

It is infuriating and offensive how Roots can only sustain one case manager for 45 beds and the only young adult emergency shelter in the U District.

The city gives Roots a humiliating low budget and yet they still change lives.

At New Horizons, we see that their dignifying relationships and community that Roots fosters changes lives.

They make something out of nothing, but they can't do that forever and not at the rate the city wants them to.

So after 20 years of chaos that the shelter has faced head on, they are being gentrified.

This is their chance to finally develop some capital.

And if the city doesn't want to spend money on addressing the core issues that lead to young adult homelessness in the U District, then at least give the organizations the funds to do so.

$1.5 million in the grand scheme of things is nothing for the city, but for Roots, it's everything.

And same as well for the staff and the volunteers.

And it's still not enough.

So please keep supporting Roots.

Please keep supporting the one case manager.

Please keep supporting the people experiencing homelessness.

And please keep supporting your service providers.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming down.

We're skipping because there's now been many people who had spoken about the beacons.

Do I have an Adam?

It looks like, oh, it's Adam Glickman, of course.

I can't read your writing, but that's, where is he?

Adam Glickman?

All right, well, if he's hanging around, tell him to come back in.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, so it looks like it looks like we come on up Thank you, come on up Jonathan good to see you Good afternoon council members.

I might be able to address a couple of things that Adam wanted to talk about Yeah, you got Adams

Really?

All right.

Keep on going.

So I'm Stefan Moritz with Unite Here Local 8. Thank you for doing all the hard work on the budget.

I know that that's a big undertaking.

Thank you for that.

I wanted to lend our support to two items that you are considering.

One is the increase in the outreach funding for OLS, both I think because it hasn't been increased in a couple years and also because of some of the work that you have done on labor standards, be it the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights or the hotel worker legislation.

I think having the resources to educate and to a degree also enforce those laws is really important to make them work and we think that that funding is critically important.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is the pilot project on child care at City Hall.

I think so many of our members experience challenges with child care and while that project is not going to solve all of those challenges, I think it's an exciting way for the city to show leadership and set the tone in our city on the importance of child care and we support that inclusion in the budget.

Thank you.

Stefan, thank you so much and for all of your support this year.

I really appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

We have is there besides David?

Is there anybody else that wants to speak?

I think we've all been up David Haines.

You're the last one.

Thank you.

We need a 21st century development with a great American housing built out without social welfare nonprofits getting in the way of first world interpretation of home and we need a infill apartments to block off the police state roads allowing 24-7 drive-thru.

Yet your 21st century budget violates the 2012 constitutional police reform that's conducting a war on the poor while exempting the evil criminals from jail, giving priority for housing while your racist, anti-social injustice lens is further adding oppression to innocent, homeless, forsaken because they don't fit the race and social justice lens.

Now the 18 community service officers are being deployed a month before the yearly point time homeless count to make it more difficult for the volunteers to find the homeless in the dead of winter all to manipulate the count and deceive the taxpayers.

The separate issue public transportation versus private transportation justifies a third option of renegotiating the expected service with those bus credits abused by the Metro Union paid to tax paid by tax dollars to take off work 30 minutes early during excuse me, they take off work 30 minutes early on their shift and they drive past every bus stop needed, usually during rush hour or just after.

All right.

Well, congratulations, everybody.

Thank you to all my colleagues for hanging in there.

I appreciate very much all of you being here.

Thank you, Jody.

And thank you so much for coming and talking about your issues, all of you that came.

And to Jonathan, if he's still out there, thank him for organizing all of the people that came down to talk about it.

Okay, this meeting is adjourned.

Congratulations on 197 items in the last three days.

Okay.