Seattle City Council Briefing 6/22/20

Second 2020 Council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9 31 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Present.

Mosqueda?

Present.

Peterson?

Here.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Five present.

Thank you so much.

We'll just wait for others to join us and I'll make sure to let the public know as other council members join us.

Thank you so much for being here this morning.

We have to go through the process of suspending the rules once again.

Councilmembers, 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 July 1st, 2020, to allow this meeting to occur while If there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow electronic participation at council briefing meetings through July 1st, 2020. Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and council briefing meetings will be held with council members participating electronically through July 1st, 2020. Just want to let the record reflect that we've now been joined by Council Member Morales.

Good morning.

Thank you for being with us.

Good morning.

Approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of June 15th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, I do not have anything to report this morning, so we'll just go ahead and jump right on into the preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

I also just want to let the record reflect that we've now been joined by Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Herbold.

Welcome.

Good morning.

We will begin our next discussion on the preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees and I will call on councilmembers as established by the rotated roll call for city council meetings which is designated alphabetically by last name and with the council president being called upon last.

This week's roll call rotation begins with councilmembers I'm going to call the roll call.

The roll call will be Councilmember We don't have any other briefings or executive sessions scheduled for today, so it'll just be our reports.

So with that being said, let's go ahead and get started.

Council Member Strauss, you are first up.

Please, the floor is yours.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

I want to thank my colleagues.

It's great to see you all today.

Last week, we were able to attend the Association of Washington City's Legislative Priorities Committee, where we were joined by Senator Rolfes.

It was a robust discussion of both police accountability and revenue and all of the different items coming before the state legislature this year and really want to thank Kent Keel from the City of University Place for his comments last week.

Also last week I was able to celebrate Juneteenth with a rally and march from West Woodland Park to Bergen Place in downtown Ballard.

We started at a park that I grew up playing soccer and baseball on and ended in a park where I was able to meet the King of Norway Both times he came to dedicate the mural, once when I was in third grade and once when I was in 2015. And it was really nice to see our community show up to celebrate Juneteenth and support Black lives in our community.

One of the things that we talked about during the rally was white silence and really wanted to focus, and I'll share my comments with you here and now, which is that here in America, our communication styles and our communication patterns demonstrate that silence means agreement.

And so as compared to other countries and cultures where silence actually means disagreement.

So that's a difference between our country and other countries where our country, silence does mean agreement.

So when we are seeing violence perpetrated against black lives here in our country, for white people, our silence is complicit in this aggression and in this violence.

And so that's where, especially in times like this.

And so that's when you see signs that say white silence equals violence, that's where this is coming from.

Because in moments like this, when white folk are silent, during times of aggression and violence against black people, our silence is complicit and in agreement with this violence.

So it really is our duty to be having conversations with each other.

Everyone has a different lane that they want to, that they feel comfortable participating in.

And I think that it's also really important to remember that a lot of this work is uncomfortable and that part of this work is sitting in that discomfort.

Just wanted to share with you some of the thoughts that I shared with crowds of at minimum 500. And I think that there were more like 1,000 people marching from West Woodland down to Ballard.

So that was really amazing to watch coming through that area.

Really want to thank DeMarcus and everyone and all of the organizers who made it happen.

It was a really professional event.

My office has still been working with small businesses, helping them navigate the different levels of resources available.

And that's one reason why I am so excited for the Jump Start Seattle proposal.

And I've signed on as a co-sponsor in part because this This stimulus program, what we know is that when we only have austerity budgets, that we don't, the whole city doesn't succeed.

We are still trying to get back to funding levels of service from 2008. And so we know that there needs to be a new revenue source.

We know that we can't continue to rely on sales tax for obvious reasons.

property tax is also not a very good option.

I know some people, my friend's parents are paying property tax that is similar to their original mortgage.

And so we really need to have a new and a progressive revenue source.

And so I'm very excited for how this proposal supports small businesses in particular, supports immigrants and refugees.

and supports childcare, and also provides enough time for businesses to be able to understand if they fall into this category of being taxed or not, and also doesn't I think the timing of this proposal is very good.

It is already a fine-tuned proposal and I'm looking forward to how we can fine-tune it further.

I want to thank everyone for your time.

Okay.

Thank you again.

And really appreciate your ongoing participation and in the national and local conversations related to anti-racism work, Council Member Strauss, I really appreciate.

you being so forward with the work that you're doing both in your district and just personally as a white male to look deeper at these issues and really rise to the occasion in terms of accepting the call to do anti-racist work.

I just want to say that I appreciate I think it's important to have your consistent dedication to doing that work.

It is hard work, and it needs to be sustained by white allies in this space for sure.

Okay.

Next up, we are going to hear from Councilmember Herbold, please.

The tragic loss of another young black man's life just days after his high school graduation.

And we know that there was another shooting as well last night and the result of Two nights of shootings are two people injured and again, one very young man's loss of life.

I believe that grieving family members and friends deserve to know whether or not This young man's death could have been prevented if Seattle Fire Department medics had been able to respond to calls for help.

We know a little bit more information about the operations of the fire department and the police department from Saturday night from information that both police and fire have released, including body-worn camera video and CAD data information.

And there's also more live video streaming information out there about the Saturday morning shooting.

So, you know, fire department medics were ready to enter, but given that there had been a shooting and that there were armed individuals within the perimeter, the policy for the police department is, the policy for the fire department is that the police department has to secure the area first in advance.

And this is the fire department's policy all across the board, not just in this instance at the CHOP.

Medics are focused on giving care to a patient.

They're more vulnerable than people who can focus on the actions of individuals in a crowd.

And this goes for whether or not fire medics are giving emergency care in a DV situation or in a car accident where people are arguing about the fault of an accident.

The fire department always waits for the police department in an instance where there's violence or potential for violence.

Now, we know that the police department, early on said that it was a violent crowd that prevented officers safe access to the victims.

And they've sort of walked that back a little bit and instead are now referring to the same language that you can find officers use themselves in the CAD data documents.

The officers themselves did not say that the crowd was violent.

They used the term extremely hostile.

So putting that aside altogether, I just wanna say that the suggestion that the crowd interfered with the access to victims, I believe defies belief because the first victim had already been transferred by the time the police arrived and the second victim hadn't been shot yet.

So I really reject the narrative that it was the mood of the crowd that prevented SPD from reaching the victims.

The victims were already gone.

And it's clear to me that a situation that requires people in need of medical care to be escorted to the perimeter of the CHOP to get help isn't in anyone's best interest.

That's the operational plan that the fire department is using right now, that people inside the CHOP who need medical care have to be escorted to the perimeter of the chop.

And again, I really don't think that that is a sustainable ongoing operational approach that we can count on being able to help people.

CAD data and video also suggest that the police department wasn't on site until about 18 minutes after the shooting.

The fire department was in place a block away waiting for the police department's clearance.

And we don't know whether if SPD had arrived earlier and fire had been cleared to respond, whether or not this young man's life would have been saved.

Interviews with volunteer medics indicate that the volunteer medics have requested a 24-7 fire department liaison and that HealthONE actually offered to be stationed every day at Harvard and Pine to facilitate extraction of people needing emergency care.

The emergency medics don't have those two things.

And again, I don't know sort of where those requests are.

I know that CHOP leaders have been meeting in recognition that this is not a sustainable situation in the light of the tragic loss of life.

and critical injuries.

And in particular, I understand that the discussion is centering around the presence of large numbers of people, including guns at night, and how that remains to be a barrier to fire department response.

And those guns are not present during the day, and that's been very helpful.

And so I'm really hopeful that the decision-making body of CHOP leaders are centering their decisions about what comes next as allies in the voices of Black CHOP leaders.

It's Black people who die, whether or not from gun violence like we saw this weekend, police violence, or a myriad of other health emergencies that Black people suffer at a disproportionate rate.

it's no different in the six block area that is the CHOP, and emergency life-saving services must be able to reach people who live, work, and visit there.

I've heard just this morning from the mayor's office that, and this is consistent with reports that we see in the press today, but that the mayor's office believes that the nighttime situation is unstable, and that something needs to change.

their meeting with Andre Taylor and several CHOP organizers to talk about a path forward.

And then based on the outcome of that meeting, they will have updates to announce.

They go on to tell, the mayor's office goes on to give me a heads up that there's a statement from their office that will be going out shortly about the CHOP meeting, which is happening later this a.m.

And I will certainly share that information with you all.

when I receive it.

I have a committee meeting tomorrow morning, a public safety and human services committee.

This was a rescheduled date from a committee meeting that we had tried to have a couple weeks ago.

The items on the agenda, there are two items.

One is the Office of Police Accountability's 2019 annual report and their update on current investigations.

And the other is the Office of the Inspector General's 2019 annual report and their update on the Sentinel event review of recent mass demonstration response by the police department.

The Office of the Inspector General is undertaking a sentinel review, a recent mass demonstration response by the police department, and they are leading this review centered in a community process.

Excuse me. sentinel event review is a systems-based root cause analysis of incidents with significant negative outcomes that are important and of concern to the community.

The goal of this review is systematic improvement, and the Office of the Inspector General is seeking to ensure that, again, that it is grounded in community priorities and perspective, and also informed by law enforcement and relevant subject matter experts.

The focus is on system improvement that addresses specifically institutional racism.

The Office of the Inspector General will partner with the Community Police Commission and other community stakeholders to gather perspectives, input, and questions from community concerning Seattle Police Department response to recent mass demonstrations.

This information gathering will be informed by many sources, including that we've heard from folks at public meetings, news coverage of events, complaints, and comments made directly to OIG and the OPA, as well as upcoming forums that will be announced and other OIG information-gathering activities.

So we'll hear more about that tomorrow in committee.

Also just want to let folks know that the questions that council submitted, a few weeks ago now after the original actions of the police department.

They are almost complete with answering those questions.

So folks know there were probably about 110 questions altogether.

I had been seeking to have the police department come and review with the public safety and human services committee the responses to those questions.

And I understand that the mayor's office has asked that the police department not speak specifically to the answers that have been provided because of concerns about known and possible litigation.

So I'm going to check with the law department on whether or not they share those concerns.

But in any event, I will certainly, whether or not we hear them and have a discussion with SPD presenting the answers to those questions in committee aside, I will definitely ensure that everybody on the council receives a copy just as soon as I receive them.

And I expect to receive them within the next 24 hours.

On the human services side of my department, just again, they're doing a lot of really important work addressing COVID-19 impacts, specifically related to aging and disability services.

Their population, as we all know, falls squarely within the high-risk categories for COVID-19.

Social isolation is a big problem for older people in the best of times.

and much worse during COVID-19.

So aging and disability services and partners are really focusing a lot of their efforts now on addressing social isolation, including they're working to print cards for food and meal deliveries that promote what's called Community Living Connections and AARP's Friendly Voices Service.

And for anybody out there listening who is themselves either an older adult or a caregiver or has somebody that they love who's an older adult, you can call Community Living Connections to access their resources.

All calls are free and confidential and they can be reached at 1-844-REACH.

348-5464.

Friendly Voices arranges calls between older adults and trained AARP volunteers for social connection.

And then ADS, specifically through Age Friendly Seattle, offers a weekly online program at either a virtual civic coffee hour or a new series called Close to Home Stories of Health, Tech, and Resilience.

The live events are also fully auto-captioned in English and six other languages.

They have an ADS YouTube channel with the caption options.

And I just want to also recognize that ADS has worked with the Pike Market Senior Center, the Seattle Channel, and other senior centers and community organizations to develop a 10, one-hour program for seniors.

This series is called AgeWise TV.

It premieres on Thursday.

June 25th at 1pm.

So really appreciate the big focus that the Human Services Department is doing on the needs of our elders in dealing with the challenges associated with social distancing.

And we all know, as it relates specifically to public health, We've moved to phase two of the governor's four-step plan to open safely.

Businesses are required to follow special guidance, such as limiting the number of people who could be inside at once.

And we've been able to do that because King County has been able to increase testing.

Our health care system is not overtaxed.

And a lot of that is because residents have been doing a really good job of voluntarily complying with social and physical distancing guidelines.

I just want to let folks know that I have been following the fact that a lot of cities and states are beginning to turn their guidance about mask wearing into regulations and law.

I've been talking to Seattle King County Public Health.

about whether or not we should expect to see something stronger than guidance from the governor's office or from King County Public Health, and have expressed my interest in looking into whether or not we should do like many, many other cities have done, like the entire state of California has done and made face masks mandatory in certain types of public places, of course, with exceptions for people who can't wear masks.

My vision for that is not a law that is focused on enforcement, but it is really focused on public education.

And so I'm continuing to have conversations with public health about that and will definitely keep you abreast.

Just wrapping up, I've got office hours this weekend between 2.30 and 7. And last week, I spoke at the Next Steps event on Friday, Juneteenth at Judkins Park.

And I want to note that at last week's community police commission meeting.

We learned that Interim Executive Director Bessie Scott announced that she's resigning her position as well as the position as policy director.

Her last day will be early next month.

She's been amazing for the City of Seattle and the Community Police Commission and has worked diligently and with a lot of integrity to fulfill the mission of that organization.

And it's going to be very, very big shoes to fill.

other events coming up this week.

I have the West Seattle Bridge Business Resources Group June meeting, and that is a group of large employers that SDOT is meeting with to talk about bridge impacts.

And then also on Wednesday, I have the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting.

And that's all I have.

Thank you, and I'm sorry, it was kind of a long report today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

about the standards for exceptions to the committee suspension policy during the summer budget session.

Just wanted to remind folks that the resolution that we passed does suspend the committee calendar and states in the resolution that special standing committee meetings may be called if review of a legislative action is required within a set of times.

So, for example, if it's a quasi-judicial actions with 90-day deadlines for council review.

Or upon the approval of the Council President and the Chair of the Select Budget Committee after consultation with the Central Staff Director.

And we went on in the memo to talk about that the exceptions to this rule may be considered for critical time-sensitive legislation.

the city of Seattle.

I gave a little bit of an example as it relates to land use actions or proposed levies such as the Seattle transportation benefit district.

I recognize Councilmember Herbold that this is a meeting that was postponed.

It was originally supposed to I'm mindful of the fact that I don't think that this meeting meets the standards that were set in the memo that I had sent out previously, but I know that you've already noticed the meeting and just want to sort of acknowledge that I'm sort of considering the reschedule of, I'm sorry, I'm considering the scheduling of this public safety meeting as a reschedule of something that was previously scheduled.

I don't think that there are any other committee meetings that fall into that category at this point.

I just want to remind folks that we need to be consistent here in terms of the application of that suspension of the committee calendar.

So this is one of those that probably does not meet the standard set.

I just wanted to make sure that I reminded all of us who are on We will continue to do that through the summer budget process.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions for Councilmember Herbold on her report?

questions, please let me know via text or on the Zoom call who is interested in asking questions or making comments, please do let me know either via text or through the raise your hand feature on Zoom or just by giving me a visual cue on the call.

Councilmember Mosqueda, please.

on the ongoing conversation about the protests and public safety up in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

I appreciate your comments this morning.

They're very powerful.

You mentioned some words about pushing back on the narrative that was used around why officers potentially didn't go in or why they weren't the first ones to respond to the individual who needed assistance.

And I just want to underscore what you said and I agree.

We want to make sure that firefighters and EMTs have access to do their jobs and promote public safety and help those who need it.

And that is critical.

You mentioned, though, that the Seattle Police Department's comments were that they couldn't enter because the folks were extremely hostile, I think was the word you used.

I heard a similar report this morning, I believe, on KUOW.

The video that I saw showed people who were very upset about the individuals who were coming into the area having their guns drawn.

And I just heard people in the video saying, put your guns away, put your guns away, but I didn't have a chance to see or dig more into it.

Can you talk a little bit more about any of the analysis that you saw or heard about what the folks who were there were actually saying?

Were they saying put your guns away and pleading with folks?

Or can you explain more about where there's the disagreement between what the officers are saying and what sort of the lived experience of folks in the area who were asking folks to put their guns away?

Well, my comments really focused on the police department walking back the language that protesters were violent.

That was what had been reported earlier.

Like I said, I reviewed the CAD data for how the officers themselves, what words they used, and the words they used were that protestors were extremely hostile.

And so I have been urging the police department to not editorialize on the words used by officers.

We can disagree about whether or not the protestors were hostile or not, but I think it's really inappropriate for somebody in a, you know, in the role of drafting press statements to take words that say extremely hostile and turn them into violent.

That is that those words have completely different meanings.

And so that's really where I've been focusing.

my analysis.

Again, all of that aside, I think the larger point is the mood of the protesters had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the officers that were present were able to reach the victim, because the victim was already gone at that point.

For me, that's the overarching point, is by the time they got there, the victim was gone.

Any follow-up, Council Member Esqueda?

No, thank you.

I appreciate you digging into the questions, Council Member Herbold.

Any other questions or comments on Council Member Herbold's report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move along the roll call here.

Next up is Council Member Juarez, please.

Thank you.

Good morning, colleagues.

So there are no items on the Public Asset and Native Trees Committee this afternoon's agenda.

Every year, the Metropolitan Park District Board, of which we all are a member of, meets three times a year to pass a budget to supplement the park's general budget.

Typically, we have a meeting in June to start discussions with the community, followed by two meetings in November to parallel the main city budget timeline.

However, due to COVID-19, the city is not prepared to meet this year's June 22nd MPD committee meeting until after the mayor has proposed her modified 2020 budget proposal.

I plan to reschedule the June 22nd meeting to a later time.

I'm going to try to be brief on parks because it's a little detailed and there are six topics I want to cover.

Before the close of business today, again, my office will email to each of you your weekly parks COVID-19 programmatic update.

Again, we get those working with the superintendent and we get briefed every week on about a Wednesday and get those together by Friday so you could have the Monday.

Starting with the summer childcare program, it starts today at 21 locations.

More than 400 child care slots are available for children age 4 to 12 for a program that runs five days a week.

We'll have class sizes of no more than eight children.

Health screening is required for all staff and participants.

Yellow Park and Recreation custodians will service all of the site.

This is interesting.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but we did a lot of calls about lawn care.

Over the past few months, of parks and recreation frequency and level of ground maintenance has been significantly impacted by several factors related to COVID.

The department has experienced reduced staffing levels as a result of the most vulnerable staff being unable to work in the field, health concerns, and staggered shifts to reduce exposure.

Also, staff is riding solo in trucks and the inability to bring on temporary staff due to a hiring freeze.

Due to this emergency, we will see overgrown lawns because Parks has deployed available staff to high-priority services, as you all know, such as emergency shelters, feeding and staffing childcare for essential workers, and providing clean park facilities.

Parks staff have also been working hard to provide increased cleaning for over 216 public hygiene facilities.

As we discussed well over a month ago, maybe two months ago, that is the restrooms, the hand-washing stations and the portable showers.

They continue to collect garbage and litter and provide maintenance in over 480 parks.

I want to thank the park staff and leadership, Superintendent Aguirre.

They work really hard and I know that it's been difficult for them to get out everywhere to collect the garbage, to empty the porta-potties, to make sure the hand-washing stations are there.

And of course, they're always concerned about the safety of their staff as they put them out in the field.

With that said, as more staff return to work and when time allows, groundkeepers will be able to mow more parks in every district as time allows.

Athletic fields.

Beginning July 1st, Seattle Parks and Rec will begin permitting small groups of up to five people on athletic fields.

All fields are available for drop-in use when they're not being used by a permitted group.

Everyone using fields should abide to guidelines limiting play to small groups of five with social distancing.

Tennis and basketball courts.

As of last week, Seattle Park and Rec, tennis and basketball courts are open throughout our system.

All hoops and nets should be up by June 25th, which I believe is Thursday.

The shelter program.

From June 10th through the 16th, we sheltered on average between 36 and 44 people at Miller Community Center, between 36 and 45 people at Garfield Community Center, The youth center at Southwest Teen Life Community Center supported an average between 15 and 20 youth.

Last week, I met with Superintendent Aguirre, and here are our updates.

Phase two opening doesn't really change a whole lot for us about what's happening now for parks and recreation.

However, parks is transitioning their message from keep it moving to keep it small and simple.

The goal is to deter crowding.

Parks is redeploying outdoor swimming lifeguards as of July 1st through Labor Day with additional staffing on July 4th.

Staffers will be operating seven days a week, and this is for outdoor swimming only on Seattle beaches.

Pools remain closed.

Parks will announce which Seattle beaches will be open soon.

Moving on to OVG and NHL Seattle, that's the National Hockey League, the arena construction.

If you went to on-site this morning, you'd see over 350 skilled and diversified workforce building this magnificent project.

Great progress is being made.

We had an opportunity to visit along with Councilmember Strauss.

I've been there at least three times to see, it was like three weeks ago, but it's pretty amazing what they're doing and also abiding by the COVID-19 restrictions.

Work is being done under a COVID-19 response plan held by state and labor as the model for how work should be done under COVID-19 guidelines.

13 months ago, the hard demolition of the Old Key Arena Bowl began.

Last summer, the challenging work of holding up the 44 million pound roof with the temporary support system started.

Then over the fall, with the temporary columns in place, the Old Key Arena support columns were cut.

and 600,000 cubic yards of soil was hauled away from the site.

Needless to say, OVG is particularly proud of their excellent safety record for this project as it is ongoing.

Arena opening.

Since construction started, OVG has said the new arena would be completed in the summer of 2021. So that would be somewhere between June and September.

OVG hoped or worked to see if they might be able to open early, maybe perhaps June or July, but has decided given the complexity of the job and the importance of getting everything right, which we would want them to do, it's better to set the opening for September 2021. So it looks like we're going to have an opening on September 2021. OVG is monitoring their material supply chains and do not see any serious issues yet.

They're confident that the project will be fully ready for the first puck to drop on the ice for the 2021 NHL season.

The NHL team name.

NHL Seattle is working through trademark and legal issues with the league, and as soon as that is complete, they will be sensitive to what is happening in our community and set the right time to launch and announce the new team name.

They're hoping it will be between now and the fall.

So Northgate, the Northgate construction is on schedule.

As you know, that's our 80, 85 million training center, which we will also have a couple of hotels.

And my understanding is Virginia Mason will be having a major footprint there as well.

NHL Seattle has completed all of the foundation work and pending city permit approval, we'll be able to erect the steel framework soon.

Let's see, they still plan to open their team space and team rink by July 1st, 2021, and the remainder of the project will be completed by October 2021. We have all necessary COVID safety measures in place, and they have approximately 40 workers on-site daily with no reported cases, and we expect those workers to expand.

They are now working on a plan to ensure the facility is an asset that is accessible to as many people as possible, regardless of the ability to pay.

In district news, we are very happy.

Big congratulations to the graduates of Nathan Hale High School and Ingram High School.

These students experienced their virtual graduation ceremonies last week.

Last week I had an opportunity, this is Seattle Municipal Court, to meet with Presiding Judge Willie Gregory to discuss a report of the Seattle Municipal Court and their probation services.

As you all remember, last year in budget, that was the issue of contention on probation services and how effective they are.

The Seattle Municipal Court commissioned the Vera Institute of Justice to evaluate the court's probation services as they continue to address how the criminal legal system affects people of color.

The report is expected to be published today.

As many of you know, the Vera Institute of Justice has been around since 1961. They did some work in Spokane.

They have 60 projects in 47 states.

So the minute that this report comes out, and it's supposed to come out today, it will also be posted on the city's website and also at the Vera Institute of Justice website.

Week ahead.

This goes back to our Sound Transit Board or Sound Transit.

This Thursday I'll be attending another Sound Transit Board of Directors meeting where we will consider COVID-19 impacts on the system.

About a month ago Sound Transit staff recommended the board create and agreed upon a list of criteria to help manage future decisions on Sound Transit projects.

The criteria-setting process is complicated because we've been asked to make significant decisions now with limited information on variables, major variables, such as cash flow, future debt capacity, and future ridership.

Mayor Dirk and I had expressed concern over the fast-paced nature of the criteria-setting process and spoke to the chair of the board, which is Mr. Kent Keel, Mayor Kent Keel.

As you all know, cities are at a capacity having to respond to a global pandemic, a recession, and political and civil unrest, our trifecta of the century.

And Chair Keele, of course, understood this.

And for the city, for the Seattle list goes on to include, as Councilor Herbold mentioned, to include the West Seattle Bridge to consider in transportation planning.

So the next step for the board is to take action on the proposed criteria list this Thursday, that would be June 25th at 1.30.

If you're interested in reviewing the motion before the board, we can get that to you.

It's motion 2020-36.

Or if you have any feedback, please contact Nagina in my office by Tuesday at noon.

I should add that we started out, or Sound Transit had five, original criteria that they looked at for Sound Transit and what the voters agreed upon.

And one was ridership potential.

Number two was social economic equity.

Number three was connecting centers.

Number four was completing the HFTC spine.

Seven was advancing logistically beyond the spine.

So now of the original five, we now are proposing three new ones.

And the three new ones are, and again, this is, I'll state what the three new ones are and then I'll just wrap this up.

The new one, the first one is project tenure.

How long have voters been waiting for this project?

Number two is outside funding.

Are other funding sources available or secured?

And number, the third one is phasing compatibility.

Can the project be constructed and open for service in increment?

So basically, we've expanded the criteria from five to eight, so we will use this realignment criteria to create realignment scenarios for the Sound Transit Board to make realignment decisions.

We got a lot going on there.

If there's anything else in regards to the VIRA project, Sound Transit, or parks, I'm happy to answer that offline, or we can do it online, or we can do it right now.

That's pretty much it, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez for that report.

Really appreciate it.

Any questions or comments on that report, colleagues?

Great.

Thank you so much again for doing all of that hard work in the background.

There's lots of I want to say thank you to all of you for all of the COVID related response work that we all continue to do in district and across the city.

And of course, really appreciate your ongoing work on all of the non-COVID related issues that continue to be of significant importance to our for that report and for the work particularly around Sound Transit as well.

So thank you so much again for continuing to keep us up to date on those issues.

Thank you, Council President.

And then I will let you know secretly when I know the name of the team.

How's that?

I definitely would like to know that for sure.

I promise not to tell anyone.

Okay, so next up is Council Member Lewis.

Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

I didn't know a perk of the job of being Council President was getting the scoop on the upcoming sports team's names.

That's good to know for future reference.

There you go.

There's so many reasons that you want to be Council President.

You don't need to know.

Well, in any event, this week I intend to formally introduce a bill to assess a 1% tax on capital gains, as I announced last week.

That bill should be on introduction and referral for the end of this week if I can get it back from the law department and was proud to announce that initiative last week to help meet our third-door obligations to scale up a permanent supportive housing.

I am going to hold a town hall on Tuesday, June 30th at 2 p.m.

via Zoom.

in order to inform members of the public about the details once the bill is out and once we have all of the information ready and to answer questions generally about capital gains.

I can announce now that that town hall will feature special guest and capital gains tax expert, former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, one of my professors from the University of California, Berkeley, who has been very formative in my personal opinions on tax policy and tax equity will be appearing via Zoom.

that we are going to be able to do that.

So I look forward to that in addition to a panel of some other folks that I'm bringing together.

But I will keep this So moving on to this afternoon, I am really looking forward to voting on and passing the repeals of our, you know, I would say outdated, but outdated implies that there used to be a rational basis for having them, loitering laws that have had a massively disproportionate impact on people of color, on women, our LGBTQ community, just a massive disproportionate and discriminatory legacy that we can put a stop to this afternoon by finally getting rid of these ordinances.

I want to really thank Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Peterson for co-sponsoring these measures with me, and I look forward to our vote this afternoon on repealing those ordinances.

It has been really encouraging to be getting thousands and thousands of emails from my neighbors uniformly in favor of repealing these ordinances.

And the fact that from my skim of my extremely crowded inbox, almost all of these emails appear to be completely unique and not form emails, which is something I haven't seen in the last six months, to have thousands of completely unique emails.

I'm on an issue that's just resonated so much from people who have just witnessed, felt, and seen the impact of these ordinances for a long time.

And I am very proud to stand with them and to be standing with my colleagues on the council and taking a stand on those laws.

I am also proud today to state, as I did tweet out last week, that I am pleased to have my signature fixed as a co-sponsor, and I'm announcing an open session.

with Councilmember Mosqueda's legislation that she has submitted, Council Bills 119810, 119811, and 1198112, her Jump Start Seattle proposal.

I am proud to stand with all of my colleagues on this Council who have been advocating for progressive taxation.

and I am proud to have fixed my signature to that legislation.

in putting it together, and I look forward to continue to deliberate on those bills that have been formally introduced for our consideration starting this week.

And I'm proud to announce my intent to co-sponsor those bills here in open session.

Last week, I also attended the Next Steps Juneteenth celebration at Jutgans Park, where we heard inspirational words from Andre Taylor, among many other speakers, local leaders, organizers, including our very own Council Member Lisa Herbold from the Council.

It was really good to be there to really hear and feel the energy and really engage in the celebration that is Juneteenth that has been so purposeful this year in our united fight to finally and unequivocally state that Black Lives Matter and reflect that in our policy and in our budget.

And I look forward to the follow-up conversations from the agenda that was announced very broadly by many speakers at the Next Steps event.

And hopefully we will finally move forward and make real sustained progress on the issues of systemic racism in our criminal legal system.

With that, Madam President, I don't have any other updates.

There are, of course, given the prohibition on committees meeting during the budget season, no updates from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I look forward to another week of budget hearings on Wednesday.

I look forward to continuing to have an additional set of office hours this coming Friday and every week going forward.

So just a shout out to constituents who are watching this briefing today.

Always willing to make myself available for the stated office hours.

And if those don't fit the schedule, please do feel free to email.

Happy to arrange a time to talk about everything before the council.

So thank you so much.

Thank you Councilmember Lewis for that report.

Any questions or comments on Councilmember Lewis's report?

Okay.

Seeing none, I just want to say thanks, Council Member Lewis, for that report.

Looking forward to considering your bills this afternoon, which I also support.

I think it's long overdue to take a look at those laws that just create pathways for unhelpful and unproductive contact with law enforcement that really does, you know, those loitering laws are not focused on a harm reduction, trauma informed approach.

And so really appreciate your willingness to bring these bills forward and look forward to the discussion this afternoon and look forward to being able to take a vote in favor of both of those bills.

So thanks again for bringing those forward.

Okay, next up is Council Member Morales, please.

Good morning, colleagues.

I want to begin this morning by reminding our neighbors that there is still a deadly infectious disease spreading in our community.

We are not meeting our targets for shrinking COVID-19, the COVID-19 outbreak in King County.

So I want to remind everybody to please continue to wash hands, physically distance.

Now that we're moving into phase two, we all have an eagerness, I know, to get out of the house.

Um, but it is still really important that we wear face masks to protect ourselves and our neighbors, um, and, and continue to follow the public, uh, public health guidelines about keeping, keeping ourselves safe and healthy.

Um, there are no items on the agenda today from the community economic development committee.

Um, I do want to acknowledge the work of King County equity now, On Juneteenth, this past Friday, they organized a really, really important and meaningful event focused on the need to reinvest in Black communities.

I took my nine-year-old daughter to the rally and march that they had through the central area and made sure to explain to her as we were getting an important history lesson from Joaquin Garrett, from Rita Green, and others in the neighborhood who stopped along the way to share the history of the central area, to share the significance of development projects at particular intersections, and to share as we walked down the street, pointing out the names of families who still do or used to live on 23rd Avenue in particular, businesses that used to be there that contributed to the vibrancy of that community.

So I just want to give them a shout out.

It was a really special day and I appreciated it.

And I know everyone else who was there was also eager to hear that history if they didn't already know it.

As the chair of the Community Economic Development Committee, I support the effort to return property back to black ownership.

During these council discussions that we're having about progressive revenue, I've been advocating for a permanent source of funding for the equitable development initiative because it's an important tool for increasing access to capital for community-led development.

The bill that Councilmember Sawant and I have introduced would, well, an amendment that I was going to introduce for that bill would have provided $50 million for that initiative.

We will continue to discuss that as we move forward with the progressive revenue conversation.

expect that my colleagues will be interested in supporting that effort.

Shifting to the conversation about the police department, as we talk about how we shift resources from SPD back into the community, I do want to let folks know that we continue, my office continues to talk to stakeholders about how best to increase support for our homeless neighbors.

We'll be revising our previous bill to remove police from the navigation teams.

And we wanna continue that conversation so that we can use those resources to focus on rebuilding a more robust outreach infrastructure for our homeless neighbors and to increase supportive housing options.

And so as we begin voting on the budget for the city, I just want to give folks a heads up that that is something we'll be bringing forward.

I also want to say that black and brown communities in Seattle, especially organizations and leaders from my district, have been asking for a long time for significant transformation in how we police our communities.

So as we begin those discussions around shifting resources away from the police department, I wanna make sure that we are not taking anything off the table, especially as it relates to staffing and the tactics used by the police department that mostly harm our black and brown neighbors.

I had asked a few weeks ago what we could do about officers with long histories of complaints against them.

It's troubling to read, uh, as I did over the weekend, that some of those officers are also among the highest paid on our police force.

Um, so as we talk about how to shift resources into our communities, we'll be taking a hard look at how to reduce what we spend on salaries and how to advance the need to remove officers with the pattern of complaints.

And as I said, I don't think we should be taking anything off the table at this point.

As it relates to progressive revenue, I'm sure Councilmember Mosqueda will be making her announcement soon, but we have had conversation over the last several days, Councilmember Sawant and I, Councilmember Mosqueda and I, about our two proposals.

I do want to let folks know that I've asked for two amendments to the jumpstart proposal.

One would allow a sunset clause only if other jurisdictions We're also looking at how we could pass a progressive revenue package and Seattle would get a similar amount as these proposals would raise.

We're also looking at how to substantially increase the revenue that would be generated by the jump start proposal.

We know it's possible.

There is another proposal on the table already that would raise $500 million.

So we know also that we have a giant hole in our budget that needs to be filled.

changes in the tax rates that have been proposed could get us closer to the $500 million that is already on the table.

I also want to let our neighbors know that last week, the King County Board of Health, on which I sit along with council members Mosqueda and Lewis, voted to approve a resolution identifying racism as a public health crisis.

We had a robust conversation about what that means.

And after the discussion, um, the, the board chair, uh, county council member, Joe McDermott, um, created some committee, uh, on the board of health in order to continue the conversation about what besides just passing resolutions, the board of health should be doing to actively engage in the work of, um, of addressing racism as an epidemic in the county.

Um, so, more on that to come.

And then finally, just on the calendar for us this week, the Southeast Seattle Business Support Roundtable will be meeting.

The Columbia City Business Association is exploring how to hold, especially in light of COVID, how to hold bystander trainings and learn more about other interventions that can help keep our neighbors safe.

And then the Board of Health I will be meeting with the sexual assault subcommittee later this week.

That is all I have.

Thank you.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you all for all of your feedback on last week's discussion.

We had Council Bill 119802, which is the bill that authorizes the acceptance of a transfer of real property near Mount Baker Light Rail Station from the University of Washington for the purpose of development of affordable housing and other potential education, research, clinical uses by the university.

including early learning facility and for general municipal purposes.

And we have this legislation that is in front of us today on the full council agenda.

As a reminder, we did have a public hearing on this bill last Monday.

Thanks to the folks who called in and also for all of the council colleagues who provided comments, especially want to thank council member Morales, who spoke to the bill and the importance of it and the history of it, given it's in her district.

Thank you for your comments, as well as to our other council colleagues.

We are excited about the transfer of this piece of property and I want to thank all the folks who've been working on this including our Legislative partners at the state level who are continuing to make this possible and underscoring the point that was made last Monday That as we transfer this property recognizing that this was previously good union union wage work we want to make sure that we are investing in working families and creating good and job opportunities and ongoing opportunities for the community so that it continues to serve that public purpose.

And I think that's exactly what you heard when you heard the presentation about what was in the bill, including early learning facilities.

So that's on today's full council agenda.

On the introduction and referral calendar, we do have the three pieces of legislation that were incorporated in the Jump Start Seattle legislation that we discussed last week in the Select Committee on Budget and the proposal that I highlighted in the Tuesday public briefing on this.

This is Council Bill 119810, Council Bill 119811, and Council Bill 119812. Council colleagues, I'm really honored that these three pieces of legislation have earned the co-sponsorship of Council Member Herbold, Council President Gonzalez, who both announced that during last week's session.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, for your comments this morning and for signing on to the bill.

And thank you, Council Member Lewis, for all of your support as well as your comments this morning.

We're looking forward to working with all of you.

If there's other council members who want to continue to sign on to the Jump Start legislation, we would, of course, welcome that and really appreciate the ongoing effort as a collective body to get progressive revenue passed this year, not this year, this summer.

I want to also say I'm looking forward to working with the Council President and the Clerk's Office to make sure that we can affix those co-sponsorships for the introduction and referral calendar to make that official today.

Welcome additional co-sponsors.

If there are any that do pop up before our 2 p.m.

meeting, that's greatly appreciated.

And speaking of revenue, we do have an ongoing revenue conversation that we have allocated for our 10 a.m.

meeting times every Wednesday moving forward.

We have two sessions, as you all know, on Wednesdays.

The morning session starts at 10 a.m., which is focused on progressive revenue.

The afternoon session focuses on our 2020 supplemental budget.

We do want to note, to make it easier for the viewing public who wants to provide public comments, there will be a 10 a.m.

public comment period and a 2 p.m.

public comment period.

There will be the opportunity to speak at one, not both, of those public comment sessions, since this is one long agenda.

And the opportunity to sign up for public comment starts at 8 a.m.

On the link this week, you will have the option to choose 10 a.m.

or 2 p.m.

I want to make sure that folks know that they will be welcome to speak to any item on the agenda, whether that's revenue or the upcoming budget or our ongoing inquest into the Seattle Police Department's budget.

You're welcome to speak to any of those items at any point during public comment.

It does not have to be reserved for a.m.

or p.m., but to make life easier for folks trying to sign up and for our communications and and I.T.

folks who are managing public comment and for us who are trying to make sure that we hear from as many people as possible.

There will be one opportunity to sign up, one link, and we look forward to hearing from you either at 10 a.m.

or 2 p.m.

As a reminder, we will do one minute of public comment because of the large number of people who've been calling in, so please do prepare to We will have public comment again at the beginning as we have committed to each meeting.

We will begin our discussion around progressive revenue, focusing on issue identification and a presentation from central staff on policy choices, following up on some of the questions that were asked at last week's meeting.

I want to thank Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Sawant for the understanding that we've reached that the jumpstart legislation will be the base legislation for the purposes of our discussion.

to be able to focus our conversation on one set of proposals.

I really think this is a really helpful agreement that we have reached to have the jumpstart legislation be that base for possible amendments and to build off of that so we can focus our conversation amongst us as council colleagues and to be conscious and to help streamline the work we are asking of central staff so amendments and issue identification can be really focused to one set of to acknowledge the sheer amount of work and the incredible quality of that work that's gone into the revenue proposals.

from central staff, and this is truly, you know, an exciting moment for Seattle as we talk about progressive revenue proposals.

Both of the proposals that have been put forward are progressive in nature and want to thank our council colleagues for your ongoing commitments to advancing progressive revenue and to our central staff who's been working night and day on these proposals.

I want to flag that there will be the Councilmember Morales and Sawant legislation will continue to be listed on our agenda in addition to the Jump Start legislation.

and we'll continue to list those items on the agenda, but we'll focus our conversation for issue identification and possible amendments on the jumpstart legislation.

Please, council colleagues, if you have issues that you have not yet identified, and I know this is a relatively new process for some, issue identification allows for all of us on council and the viewing public and central staff to know if you as a council member have potential amendments that you'd like to work on.

We want those flagged for central staff as early as possible so that they can really identify those in our Wednesday discussion.

And that allows us as a body to begin working on amendments.

We would ask council members, if you do have amendments, to please submit those to central staff on Friday.

And that allows for us to have an early heads up on any possible amendments that we will be working on.

Thanks so much to central staff for their ongoing work.

And if you do have possible amendments that you're working on, ideally getting those in by Friday at 10 a.m.

this week will be very helpful.

The second session on Wednesday will be our conversation around progressive, I'm sorry, around the budget.

This will include a conversation on the 2020 revised budget.

Our understanding as of this morning, is that the mayor's office will be sending down their revised budget.

Appreciate that we will be able to hear an overview from the city budget's office.

But prior to doing that, we will also have public comments again.

We will have a briefing and discussion on follow-up questions from last week's conversation around the Seattle Police Department's budget inquest.

and a follow-up on the type of calls that 911 is receiving.

A number of you did ask questions during that meeting last week, and we've received a handful of others from viewing public about what type of calls our current system is responding to, and getting that analysis will be helpful.

And then we will have the CBO overview.

Other updates, as you saw, we had a public hearing that was originally scheduled for tomorrow night, June 23rd at 5pm.

This was the opportunity for us just to have a block of time allocated to hearing back from the public on questions, ideas, concerns, amendments that they would like to see to the mayor's proposed budget.

we did not have that budget in hand at the time, we did cancel tomorrow's evening public hearing, but we'll be rescheduling that given that we just got word that the budget is potentially coming down.

We will be rescheduling that very soon, so please be on the look for us to schedule an evening public hearing.

This is an opportunity for us to have a large amount of time allocated to just hearing from the public and not having a presentation from our to be able to have a large amount of time for us to be able to benefit from hearing them.

So that will be revised or rescheduled and will be sent out soon.

And I just want to thank you all.

I think that this has been really We've seen a lot of work being done to provide immediate relief to COVID.

Council colleagues have commented on the increased numbers of COVID that are beginning to pop up again in counties around our region, and wanting to be responsive to the ongoing needs for both working families, immigrants and refugees, small businesses, as we think about the immediate need for relief for those individuals, and then for providing the opportunity for us to rebuild our local economy for small businesses, especially women and minority-owned businesses, as has been discussed this morning, and for us to really reimagine what a new economy looks like as we emerge out of this recession in the out years.

So looking forward to the conversations, and we will send out this revised calendar for you to have in your hip pocket for your team and your staff members as well, so that you all have those dates on your calendars coming up.

Council President, thank you so much for your time.

That's the end of my report.

I just want to say thank you again to everybody who signed on to the Jump Start legislation bills and continue to look forward to getting additional names on the INR calendar as we move forward.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda, for that report.

Any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, I just want to say thank you so much for your hard work on the Jump Start Seattle proposal.

And I also really want to thank, unfortunately Council Member Solan is not with us this morning, but I want to thank Council Member Solan and Morales for your willingness to come together on that agreement.

Really appreciate I appreciate that, and I think it signifies the unity that is needed by the City Council around identifying strong, progressive revenue proposals.

Council Member Morales, the amendments that you've already identified to the Jump Start Seattle proposal I think are smart, smart proposals, and look forward to seeing the language around those, and looking forward to continuing to engage.

I'm so excited to be a co-sponsor of the Jump Start Seattle proposal and again really looking forward to continuing to dig into both the I'm sorry.

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plan and the revenue bills, or are you focusing the issue identification in a particular way to create space about conversation about the revenue versus issue identification?

Can you just talk a little bit more about that?

Yes, thank you.

I know that there have been most of the questions that we've received so far have been on tweaks and potential changes to the spend side.

So I think if folks do have questions on the spend allocation, again, there's a 2020 spend and then there's the out year spend.

If you have questions about those, please do get those in as soon as you can.

And that allows for us to really kind of get all of those questions in one place.

I do believe if there is questions and we can do issue identification this Wednesday on the revenue generating side for Jump Start as well, that would be helpful.

But I expect most of our conversation for issue identification will really focus on the spend proposals.

Thank you, Council President.

Good question.

I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I hope it will be helpful to folks as we think about how to prepare for Wednesday and beyond in terms of the conversation.

I really appreciate that.

Any other questions for Councilmember Esqueda?

All right.

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

Next up is Councilmember Peterson.

Next week, I will have more information on renewing the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

I want to thank, again, the Council President for allowing room for that to be considered.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for your comprehensive report as chair of our Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

You've touched on a lot of issues that I know are top of mind for folks in my district and throughout the city.

This past week, I attended two more demonstrations for police accountability.

The first was a vigil Thursday night to honor Charlene Lyles, who was tragically killed in front of her children by two Seattle police officers in her Magnuson Park apartment three years ago.

The hundreds of people attending heard from the family of Charlene Lyles.

Council Member Sawant also spoke at the vigil.

The second demonstration was the Juneteenth Freedom March Friday afternoon, which several of you mentioned.

sponsored by King County Equity Now, the Africatown Community Land Trust, and other Black leaders.

As many of you experienced and saw, thousands of residents and allies marched from Madison Street to Jimi Hendrix Park, where we heard inspirational speakers and music.

This just is another reminder and push for the work that we need to do here at City Council to demilitarize our police department, restrict the use of excessive force, increase accountability and transparency in police union contracts, give subpoena power to our official independent oversight boards and redirect meaningful funding toward effective community-based alternatives.

So continuing our legislative efforts from last week when we banned chokeholds, banned chemical weapons and uncovered police badges, As Councilmember Lewis mentioned, this week we have on our agenda proposals to repeal two old and problematic loitering laws.

I'm co-sponsoring Council Bill 119808 with Councilmembers Lewis and Morales.

This supports the recommendation of the Seattle Reentry Work Group to repeal the prostitution loitering law, which is Section 12A.10.010 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

repealing this law will eliminate a source of disproportionate harm to people of color from our policing and carceral system, and I hope we can count on everybody's support today for another positive legislative step, albeit a small one.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Peterson, for that report.

Any comments or questions for Councilmember Peterson?

I'm not seeing or hearing any.

Thank you again for that report.

Really appreciate it.

I will go ahead and conclude this agenda item with my report.

I'll make it as quick as I can.

So last week on June 18th, I and Council Member Lewis attended the second governing committee meeting of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority as representatives of the Seattle City Council consistent with the interlocal I wanted to make sure folks heard just a couple of really important updates on that body of organization and the standing up of the Regional Homelessness Authority.

One is that, of course, we have a cohort group who is part of the governing committee that is made up of folks with lived experience.

So these are three representatives who do not, unlike us as elected officials, they do not have staff and resources and infrastructure available to them to do some of the work the way that you or I might do it or do, in fact, do it.

And so the lived experience group has continued to highlight sort of a structural inequity in how the Regional Homeless Authority Governing Committee is set up insofar as the fact that they don't have the same access to staffing resources and other resources that they need to be able to get up to speed on things like amending the bylaws or finalizing issues related to the bylaws on evaluating potential issues related to the ILA and any assortment of other issues that are going to be coming before the governing committee as we look towards implementing the regional homelessness authority model.

So that has been highlighted, and it continues to be highlighted as an issue.

The members of the lived experience group are all African-Americans, and we continue to sort of lift up, and I use my role on that in those conversations to lift up the significant barriers that are being experienced by the lived experiences group folks.

to meaningfully continue to participate in the process without that infrastructure in place.

And so the King County folks have committed themselves to addressing those issues in short order.

I do want to acknowledge and appreciate Mayor Durkin's offer to provide city support and resources in the interim if needed in order to make sure that the folks with lived experience continue, will have the infrastructure they need to be able to meaningfully participate and not be at a disadvantage as compared to the elected officials who sit on the governing committee.

That being said, most of the cohort of lived experience folks on the Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee felt comfortable moving forward with one action item on the agenda that we had last week, which was to affirm the hiring of the search firm that will be looking for the chief executive officer who will run the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

So that process will continue to move forward.

The next meeting of this group will be on July 9th at 10 a.m.

via Zoom.

Public comment is available to folks as is viewing the meetings.

That is all available online at the So for folks who want to find additional information about the work of the Regional Homelessness Authority, they can go to regionalhomelesssystem.org and find more information about our past meeting, our past two meetings, and any presentations that we have received in the context of that work.

And next up, I wanted to talk really quickly about phase two here and just the issues related to the fact that we are still in a public health crisis related to a highly infectious, potentially deadly disease that is COVID-19.

and I appreciate Council Member Morales bringing this up.

It is really important for us to remember that even though we're moving as a county into phase two, that that does not mean that we throw caution to the wind.

We still have to continue to exercise physical distancing.

We have to continue to wear face coverings and masks.

And we have to continue to practice elevated hygiene standards when we're out in public.

So again, folks, I know you all are excited to be out there again and potentially sit inside of a restaurant or a bar to have a beverage or eat food.

But we are not beyond the COVID crisis.

It is still very much present and with us, and it is continuing to be a threat to our elder groups.

And I will say that much of the data coming out nationally, including here, is showing that people who are in their 30s and 40s are starting to experience hospitalization at a higher rate.

So please, folks, continue to wear your mask to save others' lives and to save your own lives.

It is really important that we do this.

I also would be remiss in not mentioning the fact that there is a extremely disproportionate impact on the Latinx community in particular as it relates to the spread of COVID-19.

In my home county, Yakima County, it is quite literally the worst proportional infection rate on the West Coast.

This is where my elderly mother lives.

It is where I continue to have many cousins, uncles, brothers, nieces and nephews live in Yakima County.

I know that Governor Inslee has just recently issued an order requiring face coverings and masks to be used in Yakima County.

as Councilmember Herbold continues to have her conversations with public health about that kind of a trend, I really want to make sure that we are approaching those kind of policies here at home and across the state with a very strong racial equity lens.

A lot of times these mandates open up the opportunity for local jurisdictions to engage in enforcement, including civil penalties, which will only to make sure that we are tracking any potential inequities to the broader community.

and just the need to continue to wear our masks.

Okay, and lastly, I'll just say that really quickly, I want to make sure that folks saw the email related to the telework policy that I distributed last week.

I want to acknowledge that the direction to continue to telework through the end of the year, may for some of our staff create needs around office resources, everything from office supplies to technology needs, and want to let folks know here on the call, you colleagues, for your staff and for all of the legislative staff that we are working with our division directors and other folks throughout the city to It takes stock of what some of those resources might be as we look at teleworking for the rest of the year and hope to be able to figure out how we can address some of those needs.

Obviously, when we're in City Hall, we have resources available to us.

We can just walk down our hall, go to that office supply room and get what we need.

We have printers available, et cetera.

that office infrastructure obviously is not present for many of our workers, employees who are working from home.

So I acknowledge that that is a real need that is going to need to be addressed and so happy to continue to look into that issue.

If there are any other issues that you all have been hearing from either your staff or other legislative staff, please do not hesitate to bring that up to me or to Cody Reiter in my office as we continue to address the realities of the need to continue to telework.

Again, because we continue to exist in an environment where COVID-19 and its that.

And I think that that infectious nature is still very much a reality and present for all of us.

So happy to take any questions or comments on my report, colleagues.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

I just wanted to say thank you for that last item on your report for the Through the end of the year, we have made, I think, tremendous leaps and bounds in making sure that the public can continue to engage via to make sure that people can continue to send us messages and e-mails, and I know that many of the council members are also having office hours still, so the public engagement portion continues, but the risk that people are taking has decreased because of the opportunities that you are allowing for people to stay home, and I think that's so important for the health of the public first, the health of our staff, and the health of each of our offices as well.

to what we're hearing from other businesses who have made tough decisions to encourage or to require their employees to stay home.

But I think it shows leadership for all of those businesses and other municipalities who may be grappling with what to do in the current situation, given the number of and the likelihood that it will become much, much worse in September, October, coupled with influenza, I think you are making the right choice, and it shows leadership that I hope continues to, we continue to see replicated amongst other businesses and municipalities across the state.

And I just want to say thank you, because I know it's not an easy decision, but everything that you've put into place to make sure that the public can continue to engage in our process I think, makes it so that our process is still running smoothly, and we are protecting people from getting sick and dying.

Thank you, Councilmember Musca.

I really appreciate that.

And, you know, I will say that, you know, at the top of our meeting, we extended the remote nature of our meetings through July 1st.

That is consistent with what we just got word of last week, which was an extension of Proclamation 20-28 through July 1st.

We don't know how much longer that proclamation will be extended, but I do wanna make really clear that it's my expectation that regardless of our need to comply with the Open Public Meetings Act and what that might look like at the expiration of Proclamation 2028, I do think it's important for us to continue to meet We have been working remotely and have continued to work with FAS and our city clerk around making our environment safe in the event that there needs to be an option for individuals to The city clerk's office, they're at a minimum three weeks away from being able to deploy any of the citywide strategies that are being worked on currently.

So we have a ways to go before we can create a work environment that feels safe and protected for any employees who are looking for a option to be physically present in City Hall for either a period of time or a block of time.

And so stay tuned for more recommendations on a potential option for returning to the physical space that will be, again, a voluntary option on an as-needed basis as opposed to the rule that will be the exception.

I do want to say that I am following CDC guidance and recommendations as it relates to teleworking policy that that policy continues to encourage office settings in particular who are more able to engage in telework models to continue to telework for as long as possible.

And so this is consistent with those CDC recommendations and look forward to continuing to engage with all of you as we and continue to figure out how to evolve and adapt to this current environment of needing to telework.

So more to come on that, but I really do appreciate your all support and compliance and willingness to, again, engage on this issue and to make sure that we are, first and foremost, keeping our employees in the legislative department safe and the public that we interact with safe as well.

So thank you all for that.

Any other questions or comments?

All right.

Well, it looks like we might be finishing up here in record time, considering our length of prior council briefing meetings.

It is only 11.04 AM.

I want to really thank you all for your engagement this morning.

So that concludes our business for this morning.

So we are adjourned.

And I will see all of you at 2 o'clock this afternoon.

Be well.

Bye.

Thank you.