Seattle City Council Briefing 10/5/2020

Colleagues, the October 5th, 2020 council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.30 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Here.

Strauss?

Here.

Juarez?

Here.

Morales?

Here.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Six present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council members, the council rules are silent on allowing electronic participation at council briefing meetings.

To continue participating remotely, I'm going to move to suspend the council rules through November 9th, 2020, to allow this meeting to occur while participating through electronic means.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow electronic participation at council briefing meetings through November 9th, 2020. Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended.

The council briefing meetings will be held with council members participating electronically through November 9th, 2020. Thank you so much.

Approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of September 29th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report at this afternoon's full council meeting, we will have a short, but important agenda.

We'll consider a total of 8 items in addition to the payment of the bills and approval of the introduction and referral calendar.

A vast majority of these items were referred directly to the city council, which we will hear about from respective council members this morning with other pieces of legislation coming from the transportation and utilities.

or the land use and neighborhoods committees.

I expect that we'll receive no more than 20 minutes of public comment in total this morning.

And that's all I have this morning for the president's report.

So we'll move now directly into a preview of today's city council actions and regional committees.

I do wanna let the record reflect that we've been joined by Council Member Lewis.

Welcome Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

And as others join, I'll make sure to note that.

It looks like we've just been joined by Council Member Herbold as well.

Good morning, Council Member Herbold.

Good morning.

Okay, we are already at preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

I will call on council members as established by the rotated roll call for city council meetings.

This week's roll call rotation is as follows.

Council member Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

Colleagues, council member Mosqueda unfortunately can't be with us this morning, but my understanding is that Council Member Strauss is prepared to provide a report on her behalf.

And we will go ahead and still call on Council Member Mosqueda with the understanding that Council Member Strauss will provide her report on her behalf.

Okay.

So Council Member Mosqueda's report is up first.

Council Member Strauss, take it away.

Thank you, Council President.

There are no items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full agenda.

Council Member Mosqueda wanted me to report out and remind our colleagues that this week we will turn to Seattle residents to hear from them during the public hearing on their budget ideas and how they want to invest in our city tomorrow, Tuesday, October 6th at 5.30 p.m.

We'll have our first of two councilwide public hearings for the fall budget process, and we hope to see many of you there.

The public comment sign-up sheet will open at 3.30 p.m.

tomorrow.

Colleagues, I'd also like to remind you that all Form A or issue identification forms deadline is on October 8th, this Thursday, at 5 p.m.

Patty will send out an email to all legislative assistants on how to submit form A's and Council Member Mosqueda will be sending out a memo with other additional information.

Council Member Mosqueda also wanted me to highlight that she will be doing a ride along tomorrow with Seattle Fire Department's Health One.

Health One is a low acuity program.

Imagine a mom van with social workers and medics to be able to meet the needs of Seattle residents with one van.

It's actually a Suburban.

Rather than sending out a medic fire engine AMR, sending someone to the emergency room up at Harborview only to be released.

All of this can be, the services can be completed with our HealthONE in a one-stop rather than utilizing all of those other resources.

So Councilmember Mosqueda is excited to expand upon this important program this year.

I, Councilmember Strauss, am also very excited about expanding upon this program as I work with Councilmember Bagshaw.

on rolling out HealthONE.

And Council Member Mosqueda will share her report tomorrow about her experience with HealthONE.

That is all I have to report from Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Really appreciate that and hope that Council Member Mosqueda's little one feels a little bit better.

She will be with us today, this afternoon at 2 o'clock p.m.

and appreciate her sending her report in advance.

Next up is Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Because we're in the midst of our fall budget season, our Transportation and Utilities Committee will not meet again until Wednesday, December 2nd.

That's why we have the extra committee meeting on Friday, September 25th.

The items we reviewed and recommended during that special meeting are before us this afternoon at our full city council meeting.

Specifically, all five of those items are from Seattle City Light.

As you recall, we had the opportunity to vote on four of those items, which our committee recommended unanimously.

Then we discussed the fifth item, had a presentation on the fifth item with Seattle City Light.

They just needed a few more days to finalize that bill, which is now Council Bill 119902 on today's agenda.

and Council Bill 119902 updates the City of Seattle's One Site, One Service policy so that charging stations and infrastructure for electric vehicles can be more easily installed after a property already has electrical service.

This legislation supports our city's goals to encourage the use of cleaner energy sources, such as Seattle City Light's hydroelectric power, that residents and businesses can use to charge zero-emission vehicles.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any questions or comments on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the line.

Next up is Council Member Sawant, and then we will hear from Council Member Strauss on his report.

Council Member Sawant, good morning.

Good morning, everybody.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, which had its meeting about a week and a half ago before the budget discussions began.

And now there are no regularly scheduled meetings of the committee until after the budget discussions conclude.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's public hearing into the city budget for next year.

And after that, my office is working with community activists and organizations to build this year's people's budget movement as every year.

And we're holding the people's budget town hall.

over Zoom on Tuesday, October 20th.

And I encourage everyone to attend.

Among other things, the People's Budget Movement is, of course, fighting to defund the police by at least 50%, as seven of the nine council members have promised to support at the height of the Justice for George Floyd movement.

And the movement is also fighting to stop the mayor's proposed draconian budget cuts, which in reality are well over $150 million to parks, libraries, roads, housing, and the Green New Deal.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Any questions on that report?

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

Good morning, Council Member Strauss.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the introduction and referral calendar today, and there is one item from the committee on the full council today.

Council Bill 119877, which extends virtual meetings for design review and landmarks board meetings for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency will be before us.

There may be an amendment regarding the duration of this bill.

If that amendment will be put forward, you will see an email from me and or my staff know on before noon today.

The next meeting as Councilmember Peterson noted is not until after the budget hearing so the next committee meeting is December 9 after budget.

District 6 last week.

On Sunday, I attended the groundbreaking for the Our Redeemers Lutheran Church renovation.

Our Redeemers Church is on 24th and 85th in the Loyal Heights neighborhood.

They do important programs.

Not only did they start the food bank in Ballard so many years ago, which recently broke ground, they also have supported the Ballard Pea Patch, which also donates fresh produce to the Ballard Food Bank.

And so they are, they have entered into and finalized an agreement to sell the pea patch to Grow and then to be managed by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods through the pea patch program in order to fund the expansion of their church.

And so a big shout out to Pastor Hawks, who is the pastor there, as well as Cindy Krueger, who led the effort to secure financing, to secure the Ballard Peat Patch in perpetuity.

And she was able to do this within a year during a pandemic and during a recession.

And so one of the reasons why I attended this groundbreaking is because of the great work that Our Redeemers does for the community.

And I just want to focus in on this.

So Our Redeemers not only collects food for the food bank, they then started the food bank and then they supported the pea patch to continually donate fresh produce.

And so this feedback loop of Perpetual Motion to support our food insecure neighbors is just one example of the many things that they, that Our Redeemers does.

They also have a Safe Lots location.

They host Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and also this expansion will help them provide childcare in the neighborhood.

And so I was just very grateful to be able to attend and support this organization that is doing great work in our neighborhood.

checking in.

Last week during District 6 resident meetings I spoke to District 6 about addressing homelessness and public safety as well as cafe streets.

This week I continue to have District 6 meetings ahead of the public hearing on Tuesday.

And that is my report.

Council President and colleagues, thank you for the time.

Thank you Councilmember Strauss.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Councilmember Lewis, please.

Thank you, Madam President.

So Council Member Strauss, when you say there might be an amendment on length of time, what timelines in the bill is that potentially referring to?

That is for the duration, whether we are going to have six months or for a full, through the extension of the entire COVID pandemic.

And I'm happy to talk to you about that offline.

Yeah, no, sounds good.

I just wanted to clarify.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much for that question.

Any other questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Council Member Herbold, and then after Council Member Herbold will be Council Member Juarez.

Good morning, Council Member Herbold.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

There are no items on the full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting, nor is there a committee meeting this week.

Items to share from the departments in the Public Safety and Human Services Committee include an update from the Human Services Department.

They have, I've mentioned before, a series of online events presented by Age-Friendly Seattle.

One that's coming up is Close to Home, Stories of Health, Tech, and Resilience.

featuring information and resources for older people, caregivers, and their families.

You can watch them via Microsoft Teams or watch recorded versions on YouTube.

Live and recorded captioning is provided in many languages, and they're on most Thursdays at 10.30 AM.

I wanted to let folks know that the upcoming guests this week on the 8th include Dr. Ben Abe, African Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest Chair.

and Paul Kabani, the Northwest Kenyan Community Association Chair.

And on 10-22, we have Katherine Jordan from South Park Senior Center and Zoe Freeman from the Pike Place Market Senior Center.

To learn more and participate, you can go to seattle.gov.

age-friendly and click on events.

Also, just getting my weekly Seattle Fire Department COVID-19 test administration update and just again there's four sites throughout the city and the number of tests that they've done at these sites since June 5th, cumulatively number 226,900.

and 27 tests.

Also, I think we are all aware that unfortunately there has been an increase in the number of reported cases during the last week in both King County and in the city of Seattle.

So just a reminder, of course, always please follow the advice of our health care professionals and remember to wear your masks.

Last week, related to the crowd control weapons restraining order, the city moved to convert the U.S.

District Court's temporary restraining order regarding crowd control weapons into a preliminary injunction in order to facilitate review under the consent decree process.

George Robart, the U.S.

District Court judge overseeing the implementation of the consent decree, granted that motion.

And what this means is that the council could, for example, submit a proposed committee draft to the court, as was done with the accountability legislation, and allow the court to have advance review of the legislation before final passage.

If we were to take this route, of course, we would want the committee draft that we're submitting to the court to consider.

the input of our accountability partners, which we received.

last, well, actually in August now, and my committee had a preliminary review of that feedback from each, the OIG, the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of Police Accountability, and the Community Police Commission.

And those drafts or that feedback is available online, and each council member should have a copy as well.

and we will be discussing after Budget Committee ways to implement that feedback.

Events coming up this week, tonight I'll be visiting with the West Seattle Democratic Women.

On Wednesday, we'll be having, I think it's probably our 11th West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force Meeting.

And then Wednesday evening, I'm going to be visiting with the District 1 Community Network.

And I think that is all on my list for today.

Of course, last week we did have the town hall focused on both the West Seattle Bridge and public safety.

We had representatives from SDOT Police Department.

We were joined by Interim Chief Diaz, as well as Southwest Precinct Captain Kevin Grossman.

We also had a lead panel participating to share with constituents, their expansion into the Southwest Precinct.

There were 530 attendees and 88 questions submitted.

It's recorded and folks can find a link to the meeting itself that will be going out in my blog later today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any comments or questions on that report?

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

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

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, everybody.

The Public Asset and Native Communities Committee has one item on this afternoon's city council agenda.

And again, it is Resolution 31973, which sets the time and place for hearing on appeals of the hearing examiner's findings on the waterfront lit assessment role.

As you remember, colleagues, last month, September the 21st and the 29th.

We had two resolutions regarding these appeals, and we passed those, or the resolution.

And now we're up to 62 appeals, and so instead of doing 62 individual ones, we are going to schedule them all in this resolution.

Each appeal is listed to be scheduled either on December 1st, 2020, or January 5th, 2021, in the Public Assets Regularly Scheduled Committee meeting.

Again, to meet quasi-judicial and legal requirements, we have scheduled this bill for the IRC and possible vote, well, a vote, this afternoon.

Please direct all questions to Eric McConaughey and central staff.

In regards to the Metropolitan Park District, some of this information we learned and I discussed during the superintendent's review of parks budget on Friday.

So, beginning on Monday, October 19th at 5.30, That is the first Metropolitan Park District Board meeting of the year, where I will chair as the governing board president.

All of my colleagues on the city council are members of this board.

We do this every year.

Second, we will hold a public hearing to consider the 2021 proposed MPD budget.

We will have the ability to take up two amendments that would delay the 2021-2026 planning cycle.

As you know, what we do with the Metropolitan Park District is we cycle, or we plan it in six-year cycles.

And of course, because of COVID-19, we're unable to do that because we can't have community meetings this year.

Second, then on November 3rd, after the select budget committee meets, there will be a MPD board meeting.

This MPD board meeting will consider final adoption of the 2020 rebalancing budget and the proposed 2021 MPD budget.

Again, please direct all questions to Tracy Ratcliffe or Nageen Kamkar in my office.

In regards to parks, this morning my office will send out Parks Weekly COVID-19 programmatic updates.

There are a few highlights I'd like to cover.

The play areas and adult fitness zones throughout the park system will reopen on Tuesday, October 6th.

Parks will be posting public health guidelines.

Second, parking lots that have been closed for the past few months will reopen on Monday, October 19th.

In our memo, I'm sure we'll have a listing of those parking lots.

In addition, Seattle Parks and Rec has partnered with the Seattle Department of Human Services to host outdoor flu clinics for teleworking with Seattle employees and their families.

I'll make sure my staff highlights this in our weekly email to you.

And lastly, the Board of Park Commissioners and the Park District Oversight Committee, the PDOC, held a joint meeting on Tuesday evening, September 29th, where Superintendent Jesus Aguirre briefed the committee about the 2020 rebalance budget and the 2021 budget.

Native communities, this is exciting for us.

This Thursday, I will be a guest on the newly minted War Cry podcast with the creator and co-host Patricia Whitefoot of the Yakama Nation.

who works in Yakima for the, I believe, Heritage College as well.

Ms. Whitefoot has been a lifelong educator and advocate for culturally responsive education and for addressing the issue of missing murdered indigenous women.

Her advocacy focused on congressional and state legislation regarding the social, economic, and health of Native families and communities.

On a personal note, I've known Patsy for about 40 years, and she's an amazing leader in Indian country, nationally, locally, regionally.

War Cry is a podcast created, hosted, and produced by an all-Indigenous team that explores stories, issues, and historical connection involving missing, murdered, Indigenous women, men, and LGBTQ two-spirit community members.

I have been invited to...

We've been invited.

The Seattle is being...

We will showcase the work that we did in the Missing, Murdered, Indigenous Women, Girls legislation.

So I look forward to doing this podcast with our elder and my auntie, Patricia Whitefoot.

So the week ahead, this Thursday, I have the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board meeting in the morning.

And this Friday, we are excited because myself and the D5 team will be joined by the D5 community, and all those are welcome.

and the Hayashi family to celebrate an official unveiling of the Hayashi Avenue street sign in Lake City.

The event is at 10 a.m.

Friday at 28th Avenue Northeast, Northeast 125th.

We can get you details.

It would be wonderful if some of my colleagues can attend.

If you cannot, that's okay.

We plan to have comms there and get a lot of pictures taken.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for that report.

Are there any questions or comments on that report?

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

Next up is Council Member Lewis, followed by Council Member Morales.

Council Member Lewis, good morning.

Morning, Madam President.

Not that much this week.

In the spirit of town halls and outreach, as several other members mentioned earlier in the morning, I too will be holding a town hall as an opportunity for residents of District 7 to provide feedback on their budget priorities early in the process.

That town hall will be on Friday, October 9, starting at 5.30 PM.

And instructions are going to be sent out To my email list on how to access that town hall sometime early tomorrow.

I also want to just give a quick reminder to community members that I will be at the final Queen Anne Farmers Market on Thursday, October 8th of this week.

So I look forward to seeing everybody there one last time to close out what has been a great summer of having a resilient Queen Anne Farmers Market stay open and accessible to the community during these really trying times of COVID.

tip of the hat to the Queen Anne Farmers Market for making it work under very difficult conditions.

And I was very happy to be a part of it in being present to meet with neighbors in person throughout the summer and the fall.

So thank you, Queen Anne Farmers Market, and I will see everyone there on the afternoon of Thursday, October 8th, if you want to drop by.

The last thing I just want to share is just a shout out from reading the Seattle Times this morning that Seattle may potentially have the lowest amount of COVID cases per 1,000 residents at 7.4 cases per 1,000 residents.

I think that is a great testament not just to the resiliency of our public health systems, in Seattle, but also to the civic-mindedness of our residents and the dedication to maintaining social distance, wearing masks, and following the guides of public health officials.

Really good to see that we are setting a national trend for following those guidelines and have one of the lower rates of cases per 1,000 residents.

So with that, I don't have any additional updates, Madam President.

I'm happy to turn it back over.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, thanks again, Councilmember Lewis, for that report.

Next up is Councilmember Morales.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

On this afternoon's agenda, I have one item, Council Bill 119884, an amendment to the SOTO BIA, which will delay an update to the ratepayer assessment from 2021 to 2022. Last week, I was joined by, or I joined State Senator Saldana and King County Council Member Zahalai for a town hall that was hosted by Rainier Beach Action Coalition.

The focus was on encouraging civic engagement and reminding young people how important it is that they register to vote and that they exercise that right to vote.

So it was exciting to have a chance to talk to some young people in the district and hear some of their questions about how to make sure that they stay engaged.

This week our office will continue to meet with neighbors and community leaders about their priorities for the 2021 budget.

We are scheduling in-person socially distant meetings, and we'll be meeting also in Georgetown this week.

Thursday, October 7th, I have a meeting of the Central Puget Sound Economic Development Board of Directors, where we'll be discussing recovery efforts underway by the Washington State Department of Commerce and Greater Seattle Partners.

And then finally, colleagues, you'll recall that Seattle was designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2017 and has been working with an international network of cities since then.

So I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the recent release of Seismic.

collection of essays that asks writers to consider what the designation means for our city and how literature might be used as an agent of change.

You all received notice this morning about the release of this.

So I want to thank our Office of Arts and Culture.

Seattle City of Literature Organization, the Library Foundation, Amazon Literary Partnership, the Seattle Public Library, and the Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation for supporting our local writers.

I also just want to quickly acknowledge the writers whose work is included in the collection.

So those include Anastasia Renee, Matilda Bernstein Sycamore, Claudia Castro Luna, Withy Egan, Dr. Charles Johnson, Sergeant Imani Keith, Weiwei Li, Mita Mahato, Kristen Melarez Young, Rina Priest, Yuji Tahat, and Ken Workman.

I want to congratulate all of those local writers for the release of the new publication.

And my understanding is that each council member will also be receiving a copy of that.

So congratulations to everyone.

That's all I have this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, hearing none, I'll go ahead and conclude this morning's council briefing with my report really quickly.

There's no Governance and Education Committee schedules for the month of October due to budget proceedings.

I have nothing on today's introduction and referral calendar from the Governance and Education Committee.

There is one item on today's full council agenda from the Seattle Department of Human Resources.

That's Council Bill 119903, or item three on the agenda.

And I'm sorry, it's Council Bill 119903 or item three on the introduction and referral calendar.

I apologize.

I misspoke.

This bill would provide civil service protections to eight positions across several city departments and create a new job title in the legislative department.

Again, this is on today's introduction referral calendar, not that will will be considered the following week on our full council agenda.

There is a memo that is included as part of that legislative package written by Karina bull from central staff.

The executive has indicated that these changes.

should have no additional fiscal impact.

The executive transmits this routine legislation quarterly, but should you have any detailed questions about the legislation as it appears on the introduction referral calendar, you can contact central staff analyst Karina Bull or my chief of staff, Brianna Thomas.

I also have, like Council Member Juarez, will be attending the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Committee meeting on this Thursday, October 8th from 9.30am to 11.30am.

The Transportation Policy Board will consider recommending adoption of the 2021-2024 Regional Transportation Improvement If you have any questions or concerns about that particular matter, I'm happy to speak with you directly, or you can reach out to my deputy chief of staff, Cody Ryder, or Kelsey Beck with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

That concludes my report as well.

Any comments or questions?

Okay, colleagues, anything else for the good of the order?

Hearing none, this does conclude our agenda for this morning's council briefing.

We are adjourned and I will see you all this afternoon at 2 o'clock p.m.

for our full council meeting.