Seattle City Council 3/2/2020

ourselves, how do we do that?

On your own device, if you put on hands...

Hello?

Never mind.

I said here, did it show up?

Excuse me, Council Member Morales, I believe there's a little bit of technical difficulty of you and mine holding for a quick second.

Council Member Mosqueda, can you hear us?

Are you speaking to me, Amelia?

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Spitzel.

We will be back shortly to let you know when we're back on.

Sorry, what is going on?

This is Shama.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear some of the things.

I believe the Skype call is dropping certain users, so they're working on the technicalities.

This is Amelia.

I will be back on the mic as soon as Councillor Mosqueda is back on to facilitate this meeting.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Clerk?

Sawant?

Excellent.

Sorry, I couldn't hear.

Did you ask, are you doing it in attendance?

Yeah, we're going to start right now, Council Member Sawant.

Good timing.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council President Pro Tem Mosqueda.

Present.

Seven, present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Council President Pro Tem, this is Council Member Strauss.

I don't know that I was considered part of the roll call.

Eight, present.

Thank you very much, Council Colleagues.

We have all of our Council Colleagues present today.

Again, today is March 9, 2020, and the Council meeting has begun.

It is 2.07 p.m.

We'll continue with the council meeting here with the first item, which is suspension of the rules to allow remote participation and addressing public comment.

As folks know, the City of Seattle issued a civil emergency proclamation due to the coronavirus on March 2, 2020. And the Seattle and King County Public Health Departments have issued recommendations to help reduce the spread of this virus.

In the interest of the safety and well-being of our employees and the community at large, the Seattle City Council is holding a remote meeting today and anticipates continuing this practice of remote full council meetings through the end of March.

This policy, however, will be re-evaluated on a weekly basis pending new information and advice from Public Health Seattle King County.

While meeting remotely does not provide the public an opportunity for in-person comment, we do still allow for public comments to be submitted via email.

This meeting is being broadcast live as well on Seattle Channel and in the Seattle Council Chambers listening line at 206-684-8566.

Again, the Council Chambers listening line is 206-684-8566.

This is also available on today's council agenda.

And the meeting is being broadcast currently in council chambers for anybody who is there in person.

We are trying to do this remote full council meeting at the advice of public health for social distancing policies to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

There is also an opportunity for individuals to drop off public comment with the front desk on the second and third floors this week.

Again, that policy is continuing to be reevaluated.

But as far as March 9, 2020 and the remainder of the week, we will have the ability for individuals to drop off public comment there.

Colleagues, because the council is participating electronically and public comment is not being provided at its regularly scheduled Seattle City Council meeting in person, the council will need to suspend the rules.

With that, if there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow council members to participate electronically and to not include public comment verbally at today's regularly scheduled council meeting, but allow for electronic submission and handwritten testimony instead.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and the council will participate electronically and public comment will not be on today's council agenda.

Again, if you have comments, please do send those electronically or drop those off in the second and third floor if you are here in person.

Colleagues, before we begin with our presentations, I want to also notify the public and acknowledge that the council has received an emergency order from the mayor on Friday, directing the city departments to apply for available state and federal resources due to the coronavirus and to ensure that we have sufficient resources to respond.

In my role as President Pro Tem, I'm choosing not to bring forward the resolution on this order, meaning that this order is accepted and it will be in place.

As we know, in this state of emergency, we as the council will receive many orders from the mayor's office.

And it is our job as council members to review the orders with support from council central staff and decide whether we need to affirm, reject, modify, or do nothing in terms of taking no action on the order.

I will continue to work with central staff on these orders and let you know that it is my intention on how we will act on future orders.

This order today comes before us, and we appreciate the mayor's effort, but we will not take action which allows for it to be in place.

This order does not infringe on any civil liberties, nor does it upset the checks and balances in the system that we currently have in place.

We appreciate the work of the mayor's office to send us these orders frequently, and we will be again working with central staff to make sure all colleagues have the information they need about what's in the order.

Hearing no questions, Moving on to presentations.

We are pleased to be joined today by the Director of Public Health, Seattle King County, Director Patty Hayes.

I appreciate you being on the line with us, Director, and we also want to extend our deep appreciation to your frontline staff, our admiration and respect for how you've been able to represent our region well at the national level, as we've talked about this public health emergency, and really want to appreciate everything that you've done at the local level so efficiently and effectively to address the coronavirus.

In addition to Director Patty Hayes, we have with us the Senior Deputy Director, Mike Fong, and Acting Director of Emergency Management.

With that, we will turn it over to the presenters, Patty Hayes and Deputy Mayor Fong.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda.

So appreciate the opportunity to be on the phone with the council And I have been anxiously awaiting to be able to be present with you, so appreciate this opportunity.

I do have a slide deck that I think the clerk has got up for you that we'll be walking through.

So if you'll go to the second slide that is the outline of what I'm going to be talking about.

I'm going to be giving you the situational awareness as of this morning.

put a press release out at 11 a.m.

every morning or around about then with the latest situational report and I will give that.

I want to talk about what we're doing and the severity of the projections with COVID-19 and then move to what we're doing with community mitigation strategies and questions.

But let me start by extending my thanks to all of you for the support and the words of support that I've received from so many people around our response.

There is so much that is unknown about this virus, and there is a lot of concern and desire on the part of our residents here to both do the right thing and know information.

And I have such admiration for our staff and for all the frontline workers, the nurses, the EMS personnel, and others that have been just bending over backwards working 24-7 on this.

It's really a show of unity that I so greatly appreciate.

If you go to the next slide, here is the King County situation.

The case count here in the King County is now, as of this morning, at 116 with confirmed cases of COVID-19.

This is 33 new cases that was reported today, and two of these are deaths.

In addition, one person who was previously reported and is counted among the 116 has died as well.

My condolences go out to those families.

The total number of deaths in King County reported to public health related to COVID-19 is 20. Of the 20 deaths reported, 19 of them are associated with the Life Care Center.

The other thing I wanted to mention here is that as of the towards the end of last week, the guidance from CDC on testing change to open it up basically to anybody a provider believes is at risk for COVID-19 and showing symptoms.

So along with the University of Washington, and the Seattle flu study and others that are coming online.

The testing capacity here in King County is increasing quickly.

The reason why that's important for the council to understand is public health believes that there is quite a bit of COVID-19 out in the community already that 80 percent of the people with COVID-19 have mild to moderate symptoms.

They're able to manage their lives.

at home they are maybe not even calling their healthcare provider.

And it's that 20% that we have seen surface because we were of the state to begin some selective testing.

And that's why this popped first within the long-term care arena.

So I think that's important for council to understand because I don't want you all to be shocked as these numbers double and double over time.

I'll be talking about the epi curve in just a minute, but wanted to put that out first out.

There are eight additional long-term care facilities that have reported with cases.

We're working individually, as you may have seen.

excuse me, in the news, or Dennis Worsham might have talked to you when he met with the council.

We have a great CDC team out here with us.

And the United States Public Health Service Corps sent a team of providers out to help us with staffing at the Long-Term Care Center in Kirkland that has been so stressed over this.

In addition, the Washington State Department of Health has set up an incident command structure per our request.

specific to long-term care facilities.

The end of last week I spoke to the healthcare authority and pulled in DSHS at the state level to really begin to spur this decision to be made because I know that long-term care facilities are going to be at one of our highest risk facility areas.

In addition to other places where people who have really acute at-risk factors.

So this was an important thing and very supportive that was done at the state level.

I have an outline for you here next on what our disease investigation is.

As the number of cases increase substantially, our capacity to do contact tracing for each and every case will soon be overwhelmed and per per public health guidance, we will be pivoting away from individually doing a lot of contact tracing for for people, we will be informing them on if they have a positive test on what they need to be due to protect themselves and what they need to be doing in alerting people that they were in contact with, so that we can get people tested.

So there's real-time guidance being developed along with CDC here based upon our experience.

In addition, I'm sure you've seen in the media the coordination we're doing nationally and locally with the needs across the system for personal protective gear.

Of course, our top priority for that is personal protective gear that are needed for our EMS personnel, for our hospital personnel, for our frontline.

care workers in our facilities.

And we've been asking the public to I've heard some unfortunate stories of health care provider offices having their personal protective gear like masks stolen by by folks that are afraid and we're trying to assure the public that the use of masks in public and at the home is not necessary and we should make sure that our health care providers have that protective gear.

I'm going to talk about community mitigation in a minute.

So if you go to the next slide this next slide.

Director Hayes could you remind folks which slide you are on currently.

I am on the one that has the big purple curve on it.

Okay, and for our folks, that is slide four.

For council colleagues, we are going to send around the Legistar presentation to make sure it's at your fingertips.

And for the viewing public, it will be available online as well so that you can follow along with us.

Colleagues, I'm going to ask for folks to hold their questions if they can until the end of the presentation, and we're going to go through and make sure everybody gets their questions answered.

Thank you, Director Hayes.

Oh, thank you so much.

So what you see on this slide, slide four, is the epi curve of what to expect in a pandemic.

That's the purple curve.

Our goal right now with instituting community mitigation strategies that I'll discuss a little further is to what I will call blunt that curve.

And as you see the hashed curve underneath it, Our goal is to have less of an impact over a longer period of time.

This is what will prevent what happened in China and other places where healthcare systems are overwhelmed, overloaded, because you've got things in place that will prevent the fast spread of the disease.

So that's the goal we're working and pivoting towards right now.

What are we telling the public to do?

If you go to the next slide that says what the public can do, we're strongly recommending that people at higher risk of severe illness stay home and away from large groups.

So this can be the elderly, this can be people of any age with underlying health conditions or weakened immune systems, and we're, even though We don't have the science yet to show COVID risk to pregnancy.

In pregnancy, we are recommending this apply to women who are pregnant.

Caregivers of children with underlying health conditions should really consult their healthcare provider about what's best for that child.

And we are sending out updates to healthcare providers extremely frequently to keep them up.

The next slide.

The second slide that says what the public can do.

We're emphasizing, and I really appreciate the council opportunity to speak to the public through the council here, do not go to the emergency room unless it's essential.

Anyone that is concerned that they're sick and have COVID-19, they should call their health care provider.

We should have people stay home when they're sick.

We're still emphasizing personal hygiene habits that you've heard.

to remember that there's a lot of uncertainty right now, and our guidance is subject to change.

We've already been doing that as fast as we can.

That sometimes is confusing for the public, so I try and be present and get that out in as many ways as possible so that the public understands that we're actually building this response that will inform the whole nation.

The next slide is on school recommendations.

Lots of questions about schools.

So we are not recommending that schools proactively close unless it had a confirmed case and then we individually work with those schools on a recommendation for how long to keep the school closed.

Of course schools have the right to close at abundance of precaution and we respect that and we are giving our best advice along for all of them.

Why are we making this recommendation?

Based upon the science right now, I will say that children under the age of nine, internationally, from what I know as of this morning, there have been no deaths.

So it appears that COVID-19 is not a huge risk.

And indeed, what science is finding is that under the age of nine, a lot of children don't even show symptoms.

And we can't even tell their role right now in the infection cycle.

So we're not sure.

And there's many, many great scientists working on this right now.

So children above the age of 9 to 18, there are some cases.

It seems to be very minimal and not, unless the child would have an underlying health condition, Not a lot around that are hospitalizations, certainly not here.

Closing schools may not be effective because children congregate any way we've seen this in other outbreaks, and particularly of concern that many parents who are healthcare workers, we need them to be at work.

So we're actually doing some assessment of that in concert with the great work of the city to talk to some of the healthcare employers on that because we want to make this the right decision at the right time.

Next slide please.

On this slide it's called call centers.

I want to give you the number of the call center.

We have a special phone line triage for healthcare providers as well as folks who have been exposed.

We encourage those are the people we'd like to hear from.

The call centers open 8 to 7, and 7 days a week.

And then I've also given you the Washington State call center line.

We want people that just have general questions about COVID-19 to call that line and not clog our line.

The next slide is a list, and it's kind of hard to read.

I apologize, but I wanted to give you all the information.

This is what's called Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention Guide for Community Mitigation.

You'll see that the different colors going down the left-hand side show you what are the levels of recommendation public health has made.

So we've already, the light purple, we've already been doing this for quite a while.

And I was reminded this morning that our first case was just a week and a half ago.

Even though we've been working on this for over a month because of the first case in Snohomish County, all of this activation has happened over the last week and a half.

I was quite startled by that when I was reminded.

That seems longer.

Then you'll see we've moved into the secondary level, which is voluntary isolation of sick individuals and voluntary quarantine of contacts of ill individuals.

And we've also, we are at the ready to instigate the third level there in sort of a bluish purple.

We haven't had to do this because our public has been extremely compliant.

And as we work with them, they have agreed to do voluntary isolation and voluntary quarantine.

But the health officer does have the authority to involuntarily isolate or quarantine individuals.

And the fourth level is the one we're really in a lot of conversations with, with all our other public health colleagues and CDC.

When would we trigger?

a mandatory cancellation of major public events.

I think we're going to have more information for you this week on that, as well as I've already talked about schools.

The last two at the bottom are what you hear coming out of Italy right now, especially the Cordon Santiaire, which is the last one where literally government orders a specific geographic boundary to be sealed.

We are hoping to never have to get to that point here by all the strategies that we're taking.

And with that, Madam Chair, I'm happy to answer any questions.

I know I buzzed through that very quickly.

Thank you very much, Director Hayes.

Council colleagues, are there any questions?

Director Hayes, I do have a question for you.

You mentioned we are encouraging people to not go to the emergency room if they are concerned about the conditions that they may have, if they're worried about their symptoms, and to instead call their medical provider.

We know there's a lot of people here in Seattle and King County across the state and the nation who don't have health insurance, and the council has talked about that before.

For individuals who might be underinsured or uninsured, would you also encourage them to call your novel coronavirus call center?

if they don't have a medical provider instead of going into the emergency room?

So thank you for asking that question because we are in conversations right now with all the community health centers in what will be their role and how, as you know, many of those community health centers through actions of this council, we've developed strong interrelationships with many of the shelters and other organizations such as Plymouth Housing, etc.

What we want to do is to try and make sure people know how to connect and to have the best and quickest advice because the more our call center is snowed with calls, the longer people get put on hold.

We're looking at how to increase that call center capacity.

What I'm saying right now is we're dynamically trying to get information out to get the community health centers and other capacity built so that the folks that don't have a health care provider or particularly those that either don't have insurance or are underinsured are not fearful about making these calls.

And then in addition, we have the backup of the call center for those that just don't know what to do, basically.

So again, the goal being to try and keep them out of the emergency room.

And we're also trying to keep them from calling 911. We want to make sure that Seattle Fire doesn't have an overload here right now.

And I know that that is of concern across the country.

Thank you, Director Hayes.

So more information coming about how to access those community health centers or federally qualified health clinics coming soon, but encouraging folks to contact their healthcare provider and or go to contact a local CHC.

More information coming on that soon.

I know Councilmember Herbold has a question.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, great.

I have two questions.

One related to the authority of health officers to issue emergency detention orders or to seek court orders for involuntary detention.

I appreciate That individuals have been cooperative.

I'm inquiring as it relates to the facilities that are being set up by King County.

Can you talk a little bit about how those would be implemented if necessary?

I appreciate that they haven't yet been necessary.

I don't know the extent to which those facilities are currently being used.

This is a concern that I've heard from folks that people who might enter those facilities, might leave, and would just like to know a little bit more about how public health would interface with those individuals.

And in more granular detail, I understand, because I participated in the King County call related to the Top Hat facility, I have concerns that if that people are only being visited by physicians once a day and their food is just being, it's a drop and go approach, that if people's needs on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis can't be accommodated by the single security person, that might create a condition under which people might want to leave where they're very cooperative or expected to be cooperative when they first arrive.

If we don't have a way where they could ask for their needs to be addressed outside of the once a day medical visit and their sort of drop and go visits for food, I want to make sure that people are made comfortable enough so that they want to stay and that we don't have to move towards issuing emergency detention orders.

Yeah, there's a lot in that for me to comment on, so if I don't quite hit it all, I'll ask at the end if I got it.

Thank you so much.

saying that public health obviously has a history of working in this area, particularly with our TB program.

And so we're deploying what we know are our best practices.

And we've already had experience where one person who was actually an employee of one of our major providers here in the county, An employee who was quarantined was not happy.

And we actually at that point, not that I would say we would have to do it, we would have the bandwidth to do this with Dr. Jeff Duchin all the time.

But when Dr. Duchin talked to him, it calmed it all down until the time was right for this person to go back home.

So please remember that these facilities that we're talking about and standing up are going to potentially be housing all sorts of folks that have needs depending upon their situation, et cetera.

So back to your question on what we do.

And this has been an amazing logistics conversation between HSD, DCHS, and public health.

that will be emerging as we open up these.

And it's one reason why it's good that these different facilities are coming on kind of one at a time so we can work out this.

Ideally, everybody that's in one of these places will have an active cell phone.

have in the past made sure that that was so.

So if they were under distress or, for example, I know that it's important to have people be able to connect with their family members if they have family members.

So we try and pay attention to that because being quarantined, as you can well imagine, is not a pleasant experience and we want them to be able to call.

So this idea that they'd only be contacted one time a day That's not the only way folks would be able to have interactions depending upon what their needs are.

So that's number one.

Number two, we're trying to look at the facility and then look at what are going to be the protocols for who's going to be going to that facility based upon our best advice in terms of what needs to be there and the needs of the people.

And that's an active conversation with HSD and DCHS.

And then the issue of onsite pieces is really varies with the area.

And I don't have anything right now in front of me that really would be HSD To be able to talk to the council about how that's going to happen on the county side We are also counting on our facilities management division to help sort that out so that we've got the right level of on-site supervision We do find historically that we we are we find out when people are wanting to leave one of these places and and In the case of our experience with TB, we have had the time, not very frequently, but there have been times when we've had to go out and find the individual again and move on mandatory isolation or quarantine, but as you said, It is really a last resort.

So did I hit it all?

You did.

One follow-up question about the access that people have via their personal cell phones.

Will they be given a number specific to their situation?

So like a hotline specific for people who are in an isolation facility and not have to navigate a myriad of for lack of a better word, bureaucracy, to get some help to address any distress that they may be experiencing?

So, I have to double check that.

You know, in the past when we have been working on TB and hepatitis A, that hasn't been an issue.

We're in a large emergency right now and having to deal with lots of people and that is a concern and we're going to have to do the best we can within the circumstance.

It's a lot different if it's 20 people than if it's a thousand.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Thank you Director Hayes.

Colleagues are there any other questions before we turn it over to Deputy Mayor Fong.

I have one other question if I could.

Please go ahead, Council Member Hurdle.

Thank you.

As it relates specifically to the ability of health officials to order suspension of all gatherings above a certain size, I appreciate that that is not something that we want to enter into lightly.

But I'm wondering whether your guidance, your general guidance around gatherings of 10 or more people applies to the myriad of events that have not been canceled.

I mean, as far as guidance to individuals who are considering attending sports and other cultural events.

This is a question that we're getting questions about.

just from constituents?

Sure.

So right now, we're operating under guidance that's 50 or above, actually.

I know the number 10 was original.

Anyway, the numbers between 10 and 50, but it's the expectation that the event host or the company would be responsible to make sure that they're paying attention to our guidance around gatherings.

But let me say this, there is active conversation and looking at the EpiCurve real time this week.

And I think we will be looking hard at large gatherings.

I must say I am so appreciative of Comic-Con voluntarily canceling.

Absolutely.

That was of grave concern to me, and that feels a little bit different than something at Safeco Field.

I mean at, not Safeco, well, it's not Safeco anymore, is it?

Or T-Mobile where at least we have open air.

So there's so many factors here.

We're in conversations with all the sports teams and the arts venues right now.

But I'll just say to the council that there's probably going to be more guidance coming out soon.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Very appreciated.

Council colleagues, any additional questions?

What?

Okay.

And just as a reminder for folks to please keep yourself on mute.

Council colleagues, if you are not asking a question or if you ask it, then go ahead and put yourself on mute afterwards so the line is clear so people can hear the response.

Seeing no other questions, one last question I would have for you.

Director Hayes, for individuals who are being detained, could you please remind us how are those individuals either in jail or in detention centers being tested due to the potential spread in those facilities?

So in the jail, we are watching for symptoms ongoing.

There was one.

person who on intake the nurse was concerned.

This was late last week and that that that individual was transported to Harborview ended up not really being symptomatic and OK.

We know that at some point we're going to have a case.

Actually my expectation just truthfully with the council is I think that we will see somebody who's already been booked all of a sudden become symptomatic, just like happened in the nursing home.

And so we're actively setting up systems within the jail to make sure we can isolate and quarantine within there safely and what we're going to activate within the jail system.

Unfortunately, CDC hasn't given guidance out to jails It may be in process, I may have missed it on my email today, but we're looking to initiate that if CDC hasn't come forward.

So the lucky thing about having our great CDC team out here with us is we influence the development of those protocols and we're paying a lot of attention to it.

Every person that's coming into booking, is being looked at in terms of asked about symptoms, et cetera.

So the screening protocol was initiated and we're working with the DAJD on that.

Thank you, Director Hayes.

I really appreciate it and especially keeping a close eye on the health and well-being of those individuals given our responsibility to care for them.

while they're under our care.

Colleagues, I really appreciate your questions for Director Hayes.

And Director Hayes, if you do have to go early, we understand you are very busy at this point.

I think we're going to turn it over to Deputy Mayor Fong.

And before we do, just want to say thank you again to all that Public Health Seattle-King County is doing and for your work to get the information as it develops out.

through the council, through King County, and through your channels, we will echo all the information you send from our council outlets, as well as social media and our newsletters.

So, huge amount of appreciation for everything you are doing, and we hope you are also taking care of yourself and your team gets a chance to rest.

We know that it's critical for you guys to be able to continue to respond as quickly as you are, and we're so incredibly proud of the work you've done.

So, thanks for being with us today.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

Turning it over to Deputy Mayor Fong and the executive team, please take it away.

Great, thank you Council Member Mosqueda.

Of course, I'm joined by Laurel Nelson, Acting Director of the Office of Emergency Management.

I'll go ahead and kick us off and then turn it over to Laurel to provide a few highlights of some work that has been underway in the EOC.

I just wanted to reinforce some of the remarks by Director Hayes, and I briefly alluded to this in Wednesday's council briefing as well.

But just to orient us in terms of how we're thinking about our city work, as public health and the CDC and the Department of Health on down provide guidance as they continue to look at the best way to, as the director put it, blunt the bell curve as it relates to pushing out and smoothing out the prevalence and the spread of COVID-19.

Our job is to operationalize the community mitigation elements both external facing and to the extent possible within our own city operations to complement those strategies in order to achieve the intended outcomes.

So our efforts are intimately tied with the public health direction and guidance.

And as of right now, as the director mentioned, we are executing on a series of recommendations that they've provided as it relates to minimizing some of the size of public gatherings, as well as operationalizing how our own city departments would implement those procedures and policies for our own workforce, but also to what extent that we can facilitate that kind of service delivery model.

on an outward-facing level with our departments that have particularly outward-facing responsibilities.

At the same time, of course, we have folks on the front lines, SPD, fire, other personnel that are engaging the public very directly as first responders in the context of the potential public health response.

So we are engaging with those departments very closely to make sure they have the support they need to do the work they need to do in the field.

So I know the council has a particular interest in a couple of strategic pieces that we've been working on.

One is in the space related to small business supports and displaced workers, as well as our most recent order related to federal and state assistance.

I will come back and speak briefly about those two elements in a little more detail later in the discussion.

So, if council members don't mind, as I turn it over to Laurel, know that I'll put a marker on those pieces that I can come back to a little bit later.

So, unless there are any questions on the sort of high-level table setting, I will turn it over to Laurel to talk about a few of the operational pieces that are underway.

Great, thank you.

Okay, Laurel.

Hi, good afternoon council members.

I just want to give you a couple highlights here and updates.

So last week you heard us talk about our emergency operations center operations and our hours that we are functioning.

We are practicing what public health is recommending that all of us do, and that's making sure that we're social distancing and ensuring that we're limiting our exposure to one another.

So we are now in a mode at the Emergency Operations Center of a very small handful of people physically in the EOC, and then all the rest of the Emergency Operations Center staff remotely supporting the EOC and coordinating.

It's a new model for us.

Today is the first day we are in this mode, so there are things that we are learning as we go and making sure that we can leverage the technology to make that as smooth as possible.

We're still doing our daily check-ins with people and making sure that we can get that information and push it out to the Snapchat reports that you are currently receiving.

In addition to another update, as you saw last week, that was pushed out, the guidance to all city employees to where they can telework, as well as guidance on what we can do as individuals to lessen the collection of people in a meeting space.

Again, those are things that we're practicing in the Emergency Operations Center, and we're seeing a number of departments do so.

In addition to that, we have given guidance on what we as a city and our programs do to make sure that we're practicing those safe behaviors out in community members, or excuse me, community events and meetings and different programs.

So trying to, again, lessen the impact for the high-risk population and having multiple people in one space.

In addition to that, we briefed out on the cleaning efforts and the protocols that Finance and Administrative Services has put in place.

I will tell you, these types of resources are stretched.

So our FAS team is doing a really great job, the contracting employees that help us with those types of services on a day-to-day basis.

As you can imagine, when you go to the grocery store, a lot of the cleaning supplies are disappearing off those shelves, so we're facing those same challenges on being able to resupply those cleaning supplies.

In addition, as you heard from Director Hayes, Some of the things that we're working on in the EOC is about looking at different scenarios.

And so Director Hayes focused on those non-pharmaceutical intervention steps to really be aggressive in our mitigation strategies to lessen the impact of COVID to the community.

So those are planning endeavors that we are doing in the Emergency Operations Center.

So that involves looking at our own city family programs, be it at parks, departments, libraries, and the Seattle Center and what does it look like when we need to pivot from not offering those programs and what are the impacts.

Additionally, I want to just give you a couple highlights.

So the exhibition hall at Seattle Center is going to be opened up to take an additional 100 of our homeless population from the Downtown Emergency Services Center.

We're trying to do everything we can to help provide a little bit more space for those individuals.

You know, there's a recommendation from public health anywhere from three to six feet, so we're looking at ways on how we can expand those spaces for that population.

And then the last item I will touch on, and then I'll turn it back to Deputy Mayor Fong, is the Cherry Hill, Bitter Lake, and the Lake Union Village sheltering facilities are on track, and we hope to get those online here sooner than later.

With that, if there's any questions,

Okay, if no questions for Laurel, then Council Members, I want to touch on two pieces that I know you all have expressed interest in, and in particular, I think we have all begun to hear about the economic impacts on businesses, workers, small businesses in particular, resulting from COVID-19 and We are working very diligently to try to pull together a package of actions and strategies to provide some support.

And first, I want to thank the many council members that have engaged with us on this topic.

And we intend to work with you all proactively as we advance some key elements.

I'd like to describe a few pieces that are in flight.

that some of which may very well require some legislative action, and we will be discussing with you some of the timing and details of these in the next, I would say, matter of days.

But just to give you a flavor of what we are working on, number one, is there is strong interest and I know a couple of council members have raised this as well.

The mayor has directed us to also work on some package that would specifically defer the payments of B&O taxes and other potential fees as well as utility bills for distressed small businesses under the conditions resulting from COVID-19.

Some of that is related to waiving deferral interest payments, but also putting in place a mechanism that would allow for folks to defer the payments themselves until some future time as to be able to weather some of the current economic conditions.

Second is we will be looking at some, and this is actually tied into the second piece I wanted to talk about related to federal support, but we will be working with the Small Business Administration and have already begun to initiate discussions both with our congressional delegation as well as with SBA specifically with regard to how we might expedite small business loans and potentially modify the current existing administrative rules around those loans as to allow those loans to be forgiven in order to support small businesses through the current economic conditions.

So those conversations are underway.

We also, Council is probably familiar with some of the work we've done together through your budget process and our Department of Office of Economic Development, creating the Small Business Stabilization Program through the use of community development and block grant funds.

That program was already rolled out onto the street in 2019, and we are looking at supplementing that with some potential additional resources in order to make more small business grants available in sort of under emergency circumstances.

There's also some very specific criteria related to the use of those funds and how that program can be operationalized.

And we're happy to come back and brief you with Director Lee on some more details of what we're thinking about in that space.

In addition, I think earlier this morning, The Seattle Foundation has announced the securing of $2.5 million and continuing to work towards building philanthropic and private sector donated resources to be available in this space as well.

And we are engaged in those conversations in real time to understand a little bit more how those dollars might be available to specific communities.

In particular, also recognizing that some of our tools are somewhat limited in the space as it relates directly to potentially displaced workers under the current economic conditions.

We understand that there are ongoing discussions and likely action very shortly that would provide for additional flexibility for, at the state and hopefully at the federal level, for unemployment insurance resources that could be triggered and released more flexibly and more immediately in the current context for workers that may end up being laid off or businesses that have to temporarily close as a result of the COVID-19.

So, I wanted to just preview a few of the areas where we have ongoing work This is, of course, a very real-time body of policy and operational development that we're working on right now.

We welcome your continued thoughts and engagement in this space.

Deputy Mayor Ranganathan and Director Lee are leading our discussions in this space.

And, of course, always engage Anthony Ariema as we go forward, as we will likely need to bring a few pieces to you for legislative consideration in short order.

I'll pause there.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the update from both of you and very excited to engage more on the assistance for some of our smallest business.

I know Council Member Lewis has a question or a comment.

Yeah, thank you so much Council Member Mosqueda.

I just wanted to say generally You know, a lot of small businesses in my district have expressed a lot of concern over the weekend.

I reached out, and Anthony was great, and the mayor's office has been very proactive in working with me on being part of this conversation around some of the relief that we can get out there, potentially to small businesses in short order.

Just flagging my interest to stay part of those conversations and to stay informed.

I would also say, too, from what I'm hearing from folks, the layoffs, you know, aren't hypothetical.

There's a lot of businesses that have told me that they, I mean, I'm not going to say who over the line right now, but there's a lot of businesses that have told me that they are going to be sending people home this week based on the sharp drop-off at the end of last week and how that's anticipated to continue this week.

So, it's a very real concern, and I think it's going have a very real impact on a lot of the businesses, particularly restaurants and bars across the city and in my district.

And I appreciate the seriousness and energy from the executive in tackling this, because I think it's going to become far more pronounced this week, and it's something we need to be focused on.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Any additional comments on that, Deputy Mayor Fong?

Yeah, thank you, Council Member.

And I wanted to just also reiterate that I really appreciate Council Member Lewis's active engagement in this space.

I know he has been talking with our team with regularity the last couple of days, and we hope to continue to work with you, Council Member Lewis, as well as other members of the Council as we bring a relief package forward.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I want to flag for you three questions that we've also submitted to the executive's office.

And Deputy Mayor, feel free to chime in on these if you have any new information.

We know you were just at the table last week.

And much of this is probably still in development.

As you noted, we're building this plan as we fly it to respond to the spread of the disease, but also to limit the spread of the disease.

And as we see some of those strategies being effective or needing to your strategies may change, so really appreciate the update you've provided us.

While we do that, we know that there's ongoing concerns, especially for gig workers, so one of the questions we've asked is what specific guidance is being developed for communities and workers impacted by potential downturn that are not typically classified as employees, such as those who are driving TNC, well Lyft and Uber and delivering food and delivering groceries.

Also interested in departmental directives to staff.

How do we ensure that the number of individuals who are coming into the office in person continues to decrease and what strategies we may have in place to encourage more people to telecommute.

And then finally we've asked about our protocol as a city.

vis-a-vis our contractors, if we are doing anything we can to protect the health and safety for those contractors, are we doing anything around providing training or equipment so that more people can stay at home and meet the goals that we're setting out for our protocols for our employees, trying to apply those as well to any of our contractors.

So those are three of the areas that we have flagged for interest for the mayor's office.

And Deputy Mayor, I don't expect you to have any answers specifically to those.

I know you're working hard on some processes.

If you did have any comments, we'd welcome those, but I don't want to put you on the hook for answering those today.

I just want to flag those for our colleagues.

I appreciate that, Council Member Mosqueda, and thanks for sending those questions along.

On contractors and gig workers, I mean, those are excellent questions, and I will insert those into our our team to discuss.

I know that there have been some early discussions around this space.

I don't have that information readily available, but we share your concerns and we will hopefully be able to respond this week with some more information.

As far as telecommuting, again, we are in the early stages of implementing our guidance to departments to be active in encouraging a move towards telecommuting for those workers that can given their bodies of work.

We will have more information on how we're doing in that space probably in the next couple of days.

I want to take the opportunity here to just mention that we have instituted a new tool to try to have a little better daily at least information as far as what I have been referring to as sort of workforce strength which is to the extent that we have folks either out utilizing leave or telecommuting, et cetera, to just have a little better situational awareness as far as how our workforce is doing and where they are at.

And this is in addition to aggregated data that we could get as part of our usual two-week payroll system.

but much more useful for us as we respond to the current dynamic situation to have a sense of our workforce.

So once we start getting that information, you know, at the, with an appropriate cadence, we should be able to sort of give council some insight into that as well.

So, and then again, because of the evolving nature of both the guidance from public health and our approach to social distancing and community mitigation in the public health response.

Our guidance on telecommuting may also evolve here in the coming days or weeks if a determination is made that we need to be even more directive with our guidance than we have been to date.

So I appreciate your flexibility in that regard, but we would like to be able to get you some updates on that as soon as we can.

Excellent.

Thank you.

We'll look forward to that update as soon as you have it available.

I have two questions in the hopper.

First, Council Member Sawant and then Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, President Mosqueda.

I have two points to make which obviously are questions also, but even if the questions don't get answered immediately, something that those are important points.

I mean, Mr. Fong talked about small businesses Clearly, in District 3, that is going to have a huge impact for a lot of small businesses on Capitol Hill, which is obviously quite a hub for small businesses, and also in the Central District, and I'm sure this applies to the more south of Seattle as well, with many communities of color and immigrant-owned businesses.

In the Central District, there are many immigrant-owned businesses, for sure.

And a lot of them have been reaching out to our office about concrete steps that they wonder if the city is taking or not.

And I appreciate the update from Mr. Fong.

And I agree about the points made about expediting loans and so on.

But I also feel that what small businesses are looking for are immediate relief because depending on the length of this crisis, I mean, none of us can predict how long this will go on in terms of the kind of hit and the length of time that small businesses will be hit by this crisis.

And so one question, very concrete question that has come up that I wanted to ask about to the mayor's office was under the emergency powers that the city council has agreed to with the vote that we took last week, is the mayor planning to take some more urgent action to help small businesses.

And one thing that comes to light is the question of moratorium on evictions and moratorium on, you know, or some sort of urging corporate developer owners of the properties where the commercial properties, commercial businesses are located for them to be obligated to work out some sort of rent plan with struggling small businesses.

because depending on how long this goes on, they may not be able to pay their rent because many of the most struggling businesses are also just getting by like many of the workers.

And so, you know, as we know, Working Washington and a whole number of individuals and organizations, and I've signed on to this myself, this statement that was sent to Mayor Durkin, to King County Executive Constantine, and to the governor, that there should be a moratorium on evictions of working families who are renting.

But I think this question applies to very small business owners as well, because many of these commercial properties are owned by very big owners, corporations, which could weather the storm much better than could small businesses.

So that's one thing.

And the other question I had was about tiny house villages.

I know that the mayor has announced that she'll be expanding tiny house village space But I'm not sure what that actually means, because part of it should be just a response to the funding that the city council put in place as part of the budget vote last fall.

So I'm assuming that that was going to happen anyway, not in response to coronavirus.

So my question is, is the mayor's office, under the emergency guidelines, going to do beyond what was already required through that budget vote because we are in an emergency situation?

More specifically, is the mayor planning to close the North Lake Tiny House Village at the end of this month, or will the mayor's office commit to letting them stay, giving them a new permit?

And I will just end by saying that that should have been the case anyway, but especially in light of this emergency, I feel like that is called for.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Swann.

Deputy Mayor Fong.

Yeah, thank you Council Member Sawant for your comments.

I'll try to take as many of the pieces as I can at this time and others I can follow up with you and your office and the rest of the council later with more details.

On your comment related to urgent action related to small businesses, I assure you the mayor absolutely agrees on the need to act quickly and certainly can appreciate your point which is a lot of our small businesses, what they need right now is in fact working capital and commercial rent relief for small businesses is certainly top of mind.

So we are looking at what is within existing authority, within potential range of emergency powers, but certainly this is a space we wanna get creative in and welcome your thoughts and perspective as well.

So we'll be working on that piece and hopefully can have more to say and bring back to you all shortly.

As it relates to the standing up of additional facilities related to our unsheltered and homeless population, we are definitely actively engaged in the context of the current crisis to look at how we can stand up as much homeless shelter support or housing as quickly as possible.

The actions that we took associated with the sites that Deputy Mayor Tickskiller and Jason Johnson spoke to last Wednesday have in large part been expedited by virtue of your and your colleagues' support of the emergency orders associated with us being able to move quickly from a land use standpoint.

And at the same time, the availability of the budget appropriation from last year by you all also facilitated our ability to move much more quickly than under normal circumstances to bring that capacity online.

But given the size of the population we're talking about, the potential of the challenges that might present themselves if there is a broader spread of COVID-19 and the potential use of these facilities, we are certainly looking for further expansion opportunities.

And again, we'll be looking to also beyond our own resources, but to the county, to the state, and to the federal government to assist us to bring more options online.

So we are working in on all of those fronts and happy to talk more about them and also bring folks in that have been working day in and day out in this space.

Okay, thank you very much, Deputy Mayor Fong.

I think we'll probably have some follow-up questions on that from a number of members of council, especially around how quickly we could stand up additional small village, or tiny house villages, as Council Member Sawant has talked about, and looking forward to getting additional information.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I had to get myself off of mute.

So I just want to underscore the fact that much of what we've heard both from advocates of workers as well as advocates of small businesses, there's a lot of common ground there.

And I appreciate the efforts of the executive to work on those areas, particularly focusing on the areas of common ground I have been working to try to get information about this small business call that OED is organizing, and I hope that that information can be provided to my office.

I know that there's a tension between trying to manage the call, but I also think the ability to get as much information out to as many businesses is really critical and important.

And I want to underscore Council Member Sawant's message around seeking rent controls for small businesses.

There was a letter that we received last week from the founder of Molly Moon, as well as 12 other businesses that are seeking rent controls for the months of April and May, and I would like us to work on trying to facilitate that.

Moving on to the question of helping our own essential workers and ensuring that we have equity and allowing those essential workers to also work from home.

I think it would help us as a council to help problem-solve around this area to have a better sense from the executive who are beyond the the first responders who are the essential workers.

One area that I've been focused on are the SPU and Seattle Light call center workers.

And I know that there are a finite number of workers for the city that are able to work from home.

From a technological perspective, we only have the ability to facilitate a certain number of people to work from home, and I want to make sure that we expand that ability so that it is not only the non-essential workers that are being able to work from home.

And I've just recently been made aware that people at the SPU call center who were previously allowed to work from home are no longer being able to work from home, and I'm just worried that that might be because we're expanding the ability for non-essential workers to work from home.

And I really want to drill down on how we can make sure that this is a more equitable approach that we're using.

So our call center folks can use the ability that they've used in the past when they've been trying to address call time.

to work from home.

I know for a fact that we have expanded the ability of this workforce to work from home in the past, and I think now is the time to look at being able to do it for the current situation as well.

You had mentioned as well that you're looking at amnesty or flexibility for utility bills for small businesses.

I want to make sure that we're also doing that for residential customers as well.

And I also want to flag my ongoing concern around the Council's hygiene investments and ensuring that we are using the flexibility granted in the most recent emergency order but that I also believe was granted in the 2015 Homelessness Executive Order to address the urgent hygiene needs of people who are living unsheltered, particularly as it relates to hand-washing stations and the funding provided for mobile pit stops.

And then lastly, I want to just talk a little bit about testing capabilities.

I have asked a couple times whether or not city-contracted and county-contracted Medical professionals in the field who are interacting with people who are living unsheltered have the ability to test individuals, individuals who do not have primary care physicians and are unlikely to go to public health clinics.

We know the CDC has said that people can, they've expanded their criteria.

for who can be tested, but it is still bounded by the advice of a public health professional.

And when I asked this question on Thursday, it was unknown whether or not public health providers who are in the field engaging with people who are unsheltered have the ability to get tests for people that they deem to need tests and when I received a follow-up email from executive staff about this question, it seems that this is still an unknown question and deferral to me was made to the CDC and to Healthcare for the Homeless and this is a question that I would like the executive's help on getting the answer to.

And then lastly, as it relates to the power invested in the mayor that has not been exercised.

And I hope that it won't to close businesses and public places.

I want to know a little bit about how in considering these decisions in the future, how the executive will make those decisions based on public health best practices.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Deputy Mayor Fong, any last comments on those items?

Sure, and Council Member- And Council Member Skater can throw in a follow-up question and then Mr. Fong can respond.

Okay, go ahead, Deputy Mayor Fong.

Great, thank you, Council Member.

Council Member Herbold, I have taken and my team very detailed notes on your list of questions.

I'll need to get back to you on several of those and we'll go ahead and move them through to folks that have more knowledge about some of these elements than I do.

A few things that I'll just quickly respond to.

One is our discussion around the utility bill deferral was specifically in the context of small businesses, but But your point with regard to residents, I believe we've already begun conversations about also making those deferrals available for residential customers.

So I appreciate you flagging that, and I certainly believe that that will also be part of our package of actions.

As far as testing is concerned, the testing capacity in general has been an evolving space day by day in terms of the ability to bring on more capacity to do testing from both University of Washington as well as other private labs.

In terms of how frontline workers can actually apply the testing or not, obviously, that's an excellent question in particular as it relates to unsheltered population.

And again, obviously, I don't have an answer for you right now, but I will put this into the process to see if we can get more clarity around whether and how that could be available.

And then, as far as your questions about future potential community mitigation actions, the sort of continued moving up or down, dependent upon how we look at that list of non-pharmaceutical interventions, in terms of considerations and other criteria.

We obviously will be looking to public health for guidance and their perspective will be key as far as how and if we come to that point any of those actions would be implemented.

So happy to take those conversations further and also brief you a little bit more with regard to that as we're also trying to understand these these procedures a little bit better ourselves.

So I think we've pinned most of your issues and we'll do some follow-up on the piece related to essential and non-essential workers' ability to telecommute.

We certainly share your concern about ensuring that we are both approaching that with an equity lens as well as technology capacity perspective.

I believe Director Bashir has been in some communication with you already, and we intend to provide you some more details about our protocol and capacity with regard to telecommuting.

I'm not aware of the changes, whether there have been changes to telecommuting arrangements for call center employees or not, but I'm happy to look into that with both Director Hara and Deborah Smith.

Thank you.

Can you also speak to the hygiene purchases?

I'm sorry.

Could you repeat the question in that space again?

Is it related to the expansion of the hygiene facilities or was there...

I guess I could use a little more.

Yeah.

Sure.

The council in this year's budget added funding for mobile pit stops.

We also added funding for the expansion of a number of other hygiene-related actions.

The Purple Bag Program, allowing outreach workers to distribute the Purple Bag Program, where previously it was Seattle Public Utility workers who were doing so.

And there are some other hygiene-related budget actions related to pumping out the septic systems of RVs.

There's a slate of hygiene-related items, and not just budget-related items, but Council President Pro Tem Mosqueda has been very vocal on seeking additional hand-washing stations throughout the city, and just want to know whether or not the mayor's emergency powers are being used to facilitate those needs.

Yes, thank you Council Member Herbold.

Those obviously those items subsequent to the council budget action had been in flight in the planning process from our Human Services Department.

In light of the current emergency response, we certainly need to probably pivot and look at the deployment of those resources perhaps on a more expedited timeline in some fashion in the hygiene space.

I'd like to pull our team together to be able to take a closer look at the range of options and be able to come to you and your colleagues on the council with some thinking in that space shortly.

So, if you'll give me a little bit of time, some of the discussions that were happening I know also included public health, and as you can imagine, as they've moved and shifted into crisis response, some of that planning actually needs to pivot as well.

So, I commit to you that we will be back with a discussion on those hygiene resources shortly.

Thank you very much.

Council members, I'm going to have Council Member Sawant do one last follow-up question and then we're going to move on to the rest of our agenda today.

Council Member Sawant, a follow-up question from you.

Yes, thank you.

I just wanted to follow up specifically about the North Lake Dining House Village.

I don't think Mr. Fong responded to that specifically, and I was wondering if you could speak to that.

Councilor, so I'm going to have to talk with Jason Johnson and Deputy Mayor Sixkiller.

They have been working on the North Lake issue.

I don't have any information to update you at this time, but your perspective is clear, and I will take that back to our team.

Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor.

I think many people would be interested in that as well, so thank you for following up with the whole Council.

I do want to also note we have had the opportunity to chair Seattle City Light for the past two years and really appreciate Councilmember Peterson's leadership over both City Light and public utilities given both the nexus of the policy issues that these two entities deal with and especially now as individuals who are both residents and small businesses may be asking questions about how public utilities will be addressed.

From our past work at Seattle City Light, we had the chance to work with the director and her team in making sure that the practice of not disconnecting customers was not changed and that we continue to ensure that everyone kept their lights on as a kind of a promise, as a commitment, as a public utility.

I know that Chair Peterson's office has been engaged in some initial conversations that we had started this morning with Seattle City Light to very much share with the public and with the council the status of that policy, but I want to make sure that folks know we have a great team at Seattle City Light, as Chair Peterson knows, Their practice of not disconnecting customers will continue, especially as they address the large and potentially erroneous bills that many people had called us about in the last two years.

There is an audit that's continuing, and we still have a policy in place of not disconnecting any customers.

Nobody should be receiving any shutoff notices, and the customer advocacy team is helping customers who may have late bills from previous questions that they had around larger than expected bills being sent to them.

There is a customer advocacy team that has been set up.

And so we're, I think, excited to hear more from Seattle City Light working through Chair Peterson at a future point to make sure that information gets out about the no shut off policy.

But that is absolutely something that I think is a good public Service announcement to make sure that people should not worry about not being in a position to have light or electricity in the potential economic downturn on the horizon and thanks to our friends at Seattle city light and the future work of Council.

chair Peterson to oversee this work and I know Councilmember Herbold has spent a lot of time working on this effort in the past as well as overseeing public utilities.

So more to come on that front, but I think it's an important question that was raised by Councilmember Herbold and I wanted to follow up with that good news from the folks at Seattle City Light and Councilmember Peterson will be looking forward to working with you to get that information out as well.

Council colleagues, I'm going to move us on to the agenda.

Are there any last comments that need to be set at this point before moving on.

Hearing none, Deputy Mayor Fong, and please extend our appreciation to your entire team.

Thank you for being with us today.

We will plan on trying to have a portion of our agenda each Monday for updates.

I know that you've provided a lot of information today and last week.

What we'll focus on is future updates moving forward and recognize that your time is also being spent trying to respond in real time to the response for coronavirus.

So thank you for being with us for an extended period today and for the information that you've committed to gathering and getting back to us.

I appreciate your time.

Great, thank you, council members.

Thank you.

Council colleagues, before I move on with the approval of the minutes, Council Member Swann, I believe you had a question about public comment that potentially our clerks can help address.

Council Member Swann.

Yes, thank you, President Pro Tem Mosqueda.

I just had a question about public comment in, again, in light of not knowing how long we might have to use the teleconferencing format.

And if our staff were going to look into how we could provide phone public comment, and I know it won't be straightforward technologically, but perhaps it could be done with not too much effort, and I mean, I wanted to thank all the staff for working on making today's meeting work, but just a question to throw out there, and then maybe we can follow up offline.

Sure, and I'll take a stab at that, and if there is anybody from the clerk's office who'd like to chime in, you're more than welcome to.

We also inquired this morning about a potential call line or a message line where individuals could leave messages or call and talk to someone.

I think the big question for us is around staffing, wanting to make sure that people can implement our telecommuting policy and not come into the office.

There was a question around who would be able to staff such a line and to turn around those messages.

So I think that your question is a really good one.

And also know that there's a lot of work being done to figure out the staffing from home components of that concept.

Clerks, if you are able to chime in and if you have anything else, please do let us know, or if it's just a work in progress, you're also welcome to let us know that, and we can also follow up with the council members on the progress of a tele-testimony line afterwards.

This is Ian Smith, the technology manager.

We did look at that, and we're a little bit concerned about allowing the Skype call publicly on the off chance that it brings down the system, which is being used for other critical services right now.

But we are looking at that, and we'll get back to you, Ana.

Thank you very much, Ian.

So more to come on that, and Council Members, again, we are going to evaluate the policy every week to A, make sure that it's accessible to the public, and B, if there is any more information that comes from Public Health Seattle King County that informs our policy throughout the next two to three weeks.

We'll make sure to update our practices, but I think Council Member Savant, your point's really well taken.

We want to make sure that public comment is easy and accessible, even during these times where we're implementing public health recommendations for social distancing.

Thank you for that question.

Okay, hearing no additional questions, I'm going to move on to a need to approve the minutes.

There are no minutes for today's approval, so I'm going to move on to the adoption of the referral calendar.

I move to adopt the proposed introduction and referral calendar.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council colleagues, I also have an amendment that I'd like for you to consider.

I'd like to move to amend the proposed introduction and referral calendar by introducing Council Bill 119754, version 1C.

This is an ordinance related to employment in Seattle, amending sections 14, 16-010 and 14-16-030 of the Seattle Municipal Code to strengthen and clarify labor standards requirements for paid sick and safe time for employees working in Seattle and declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate and effective date by a three-fourth vote of the Council and by referring it to City Council.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded before we vote.

I do want to take a quick second to comment on this.

Colleagues, this is a ordinance that I mentioned a few times last week that I would be interested in bringing forward for your consideration.

Again, it is not for vote today.

This would just be to amend the introduction and referral calendar.

As we have talked about over the last few weeks, there's been a number of childcare facilities, daycare, and some schools that have closed out of an abundance of caution to provide extra cleaning or in case they have any concerns about individuals that have been exposed.

We greatly appreciate these organizations and these schools for closing their doors out of an abundance of caution.

Those closures have not been mandated by a public official.

And in the situation right now, under existing ordinance, for an individual to be able to access sick leave when their child's school closes, they would need to have it closed by a public official.

So the intent here is to strike the language specifically to a dependent's school or place of care, like a childcare facility, so that if that place of care closes, a childcare or a school closes, then a parent as a worker could, under existing city law, take a paid sick and safe day according to the law.

I believe there's a number of organizations out there who have been willing and happily willing to give employees a paid sick and safe day if their child's school closes, but we want to make sure that this is also protected under ordinance.

It's a fairly small change.

We did send around version 1C that limits the change to just The dependent school closure, I'm sure there's a number of things that we'd all like to do.

Given the many stories we've heard, this is a very small scoped issue to specifically deal with schools and child care facilities closing out of an abundance of caution and not under a public official's directive that would allow more parents to be able to take that sick and safe leave.

I'm happy to have more conversation about it throughout the week, but that is the background on the bill, and hoping with your agreement that we can include it in today's introduction and referral calendar.

Are there any other comments or questions?

Hearing none, all of those in favor of amending the introduction and referral calendar to include Council Bill 119754, Draft 1C, please vote aye.

Madam Clerk?

Madam Clerk, do you want to call the roll?

If you'd like, Council President Mosqueda, we can call the roll.

Okay.

Colleagues, if it's okay with you, I think for the listening audience, we'll call the roll if that's okay with folks.

Okay.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Lewis.

Aye.

Councilmember Morales.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Aye.

President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor of the amendment.

Thank you colleagues.

The motion carries.

The introduction and referral calendar is amended.

Are there any further comments on the Introduction and Referral Calendar as amended?

Seeing none.

Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll on the Introduction and Referral Calendar as amended?

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Sawant.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Herbold.

Aye.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Lewis.

Aye.

Councilmember Morales.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Aye.

Council President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries, the introduction and referral calendar is amended.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Moving on to payment of the bills, please read the title.

Council Bill 119753, affording my case out in claims for the week of February 24th, 2020 through February 28th, 2020 and ordering payment.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

For future reading in of the agenda items, I'm just gonna ask you to move a little bit closer to the microphone if you can.

I'd like to move to pass Council Bill 119753, payment of the bills.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read agenda item number one into the record.

Councilor Mosqueda, if you wouldn't mind if we could go back to the payment of bills.

You announced that the chair would sign it.

If you wouldn't mind also providing direction for the clerk to fix your signature to the bill.

Madam Clerk, it would be fantastic if you could sign me in on the bills on my behalf, please affix my signature to the legislation, and that would make it official, if you don't mind.

Thank you.

Moving on to item number one.

The report of the Signs and Housing Committee, agenda item one, Council 119752, relating to fair housing, regulating rental housing bidding platforms, repealing in one year prohibition on use of rental housing bidding platforms, repealing section 7.24.090 of the code.

And adding an amending section 7.24.020 of the code.

Can we recommend that the bill pass?

Excellent.

Council colleagues, this is a bill that we introduced from my office.

This is Council Member Mosqueda.

About two years ago, we had an initial ordinance that asked for the Office of Housing to do an evaluation of the rent bidding platforms, and it also included a one-year prohibition on the use of these platforms.

The prohibition was to provide our office with an understanding of whether or not these platforms were in violation of our fair housing laws and to analyze how they may impact housing costs or inequities in our area.

The Office of Housing needed additional time to complete the study, so we extended the prohibition for another year in 2019. The Office of Housing has completed its report.

It was sent to council mid-year last year.

and it found that the city needed additional data to determine whether or not there was any impacts from rent-bidding platforms on our Seattle Fair Housing Ordinance, and it recommended four specific actions.

The piece of legislation in front of you updates our statute to make sure that we're repealing the prohibition and also includes provisions responsive to the Office of Housing report.

This includes the request that Office of Housing collect data to track whether or not rent-bidding platforms are functioning for bidding purposes or other non-bidding functions and to determine whether or not the platforms are having an impact on equitable access to housing.

It requests that the Office of Civil Rights conduct testing to determine if rent-bidding platforms are in compliance with fair housing laws.

It requests that if data shows that rent-bidding platforms are having an impact on equitable access to housing, that the OCR and Office of Housing will provide recommendations on possible regulations to mitigate unintended consequences.

And it encourages rent-bidding platforms to post the Seattle Open Housing poster on their website.

Colleagues, I would love to have your support on this.

It came out of our Finance and Housing Committee with a unanimous vote and appreciate Office of Housing's work to provide these recommendations to us.

Are there any other comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Sawant.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Councilmember Herbold.

Aye.

Councilmember Juarez.

Aye.

Councilmember Lewis.

Aye.

Councilmember Morales.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Aye.

Council President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes and the Chair will sign it.

Will the Clerk please affix my signature, this is Council Member Mosqueda, to the legislation on my behalf as acting as President Pro Tem.

Madam Clerk, could you please read items two through five together into the record?

Agenda items two through five.

Appointments 1560 through 1563. Appointments of Jordan N. Goldwark and Elzevina Hauser as members, Domestic Workers Standards Board for term to February 28th, 2022. Appointments of Candace Faber and Bailey Freeman as members, Domestic Workers Standards Board for term to February 28th, 2023. The committee recommends these appointments be confirmed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

I would like to speak to these.

This is Council Member Mosqueda.

First, we have Etelbina Hauser.

Etelbina has been working with my office since the beginning of our conversations on drafting the Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights and helped craft the policy two years ago.

Bailey Freedman, although not currently on the board, Bailey has been working with board members in an advisory capacity and has dedicated her time to ensuring that more and more workers know about their rights.

Bailey has been an active member of the Seattle Nanny Collective And during interviews for this position, we were very impressed with Bailey's commitment to equity and diversity.

Candice Faber is both an owner of a cleaning company and works as a cleaner.

And during Candice's interview, we were impressed with her analysis of power, perspective on how to address bad labor policies and how those could be brought to more employers and her historical analysis on inequities in the field of domestic work.

Candace also brought interesting perspectives on the intersection of progressive labor and environmental policies.

And lastly, Jordan Goldwarg.

Jordan is a domestic worker hiring entity.

He was a teacher and a nonprofit executive, and he currently is a community volunteer and consultant.

Jordan has a focus on racial equity and is interested in ensuring that all domestic workers have dignified work conditions and that the values are carried out at the Domestic Workers Standards Board.

I appreciate all of these individuals for their willingness to serve on this board and excited to bring these forward.

Are there any additional comments on the confirmation of these appointments?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The appointments are confirmed.

Moving on to item number six, please read the report of the Community Economic Development Committee.

The report of the Community Economic Development Committee.

Agenda item six, Council Bill 119739, relating to donation funds from non-city sources, authorizing the Director of the Office of Arts and Culture to accept a specified donation and to execute, deliver, and perform corresponding agreements for and on behalf of the city, amending Ordinance 12600, which adopted the 2020 Budget Changing Appropriations to the Office of Arts and Culture in ratifying, confirming, stretching prior acts, the committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Morales, would you like to speak to these?

Sure, thank you.

Is this on?

Yes, we can hear you.

So this bill allows us to accept funds, allows the Office of Arts and Culture to accept funds for the AIDS Memorial Pathway.

which is an art project that's going to include multiple art installations and information displays in Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill.

And the installations themselves will include information about the AIDS epidemic and also be kind of a call to action to folks to remain engaged and remember that it's sort of timely, that epidemics require constant vigilance and care for our neighbors.

In committee, we did have an issue with the original budget, which had not yet included information about the maintenance costs and how those would be covered.

I want to let our colleagues know that in the meantime, I have received a memorandum of agreement between the Seattle Parks Foundation and the Office of Arts and Culture that outlines that in the fourth quarter of this year, when the installations will be completed, there will be a final allocation of $400,000 to the arts department for operations to cover the lifetime of maintenance for these installations.

So the concern that had been raised in committee has been addressed, and I look forward to council passing this bill.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Are there any other comments?

Seeing none, will the clerk call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Councilmember Morales.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson.

Aye.

Council President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Please read item number seven into the agenda.

Agenda item seven, appointment 1508, appointment of Annabelle Backman as member of the LGBTQ commission for term to April 30th, 2020. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, would you like to speak to this appointment?

Yes, thank you.

Annabelle Backman is a queer transgender woman who lives with her wife in Finney Ridge.

She's a software engineer and specializes in digital identity and security.

and is also active in the 43rd District Democrats as a chair of the technology committee there.

She is eager to leverage her privilege to advocate for equitable solutions to hard problems that include and support LGBTQ people, people of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and all others, and the committee recommends adoption.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Are there any other comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The appointment is confirmed.

Madam Clerk, will you please read the report of the Public Assets and Native Communities?

Report of the Public Access and Native Communities Committee, Agenda Item 8, Appointment 1487. Reappointment of Kelly McCaffrey as a member of Seattle Park District Community Oversight Committee for term to March 31, 2022. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Juarez, would you like to speak to this appointment?

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

This is a reappointment for Kelly McCaffrey to continue serving on the Park District Oversight Committee, effectively known as the PDOC.

for a term until 2022. Kelly is a District 1 constituent and StrongParks advocate.

She comes prepared to meetings and thinks critically about issues that come before the PDOC committee.

The Public Assets and Native Communities Committee recommends the City Council approve this re-appointment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Are there any other comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Herbold?

Aye.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Lewis?

Aye.

Councilmember Morales?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

President Mosqueda?

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The appointment is confirmed.

Moving on to the Transportation and Utilities Committee.

Will the clerk please read the report from Transportation and Utilities, Items 9 through 12?

The report of the Transportation and Utilities Committee, Agenda Items 9 through 12, Appointments 1564 through 1567. Appointments of Brandon Lindsay, Lizana Magaza as members, Community Technology Advisory Board for term to December 31st, 2020. Appointments of Camille and John C. Kroll as a member, Community Technology Advisory Board returned to December 31, 2021. The committee recommends these appointments be confirmed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to these appointments?

Yes, I'll be brief.

All four were qualified and they passed unanimously by the committee and I recommend their approval today.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

We appreciate your brevity and I appreciate these individuals for their willingness to serve.

Are there any other comments?

Hearing none, thank you Council Member Juarez.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The appointments are confirmed.

Will you please read items 13 through 15 into the record?

Agenda items 13 through 15. Appointments 1569 through 1571. Appointments of Connor F. Inslee.

Sarah Udall-Hawthorne as member Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for term to August 31st 2020 and appointment of Pierra Brunel as member Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for term to August 31st 2021. The committee recommends these appointments be confirmed.

Thank you Madam Clerk.

Council Member Peterson would you like to speak to these appointees.

Yes.

These three applicants are all qualified to serve on the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board and were unanimously approved by our committee and I recommend their appointments.

Excellent, thank you Council Member Peterson.

Any other comments?

Thank you.

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Council Members?

Council Member Sawant?

Aye.

Council Member Strauss?

Aye.

Council Member Herbold?

Aye.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

President Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

The appointments are confirmed.

Council Colleagues, that concludes our agenda for today.

Are there any further comments or further business to come before the Council?

Hearing none, if you will indulge me in a quick thank you to our central staff for making this teleconference possible and for all the work that they have done over the last week to ensure that this was an efficient and effective meeting and that we had a protocol for allowing public comment and to allowing all of our council colleagues to participate.

We greatly appreciate your work and we are sending you a huge round of applause.

So, thank you so much for making this possible.

Compton colleagues, we are adjourned until Monday, March 16th.

Take care.