Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee 3/19/2025

Bye.

The March 19th, 2025 Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will come to order.

It is 9.31 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Sacca.

Here.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Five present, zero excused.

Thank you.

We have two items on the agenda today.

We have the appointment of Kirsten Grove as Director of Finance and Administrative Services and a briefing and discussion on hearing protection regulations.

Before we begin, if there's no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments, I'm gonna, before I read the instructions, we do have David Haynes signed up online, but not present.

So David Haynes, now's the time to call in.

I see you are now present.

So the hybrid public comment should relate to items on today's agenda within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have?

Just one online.

Thank you.

Each speaker will be given two minutes.

We'll start, we'll take our comments now.

Public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

We'll begin with our online speakers and speakers will hear chime when 10 seconds are left of their allotted time.

Speakers' microphones will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to call on the next speaker.

Public comment period is now open.

David, welcome.

Star six to unmute.

Hi, thank you, David Moore.

Hello.

There hasn't been too many committee meetings for the Finance Native Tribal Committee.

Why is that?

It seems this finance committee could be introducing laws that would offset the negative impacts of the immoral financial system that's been left over from the slave master misinterpretation of neoliberal conservative capitalism and their debt service police state economy of non-working shareholder middlemen donors that steal too much of the capital gains from the actual workers.

justifying a true democracy of legislation to discipline the greed to make it benefit the commonwealth of local communities and main street economy that's drained of all its capital gains generated by the workers and small businesses that are pitted against each other every three month quarterly report that never gets shared with all the unforeseen capital gains that they argue about taxes that are still owed to the workers.

That with the workers who do all the work Proving that the middlemen of our immoral financial system hate the honest, forthright, diligent working class, the very foundation of our civilized society, presently being forced to live paycheck to paycheck as society implodes and tax revenues tank because Democrats still sabotage police reform with unqualified priority hires, still exempting criminals from jail, prioritizing for homeless and housing services first before innocent households that are racially discriminated and hated and subhuman mistreated, making it safe to go out.

While workers and small businesses are being backstabbed by 20th century rentals and lease speculators of dilapidated inflated real estate, justifying legislation to incentivize banks and financial institutions to prioritize financing new homes and redevelopments that would create more robust floor space and higher levels in housing and multi-use with better floor plans to accept unnecessary and expensive suffering of slum real estate, of all these rundown, dilapidated, double, triple, quadruple inflated residential and commercial real estate that are filled with .

Thank you, David.

That does conclude all of the public speakers that we have physically or remotely present.

So seeing as we have no additional speakers, we will move on to the next agenda item.

And colleagues, please feel free to come up to the table.

Clerk, will you please read the short title of item number one into the record?

Appointment 3094, Kirsten Groves, Director of Department of Finance and Administrative Services for a term to March 1st, 2029 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you.

Interim Director Grove joined us at the Select Budget Committee on March 5th, as well as COO Marco Lowe.

The council that day finalized and sent written questions to her.

She has since responded and we forwarded those responses out this previous Friday.

the answers are also attached to the agenda.

So I'm going to turn it over to you.

I've got the questions here.

I'll ask a few questions and colleagues if you have any questions after their brief introduction will be the time.

Thank you.

Over to you, Marco.

Thank you so much.

And I just wanted to, we're back here, do a quick introduction of Kirsten and to say that when you're in the city, the first week you're here, you wonder what FAS does.

And by the second week, you kind of wonder what they don't touch.

And the questions from the council really showed that depth of understanding of responsibility at the department and what we're asking Kirsten to do.

And I just appreciate the time and thought the council put into those and look forward to the discussion today.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me back.

I appreciate it.

I enjoyed speaking with you two weeks ago when I was here during the Select Budget Committee and appreciate the thoughtful questions you sent following that meeting.

I also wanted to thank you all for the work you've done to support FAS and, more importantly, our city.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for your leadership of this committee and your continued work with us and your deep knowledge of FAS operations.

I also appreciate your continued engagement at the Ballard Customer Service Center and all that you've done to make the facility a hub for the neighborhood.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera, for your support of our Priority Hire Program and for expanding high-paying construction career opportunities across the city.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle for your interest in the fundamental elements of improving public safety.

My team and I enjoyed showing you around the fire garage and discussing our partnership with SFD.

And thank you council member Saka for our meeting last week.

Your work to bring the transportation levy to fruition will bring amazing things to our city.

And we in FAS look forward to supporting those efforts through contracting fleets and facility needs.

And finally, thank you council president Nelson for your support of the city's WIMBY efforts and for attending our reverse vendor trade show and the launch of the executive order on contracting equity.

I've enjoyed working with each of you and appreciate your time today.

As I mentioned when I was here two weeks ago, I've worked at the city of Seattle for almost 13 years.

I've made Seattle my home and am raising my family here, and I'm deeply committed and care about our neighborhoods and communities.

I've worked in a number of city departments and recognize the unique value and contributions that each add to city operations.

But I feel particularly honored to be here today to talk about my leadership at FAS.

We are truly the backbone of the city and play a part in almost every element of city service.

And I can't thank my team at FAS enough, and in particular, the FAS director's office, our business unit officers, and our division directors.

Each and every one of them brings a unique knowledge base and skill set that makes our team stronger as a whole.

Whether it's building and maintaining city facilities, such as fire and police stations, supporting Seattle residents and all of our neighborhood customer service centers, administering the city's regulatory programs, procuring, maintaining, or fueling the city's fleet vehicles, running the Seattle Animal Shelter, I'm incredibly proud of the work we do at FAS.

During the two years that I've been acting director, we've accomplished a lot worth noting.

Our success in connecting women and minority-owned businesses with opportunities across the city.

We've set ambitious goals and are achieving measurable outcomes for WMB businesses.

FAS launched the city's first ever free pet vaccination clinic in neighborhoods throughout Seattle.

And there's one happening at 10 AM this morning at the Rainier Warehouse.

Last year, FAS worked to update the city's priority hire legislation to expand access to apprenticeships across the region.

We put the city's 500th electric vehicle into operation.

And finally, we've implemented department-wide training and support systems to help our team develop customer service skills that focus on leadership growth while centering equity.

I'm very much looking forward to the opportunity to talk with you today about leading FAS, and I appreciate your time and the thoughtful questions you provided prior to this meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Interim Director.

I'll pass it to my colleagues for questions and comments.

Before I ask my questions, I'll just kick us off to say that FAS, to me, is the backbone of our city.

You operate our buildings.

You operate our fleets.

You provide our administration, whether that's collecting taxes or enforcing rules.

create and accept the contracts.

I was just investigating an issue that we were having with a parks RFP and come to find out, of course, they don't do it themselves.

They rely on FAS to put out those RFPs.

You're our front door.

And you're our front desk.

It is an actual pleasure to get to work in the customer service center in Ballard because I get to see the front desk to the city.

Your employees oftentimes meet people on their most upset days, and they do really hard work on behalf of the city.

And it's really an honor to get to see them doing their finest.

And so with that, I'll hold my questions for a moment, but I will kick off.

I didn't ask a question in writing because we talk about it so often, and that is about the back-end building.

What is the timeline?

I think I'll just say what you've heard me say so many times is that we need to move faster even if we're still on time, and I know that some unexpected barriers have arisen But my goal is to get that project moving as quickly as possible so that we can meet our intergovernmental agreements.

Any updates that you want to share on Bakken?

And then I'll open it up to my colleagues.

Sure.

So as you know, because we've talked about this quite a bit and appreciate your advocacy and interest in this particular project, we have done some initial foundation work, which prompted us to look a little bit more closely, particularly at the piers holding the building up.

We're doing that work now and investigating whether or not that will lead to additional efforts, but should be complete with 30 percent design in the coming month, at which point we'll have a better estimate both on final timing and total costs associated with it.

So moving along, certainly, and we'll have much more concrete updates in the coming month.

Okay.

I look forward to that.

Colleagues, and as always, the faster we can move, the better, because we do have government-to-government agreements in place, and I want to make sure we honor that.

I see Council Member Kettle.

Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, and welcome again, Ms. Grove, and Mr. Lowe, welcome.

Thank you for highlighting the fire garage.

It's a undervalued, and I would argue under-resourced, entity that is so important to our public safety posture.

And I toured the rest of the maintenance facility too, and the work that they do for all the departments with the vehicles, incredibly important.

And I recognize what you do for the public safety related facilities.

Chief Scoggins gave me an update yesterday, Monday on another issue.

And so I'm well aware of those.

And it's important that we maintain those facilities.

I've been to a number of fire stations.

There's one in Cap Hill that has a lot of challenges.

And these are the things that we need to work through because it goes to our future capacity, our capability to respond.

So I recognize that, and I recognize your role in that, and it's important to keep that front of center.

I'm going to do my bit too.

Hopefully we will have a public safety element in the comprehensive plan that kind of brings it to the fore instead of sprinkled throughout.

because it's that important.

My question is, more than my D7 hat, and I had a question related to Bender Royal Hall and the Garden of Remembrance, which is unique compared to other arts and culture locations because of our ownership.

You spoke to the Ben Royal Hall piece.

The Garden of Remembrance doesn't have, and I may not have the full background, doesn't have that kind of structure.

It doesn't have what Ben Royal Hall has in terms of oversight, budget, all these kinds of things.

How would it proceed?

Hopefully the survey shows the membrane not to be a major issue, but how does that work going forward for the Garden Remembrance, which is not an entity like Ben Royale, not like the symphony and so forth, to take action and relate it to the needs of the building?

The Garden Remembrance is very different, and I was just curious, how do you approach that, those two, and specifically related to the garden?

Sure.

So first, I should note that the Office of City Finance, an independent organization under the same budget of FAS, actually has the relationship with Benaraya Hall.

So my knowledge of this is secondary to theirs.

We'll note that Benaroya Hall does manage the capital improvements both for Benaroya as well as for the Garden of Remembrance.

So they are the overall body that would work on any type of capital effort.

FAS does get facility updates on both the garden as well as the building itself.

And our understanding is that the outcome of the membrane study particularly was relatively positive in terms of any additional damage that was there.

Okay, thank you.

That's a little bit of surprise to me.

I didn't realize, I was thinking of the garden as a separate entity.

I mean, in some ways it makes sense because the garage is underneath it.

and they would have responsibilities as it relates to the garage.

So, well, thank you for that.

Thank you.

Thanks for the questions.

Please let everybody know I will be watching and following.

Following closely.

Colleagues, other questions?

I'm seeing no other questions from my colleagues.

Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, Interim Director Grove, COO Lowe.

Appreciate you for being here as well.

And I too enjoyed our conversation last week.

I heard that, thank you.

It's been great to get to know you a little bit over these past few weeks.

And when we met last week, me and my office shared with you, three priorities that I have for you and FAS.

Excellent delivery of transportation infrastructure and capital projects and making sure those projects are delivered on time and on budget.

Accelerated delivery, because you do play a role, a secondary role, but you do play a role in helping to deliver the transportation levy, voter approved transportation levy.

And then third and finally, good old-fashioned constituent services and responsiveness and being an enabler and a connector of resources for all the city departments.

Because as we know, your department manages, among other things, the Find It Fix It app.

So play a central role in that kind of centralized reporting system for any constituent issues under the sun.

So those three priorities.

We talked about that.

And I appreciate hearing your responses on some of your written responses to our broader questions.

A fourth priority I was thinking of, I should have shared, it kind of ties into the first two, but I'll share it here and just be curious to hear your approach to this.

And I don't envy your job of you or any department head trying to understand the individual and collective priorities of my colleagues in this body.

the understanding that you report directly to the mayor, and then trying to harmonize it all together.

I actually think in this role, in this department in particular, it's probably a little easier than some others.

But in any event, a fourth priority I would love to share with you is basic, effective, and efficient delivery of basic city services.

Here's an example.

At the customer service center in West Seattle, the Southwest Teen Life Center, directly across the street from Chief South International High School, where I hold my office hours, last year, I noticed some pesky potholes in the parking lot.

And, you know, that really irks me.

Really because, one, it's a symptom of, an opportunity to do more.

And two, in my view, that's the principal focus of local municipal governments, at least as a starting point.

And if we're unable to align and effectively and efficiently deliver those basic services of filling and repairing potholes, then it's difficult to imagine us as a city being able to deliver on even bigger, grander goals.

And so when I saw those potholes, I was irked, annoyed, and I connected with Park Superintendent Diaz, and he was very responsive, and within a few weeks it was patched.

I think the parking lot itself still needs some work, but Regardless, that is an example of efficient and effective delivery of basic services.

And as we learned, the department has a very broad, expansive portfolio and scope of work within its mission.

So I know there's a lot of cool things and exciting things going on, and I read some of your goals there.

How would you prioritize My fourth priority there in terms of the efficient, effective delivery of basic city services within your department and what kind of opportunities do you have, do you see to build upon that work?

Sure, thank you for that question.

So at FAS, things much like you talked about actually come up fairly frequently.

And we have implemented a system where if an emergent issue happens, staff have an opportunity to immediately report that to an internal provider.

and then we're able to mobilize our other resources across the department to handle that particular issue.

One example might be, for instance, if there's an issue at the Seattle Animal Shelter.

We had an electrical surge situation that was happening.

Immediately, they reported it.

We also have electricians in a separate line of our work, they were immediately able then to respond to see that big operational thing that was going on.

I think there's an opportunity, and I think probably many other departments have something very similar, but the folks who are delivering service at the Southwest Tain Center have an opportunity to do the same thing similarly with parks operations staff.

to handle the building issues.

And I'm sure Superintendent Diaz is also very aware of these opportunities.

All right, thank you.

And my next and final question is this whole notion of breaking down silos and the mayor has a one Seattle vision and approach that many of us on this floor have sort of adopted.

And we try to live up to it as best as possible.

But I still do think there is a gap, or there's an opportunity to close the gap between our purported values and people's everyday lived experiences.

And one of the perceptions is the departments are siloed.

there's a lot of finger, when constituents report an issue, the perception sometimes is there's a lot of finger pointing and who's on first and well, it's, and it's confusing to constituents because they don't care if it's a Seattle Department of Transportation problem or a Seattle Parks Department problem or any other of the 40 plus city departments problem, they don't care, nor should they, nor should they understand or comprehend like, who are the decision makers and who should be involved in that solution.

From their perspective, it is a city problem.

That's it.

And the people at this table, the people at this dais should understand the back end nuances of who's on, but constituents, it should be seamless for them.

And I feel like your department in particular has a very unique opportunity given the integrated approach and role that you have with the Find It Fix It app, for example, to help make that experience for taxpaying members of the public and constituents a little more seamless.

And so just curious to hear your vision for doing exactly that and how we can do better in that area.

And I see Mr. Lowe has his hand raised.

I couldn't help myself.

I agree with everything you're saying.

In fact, when you said it took a couple of weeks to fill those potholes, I thought that was unacceptable.

We should do that faster.

And I think...

FAS has done a good job during what happened the last couple of years where the city had, as every city did, a lot of things on the front burner that didn't necessarily put customer service where it should have been remaining on the front burner.

The mayor mentioned in his State of the City speech the PACT program, and we're trying to do exactly what you're discussing.

I think we do a good job.

I think we can do a lot better.

And I think it comes down to accountability as well as silo busting.

and that departments need to know that they're expected.

Kirsten has X amount of power.

And I think in many ways, FAS kept the lights on for a lot of our customer service work.

But as a former department director and a much smaller department director, it is hard to sometimes get departments to listen to you as another department.

So ultimately, and I mean this sincerely, it's me that needs to be held accountable on this.

and that as we do this effort of PAC to implement what the mayor has envisioned, how we make sure that people get responses that are quick, they have updates.

I think right now, find it fixed, it doesn't even tell you if it's resolved.

I think we used the word resolved, but it doesn't mean it's resolved.

It means we've closed the ticket out, which is infuriating as somebody who put in two tickets last night myself.

I welcome you to bring me back to the table with my team and others to make sure we, on this journey, work with the council, keep you informed, and make sure you're seeing in it what the mayor hopes to see in it as well.

Thank you.

And I would agree that the system as it currently exists and operates today is generally good.

It's not great, and there's an opportunity to get better, just like there is in everything in life.

So in any event, I look forward to working with you CEO Lowe, the mayor, to do exactly that, and my colleagues, of course, to do exactly that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Vice Chair Rivera, I see your hand.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you Interim Director Grove and Mayor's Office, Marco Lowe, for being here.

I want to say I agree with my colleague, Councilmember Saka, customer service and general service, city services can be much improved in the city.

I will say that is not, to your point, a Marco it is not the responsibility necessarily solely of FAS I will say that I think the find it fix it app has been working the best that I've seen since my time at the city because in yesteryear we didn't have one central repository for where folks could report all the things that they needed I have seen in my time at the city where folks are reporting, I mean, any resident can report anything through Find It, Fix It, FAS farms it out to the city department, and in my opinion, it's getting stuck at the city departments, which is what you're describing, so our experiences are matching.

And so I will say that yes, much we need just as a city, better response to constituents needs across the board.

And that is not the sole responsibility of FAS.

And I will say again, I think FAS is doing a good job farming out.

and they have to rely on city departments to do the work, and then sometimes what happens is then FAS will get blamed because they haven't responded when they can't do anything about it, which again, thank you, Marco, for raising that.

Chair, I don't have questions because I thought interim director Grove did a great job answering the questions that, and I'm looking at them right here, but I'd read them earlier.

I do have a comment, though, as I said last time.

I've had the pleasure and honor of working with Interim Director Grove and the former mayor's office, where we were both operations managers.

And I will say, as a peer and colleague at the time, I watched her do her work as I was doing my work hands on.

And we collaborated together many of the times.

FAS was under her portfolio at the time.

So she's been working with the department for a long time.

As we've talked about today, the department handles everything from the customer service bureau which includes the front desk at City Hall, where folks like Zeb Hill, I'm giving you a shout out, because he's a great person who welcomes people in this very welcoming, warm way, is what I'm trying to say.

And then you have your team members here.

I see Adrian Matanza and Jesse Gilliam.

I've had the pleasure of working with them for a long time, too.

You have a great team at FAS.

I know this is about you, and also I know you have great staff.

that help you do the work that you do.

You also maintain our buildings here.

You do our charging stations at the garage.

You do the animal shelter.

You manage the city's Wemby program, as we've heard.

You set policies for our contracting.

with external partners.

And you really also, you help departments.

There are things people don't know where you'll advise, you know, departments seek your advice on their contracting.

I know when I was deputy director at the Office of Arts and Culture, we reached out to FAS regularly to get just advice on setting up contracts and help.

And that's something you wouldn't hear unless you know.

You know if you know.

So I know that you all do all of that great work.

You know, Kirsten, I know you.

I know your work ethic.

I know how hard you work.

I know your experiences.

You've been with the city for 13 years, but that's not your first city experience.

I know that about you, and I am so grateful to have you here, and I really, colleagues, cannot lend my endorsement to Interim Director Grove more strongly.

So thank you for the opportunity to sing her praises, Chair, and I'll kick it back to you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I'll second all of those comments very well said.

Council President, I see you have your hand.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

It's an exciting day for all of us.

I asked the question about leasing policies because the city is a pretty major property owner.

I mean, when you think about all of the community centers, the city hall, et cetera, Seattle Center, for example.

So I was wondering, If a small business wants to open up shop at a community center or in City Hall, this was prompted by the way of the bagel shop closing.

I don't pretend to know anything about that.

But my point is that there are places where a lease to a small business could add value to the community, et cetera.

And I was just wondering, do we have policies about that?

Are you allowed to make money on city property, et cetera?

And what hoops do you have to jump through and you indicated in your response that it depends on the department.

So could you just expand on that?

Sure.

Thank you for the question.

I appreciate it.

It's very important, particularly to FAS and our downtown core buildings.

So at FAS, we own and manage over 100 different buildings, but other departments have jurisdictional authority over some buildings.

So for instance, We have a city hall, the SMT, Seattle Municipal Tower, the Justice Center, police and fire stations, a variety of shops and yards throughout the city.

Parks would have their own policies for all of their own facilities, as would Center.

So those are sort of the big ones within the portfolio.

FAS has a few retail spaces within the downtown core.

One of them you were talking about earlier in Seattle City Hall, and then we have some as well in the Municipal Tower.

For us, we can, in fact, collect rent from a business.

The conditions for leasing those retail spaces have, really the market conditions, have changed quite a bit during COVID and post-COVID.

So we were fully occupied in those retail spaces before COVID and have had more turnover than we've experienced in the entirety of time I've been in the city since then.

So our goal is really to get businesses in, to create foot traffic, to provide amenities for the tenants of the building, and to meet the policy goals of the city.

So particularly things that we can do to foster small businesses, black-owned businesses, women-owned businesses and ensure that they are able to exist and actually make a profit, for example.

And that's a tough balance because we also don't want to have businesses that are too closely competing because it can be hard to sustain that.

So for us, it's really about the tenant amenity that the business provides as well as ensuring that our existing tenants and future tenants can remain operational.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Rivera, I see you have your hand again.

Thank you, Chair.

And I meant to mention and this is an important piece of interim director Groves work is at the forefront and at the center of the work that she does is accountability and in the service of city residents and that is really critical to any department director and I didn't want to leave this conversation without pointing that piece out because at the end of the day we are providing the services to the residents that is paramount to director Groves work.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I'm gonna dig into the questions that you answered for us.

I'm gonna start with combining number two and number three, which tell us a little bit about what you've achieved as the interim director.

I've gotten to watch really amazing work, and then what are the biggest challenges that we're facing?

Sure.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

So I've mentioned already I'm incredibly proud of our performance and the work that we've done to bring opportunities for WIMBY businesses.

We've launched the second WIMBY Advisory Committee and are seeing real results and opportunities for businesses to work not just with FAS but with departments across the city.

Additionally, the animal shelter, the vaccination clinics that we've started are unique.

It's the first time we've done this as a city, and it's changed the way that we are able to deliver services.

We have a location in Inner Bay, which at the time of its construction was perhaps a little more centrally located given population centers.

It's not now.

And so our vaccination clinics allow us to provide more direct services to residents who are living farther south in the city.

It's very exciting.

Last year, we did 1,500 vaccinations.

We're doing a clinic today and would love to expand those this year and in the coming years.

I think additionally, you know my commitment to electrification of both our buildings and our fleet.

The Office of Sustainability and Environment works with us, and they set...

for the city and we have the responsibility of implementing those goals.

They are very expensive and there is an art and a science to looking at the opportunities for getting kind of the most bang for your buck.

There are ways that we need to leverage projects, we need to leverage funding so that we can reduce our emissions from both our fleet and our buildings in a way that's both environmentally and fiscally sustainable.

And then finally, I think you know, I am very committed to improving our customer service experience.

I will say first and foremost, the work that our folks do at our customer service centers, that direct person to person interaction is, It's just amazing.

I've been a customer at our customer service centers and experienced just so much benefit for me and my family.

And I see the work that they do and the way that they're connecting.

I really appreciate it.

I think there's some opportunity for us to think about using our data and using the ability of new technologies to provide those customer service representatives with better information so that they can also serve their customers quicker and easier.

And then in terms of biggest challenges, We have an aging building stock.

We have a lot of buildings.

And we have an aging fleet.

And we're also in an environment where we have a lot of inflation.

And we're a department that has to purchase goods and services in order to maintain both our buildings and our fleet.

And so the balance of providing those goods and services with the same amount of money but everything costs more is a challenging thing.

It becomes challenging just to deliver the service, but also is challenging for our employees who are doing that on a regular basis, essentially being asked to do more with what comes to be less.

For us, I think that means that we have to think really critically about how we prioritize our life safety systems in our buildings and how we prioritize fleet maintenance and think, critically about the safety of our vehicles and where we're putting investments long-term.

So we've been working with the budget office to do that in the coming years.

And it's really a question of planning and making sure that we have a good understanding of our existing conditions.

Thank you.

Yes, absolutely.

When operating and maintaining buildings, an ounce of prevention is cheaper than a pound of cure.

And I understand that you have to make those balances as we move through challenging budget times.

So thank you there.

With that, I'm gonna move on to question five, which was how has and will FIS continue to align with council districts?

It's interesting to see already your service centers are almost evenly spread out.

This has been a change for the city, for all departments in the last decade where council districts have now gone through multiple elections and folks are, it's a different relationship that district council members have with their districts.

Even though we all still represent the entire city of Seattle, there's a particular focus for each of us.

How has FAS changed over the course of that decade and where do you see that we need to go from here?

I will say, and I think you've identified it just in your opening remarks, that our customer service centers have become much more integral.

And we have been able to deliver services, I think, in different ways in each of the customer service centers.

So Southeast and Southwest, we have more passport applications than anywhere else in the city.

So we definitely see that as a focus in those particular council districts.

We might have higher utility payment rates at another one.

Or we also have opted to provide regulatory licensing at some of our districts, particularly the Lake City office, primarily because we know that folks who are coming in for taxi licenses or other business licenses live in the area or do business in the area.

And that's a convenient and easy location for them to receive services rather than coming directly downtown.

And then I think just the work that we do to support internal operations for other departments has also become a little bit different.

So for instance, electric vehicles are now very prominent throughout our fleet for parks, for SDOT, for SPU.

And we have charging infrastructure, certainly, in the central area.

But with EVs, we also need to think about the work that we have, the opportunities we have throughout the city for staff to go and charge their vehicles and deliver services.

So the support services have also become, I think, much more focused on neighborhood efforts and how we do that in a more directed way.

Thank you.

I'm gonna take us back.

I don't know when the change happened, but many of the service centers, at least I know the Ballard one, used to be operated by Department of Neighborhoods.

That change occurred and at the same time, as somebody that used to sit on the Ballard District Council myself, we had that relationship with Department of Neighborhoods.

Those changes occurred where we don't have Thomas Whittemore working out of my office or out of the, I'm working out of his office now, right?

And what I noticed with those changes and how the city was deploying in neighborhoods is that we still have the building infrastructure there that was set up to support this direct community engagement.

And I'm not here to say any which way about the relationship with district councils and community councils.

What I've brought and what I've committed to my residents is that I'll fill in that space that Thomas used to have, right?

Because that community engagement is still just as important.

And so, For me, I guess this is more of a, this is not for you interim director.

This is more a challenge for my colleagues, which is as that space needs to be filled, we have the shell, we have the building and that space needs to be filled by us in a way to help create that community engagement.

I've seen a positive change at the Ballard district or at the Ballard service center just by being present and engaged, filling in that space that Department of Neighborhoods used to occupy a little bit more fully.

Council Member Kettle, I see you've got your hand and then I'll keep ticking down.

I got a couple more questions.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to chime in somewhat out of great jealousy of District 6. It's sad in a way, because the com plan of the first meeting, oh, we're going to hold it at City Hall.

And the boundary of District 7 is like the jail and the King County admin building there.

So we've got the jail on one side, and I've got the pit on the other.

Everybody is all to the north.

And the idea that people are going to come down here is farcical, to be honest.

And then the backup is the Seattle Municipal Tower.

So I'm extremely jealous of my colleague in District 6 because I don't have a version of that.

And we have our challenges with our community councils, Belltown, Uptown, all those areas, South Lake Union.

It's devoid of all that.

And there should be some type of master plan in terms of how to get better coverage because District 7 just doesn't have it.

I'm trying to arrange town halls.

It's really hard.

Try to do things at Seattle Center, but that costs.

It's not like I get a city council discount.

And so it makes it hard to do the outreach.

And I'm someone who went through that whole phase of the city and neighborhood's relationship with Mayor Murray and everything else.

And to be honest with you, it's very sad.

Because it used to be very strong, and it kind of used to be like point to point.

Like I knew the person.

Glory was her name, by the way.

And it's not there now.

And I'm not saying anything negative about Department of Neighborhoods, because they do other things.

But everything has been shifted in a way that we don't have this kind of, relationship that we had in the past.

So I just wanted to remark that District 7 could use what District 6 has.

I'm not expecting a government center like him that he has.

I've been there, by the way.

That's where I got my Vision Zero signs because I'm still a block watch captain from my neighborhood, by the way.

That's where I got my Vision Zero signs.

I think I got my last passport there.

You know, so the library's right next door.

I took my daughter there, voted with my daughter, you know, holding my hand back in 2016 there and went to Starbucks afterwards.

And we don't have that in District 7. So I just wanted to make that note.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Let the record reflect, your district office is nine stories tall, mine is one.

I'm teasing.

That does bring up, I'm not gonna open this can of worms today for answers, but as I remember, and so I'll bring this up on the record today and let's follow up after this meeting.

When the Mercer mega block was sold, when that transition occurred, there was money set aside for a community center.

I know that there has been many iterations, there's been many years that have gone by, and the desire and that need for that community center is still real, in part because the Belltown Community Center is closed.

I'm putting on my D7 hat again.

Sorry, Bob.

But just to say, Mohai is a really great gathering space, but it's not a purely public space, right?

It's not a community center.

It's not a city asset.

And so I would say we should follow up to see if there are ways to hasten the pace with that community center that was proposed out of the Mercer megablock, because if there are bureaucratic things in the way of realizing the full potential of that agreement, we should move more quickly, right?

And so nothing for you to respond to today, but just as Council Member Kettle was talking about that, it reminded me of that comment.

Council Member Sotaka, do you have a question?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just a comment that another thing that we talked about when we met last week, I advocated strongly on behalf of my district for any number of things.

And I think the current composition of the council, we're all essentially doing the same thing.

We all want a proportional share of the resources to go to our own districts.

And so we talked about, in that conversation you'll recall, we talked about the, historical underinvestment in my district in particular, in the south end, generally, and my district as well.

And there are reasons for that, legacy of redlining, for example, and racist policies just historically.

And today where we're at, I think there's a recognition and awareness of all those things.

And it's not like anyone's trying to thumb their nose at me or my constituents.

We have comparatively, I think, not the best facilities across the board.

Parks, for example, recently audit found that of all the, and this isn't your primary toil, although I would appreciate your support and the broader remediation efforts.

This is a city problem.

Parks, for example, revealed the top 20 lists a few weeks ago of the most problematic parks subject to routine, regular graffiti, vandalism, and lack of cleanliness and maintenance.

And my district only has what, 20% of the parks, but we have 40% represent 40% of the problem.

So no one's trying to thumb our nose at us, it's just, we seem to be bearing the brunt of any number of challenges.

Highest concentration of RVs, for example, two to three X more than the next council district.

And we are in a limited resource environment, but I do think we need to be intentional about trying to counter those, the legacy of oppression and some of these past policies and lack of investment.

Like I mentioned, I visited Chair Strauss's office in Ballard.

It's a great office.

You should be proud.

the best that I've seen in the city, and I haven't toured all of them, but I, like Councilmember Kettle, I have a little office, Sammy, for you, because it's a very clean, modern facility.

It's like a fishbowl.

Everyone can see you, you can see everyone.

And again, very modern, clean, organized.

In my office in West Seattle, It's essentially a janitor's closet.

I got to knock and give a special handshake and signal to get in, meet with constituents.

And so yeah, I have a little envy.

But I do want us to be more intentional about addressing the disparity and resources both from a programmatic level and then a project level.

And the projects show up in districts, programs cover citywide.

So just wanted to share that perspective.

That said, I have, based off my conversations with you and reading your materials and learning more about you in the past couple weeks and my office's interactions with your department since I've been in office, I am confident in your ability to deliver upon these, all the priorities and issues and challenges that I mentioned and we talked about here at the dais contained in this 14-page Q&A doc that you sent.

So in any event, That is all.

Thank you.

Look forward to supporting you today.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

I see Vice Chair Rivera's hand up.

I will just jump in for some history setting.

The Ballard Customer Service Center used to be on Market Street, and it was essentially what you just described.

When the old Ballard Branch Library, where I learned to read, was torn down, when the Ballard Branch Library was rebuilt, it took on the service center.

And so it's been really illuminating having the building actually owned by the library.

And so FAS is actually a tenant of the library and then I am a tenant of FAS.

This became very clear to me about a week ago when my office hours ran past 8 p.m.

without me realizing it and my car got locked in the garage.

And there was nobody from the FAS side that could help me because it was all the library side.

I did get home.

and I did get back to work the next day, but just council member Saka, when you were speaking of your envy of the office, I thought you were gonna talk about all of the plants that I've brought in.

Those are nice too.

I say that because this was another part of the relationship with FAS.

I asked, I said, while it is modern, it can also feel sterile.

And what I noticed, especially in the pandemic with many different things falling apart, in the Ballard Service Center, not only felt sterile, but it at times felt a little unsafe.

And that was nothing because of what was going on with FAS.

It was because of the conditions in the front door, which is why I've got my own litter pick kit there, and I take responsibility for our front door too.

And so by adding the plants, it was a way to brighten what felt like a sterile environment.

And FAS was very clear with me that if I was to bring in plants, I had to care for them because they were not going to take on another burden.

And so when I talk about it's all of our job to fill in that space, there's still some kind of dark corners of that office.

And I've done my best to bring in more posters and different ways to lighten it up.

It really is, I share that back with us because it's our responsibility to help fill in the buildings that FAS leases to us.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair.

You took some of what I was going to say, but is that just to say that the D4 doesn't have, I don't have an office at FAS.

I mean, Director Groven and I have talked about this.

There is a customer service counter where folks can go pay their bills, et cetera.

It's a window.

Basically, I mean, you can walk in, but it's very small.

So I don't have an office there, and there isn't really our community.

Well, the Magnuson Community Center is super small, also doesn't have space.

Anyway, so we all have to find places within our districts to meet people.

So what you're hearing is a need for that.

This is also exemplifies how this is an FAS.

this is a citywide issue.

And I think parks community centers are run by the parks department.

And I know we have a new deputy mayor in charge of parks, Justin Farrell.

I know I've met with her.

I'm sure you will meet with her if you haven't, but this is something to, I would encourage us to raise with, um, deputy mayor Farrell, um, in terms of the community centers and, you know, council member Kettle totally, um, you know, I, understand not having an office where you can meet with constituents in your district, because I'm in that position as well, and we have to get super creative about it.

But it is something in terms of providing the customer service to our constituents that we all need to work together on, and then just reminding us that, or at least giving the information that there isn't a place in each of the districts that FAS has an office that we can utilize.

And in your case, Council Member Strauss, it is the library that had space.

And some of the libraries have space and some don't.

So it's all, you know, it is not, it's not consistently, each branch is different.

Each community center is different and each FAS counter is different.

At the end of the day, I hear you colleagues and I agree, we need to have spaces where constituents can come and get services.

which is I think what we're all agreeing on.

But wanna make sure that we're not necessarily putting that just on FAS because it is a citywide responsibility.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

We have gotten to about the end of our allotted time.

I have some more questions that you did respond to in writing.

regarding the animal shelter.

Before I get into that, you also had good answers here about the find it, fix it.

We had a good conversation earlier.

I will just say, and it's no fault of anyone, but when Mayor Harrell took office, the backend of find it, fix it was pretty bad.

we are in a much better place today.

We have some more work to do.

The conversation that Councilmember Saka and CEO Lowe thank you for, it's rare that we find people taking direct accountability.

And so your responses to that, it gives me great hope and I think it's the right way.

So thank you for that accountability there.

I do wanna touch on the animal shelter.

You provided some excellent answers.

If you want to briefly describe what the situation is and where we're going from here, I will just say that it seems like we, and we should put our heads together.

There may need to be some sort of reset with relationships or I'll let you share what your thoughts are, but I'm interested to be involved because well, I really like the work that the animal shelter does.

And I got to directly benefit.

My dog was definitely eating my salmon this morning, so.

Over to you, Director Grob.

We thank you very much for your commitment to the animal shelter.

I appreciate the question.

I have yet to meet your dog, but would very much like to.

I've heard the stories of its adoption now several times.

I think the thing that I want to acknowledge about the shelter is, first and foremost, the amazing work of the staff and the volunteers at the shelter.

I think often people don't recognize that we are the only open admission shelter in the city.

That means that animals come to us usually in a time of crisis, and the people that we work with are often in a time of crisis.

So it could be a situation where an animal has been abused.

situation and they have brought the animal to us.

Perhaps the animal is sick.

Perhaps the person can no longer take care of the animal.

We are the place and the only place in the city where those animals can come.

That said, our staff are incredibly versed in working with both animals and people who are in crisis.

And the experience of working in the shelter is both, I think, very meaningful to folks, but also it's a stressful condition.

And I cannot thank them enough for all of the work they do.

And can't thank the volunteers who are there on a daily basis, providing assistance, both within the shelter, but also as foster homes for our animals.

I would say the condition at the shelter is we see more animals and we see animals that are in a more stressful condition.

And that's very much true for shelters across the country, particularly post-pandemic.

And we have been in a facility for over 40 years that hasn't really changed its shape.

And so there's a balance that we try to hold there.

We try to get animals out of the shelter as quickly as possible into either adoptive or foster homes.

And that is the best outcome for those animals.

And we try to manage the animals that perhaps have behavioral issues or health issues directly in the shelter where we can care for those directly.

I think we've talked a little bit about opportunities both to improve and increase our volunteer base and fundraising.

And we've begun some initial conversations on facility work that could happen in the future.

I'm very excited about that.

And again, just can't say enough about the value that the staff and the volunteers at the shelter do provide.

Thank you.

And I appreciate the answers that you provided in writing as well.

I do think that there's some more work to do.

And again, I'd like to be involved.

For everyone watching on Seattle Channel, you too can foster a dog or animal.

And if you go onto their website, if I could adopt another dog, I'd be down there right now to adopt Blaze.

What a great-looking set.

I mean, there's so many animals.

I'm not going to go through and read all their names.

I'm gonna wrap us up, but much like Vice Chair gave Zeb a shout out here at City Hall, I'll also give a few folks, I'm gonna get in trouble, because I'm not gonna name everyone, but Nicole and Kimmy, at the Ballard Service Center, and then Fran here at Downtown.

Just thank you for all your work, working with Seattleites, everyday Seattleites.

With that, colleagues, if there are no further questions, I will move that the committee recommend confirmation of Kirsten Grove through appointment 3094. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to confirm Kirsten Grove's appointment.

Final comments?

Thank you for none.

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

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Sacca.

Aye.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Aye.

And Chair Strauss.

Yes.

Five in favor, zero opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries the committee recommendation to confirm the appointment of Kirsten Groves as our director of FAS will be sent to the March 25th city council meeting for final confirmation.

Thank you for spending so much time with us this morning and you don't need to come on Tuesday, but if you'd like to watch on the Seattle channel, you can come.

We're happy to do either way.

So congratulations.

Thank you very much.

I really appreciate it and appreciate all of your questions today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We'll move on to the next item of business.

Clerk, will you please read the short title into the record?

Informational item, hearing protection, regulations for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you.

We are joined by Jasmine Marwaha from Council Central staff.

We wanted to get this kicked off a little bit because I can't remember what your work portfolio is changing to.

I believe it's the FEPP levy.

Maybe we can talk about that, but wanted to make sure to get this in front of us sooner than later because Jasmine's been working on the legislation and making sure that we still have quorum, we do.

Although council members Bobs and Robs, if any of us leave, I have to stop committee, so thanks.

Moving on, this legislation came to me as a result of office hours where I have a concerned audiologist in district six concerned about Seattle's hearing health.

We've worked with a ton of stakeholders to craft this initial draft of the legislation.

So what we see today is just a draft that's not yet been or maybe it has, but we're working in that direction.

To put this simply, this bill is about making sure that people have the opportunity to both enjoy Seattle's vibrant music scene and protect their hearing health no matter where they go.

It would require that music venues either provide hearing protection for free or sell it for up to $1.

It would also encourage music venues to put up signs letting patrons know that this is available.

Through our engagement with artists and venues, we know that this is something that many, if not all, venues already do.

This is simply put a good little bill to make sure that our music patrons know that there's always a way to get earplugs if you forget yours.

Interesting, fun fact about me, I don't hear all that well or as well as I used to.

And at this point, I read lips a lot of the time.

And so I am somebody that uses earplugs when I go to concerts.

I didn't maybe 10 years ago.

Maybe I should have.

And sometimes I forget them.

And so this bill would help that.

With that, I'll pass it over to Jasmine to walk us through the legislation.

And over to you.

It's great to have you.

Thank you for all your work on this.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members, Chair Strauss.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha.

I'm on your council central staff, and I'll be presenting a draft bill, the hearing protection ordinance.

So we'll go through a little bit of background, an overview of the policy goals, a summary of the potential legislation, which Chair Strauss just went over a bit, some potential policy considerations, and then next steps.

Excuse me.

So some brief background.

According to the CDC, nearly one in four U.S. adults aged 20 to 69 years show some evidence of noise-induced hearing loss.

There are risks to hearing at music venues, and you can see even on this image, which I should credit Jesse Franz from Chair Strauss's office provided some of the visuals here, that even at a, you know, there's the front row of a rock concert, but even going to the symphony exposes one to noise levels that are potentially unsafe.

There is, you know, anecdotally, I think we've heard during some stakeholdering and also there's some academic articles that suggest that there is a lack of awareness generally about these risks, particularly for young people.

And there have been other municipal efforts to address these concerns.

There's been a lot of regulations, particularly in Europe, regarding limiting decibel levels.

But closer to home, we have a couple of examples.

San Francisco requires venues that have an extended hours permit, hold over 500 people, and have an area for dancing.

They require that those venues provide earplugs for free or at a reasonable price.

And then Minneapolis requires clubs and bars that feature live music to provide free earplugs if they are supplied to them at no cost.

And there is a group there of business and philanthropy that have been providing earplugs for free for businesses there.

So.

The policy goals are to raise awareness of the risks associated with loud music, to provide more opportunities to access hearing protection, and to advance consumer protection without unduly burdening businesses.

Here's a summary of the legislation.

It would require that certain loud music venues, the definition of which we'll get into on the next slide, that they offer patrons hearing protection with a noise reduction rating of at least 20 decibels for free or for sale on the premises.

And if they offer that protection for sale, at least one option must be offered for a dollar or less.

And it says one option because it could be that a business may want to sell higher priced, better earplugs or noise protection, but that at least one option has to be at a lower price level.

Venues would be encouraged to post notice in an area that's readily accessible to patrons.

That just notes the availability and the price of that hearing protection.

The bill would be enforced by finance and administrative services.

Right now, the enforcement is structured such that there's an initial warning with 30 days to comply, and then a $50 citation for each week of noncompliance after the warning period.

The effective date of the draft is January 1, 2026.

Before you move on here, I just want to focus colleagues in this section within the enforcement, clearly we have to do something.

But the intention is not to be punitive.

So I looked at the way the SDCI has in the past done the vacant building monitoring program.

So I looked at the model that they used when I found that program to be less effective than today.

And just kind of plainly speaking here, which was if somebody received a citation or warning.

The first three are technically warnings, even though they're called citations.

They would be given 30 days to comply.

If they complied, then we're fine and we move forward.

The $50 is that number.

can change, I will just say that if we are asking FAS, we have to look at it from a cost recovery model because this is not intended to be punitive.

So we have to know how much if we're gonna be asking FAS to enforce that they can recover from that action.

We're not looking to make money, we're not looking to charge people large amount of money, but we do need to have some cost recovery.

Started out with the effective date for January 1st, because again, this is not intended to be punitive.

This is intended to be just create a floor.

And so ensuring that everyone has enough time to understand what's going on, give them that lead time from this moves on schedule, we would pass this at the end of April.

And so gives them enough time to come up to speed.

Vice Chair Rivera, I see you have your hand.

Is it okay now?

Do you want me to wait until the end?

I think we've only got one or two more slides.

Just because on this slide, Jasmine, so is this, so is Minneapolis and San Francisco the only two cities that have it or are there other cities?

My understanding in the U.S. is those are the only two cities.

They're the only two.

And then how long ago did they pass theirs?

What have we seen?

How well has it worked there?

What unintended consequences have they seen?

There's a liability issue here too.

If the city takes on a regulation of something, it always winds up that we, it opens us up to legal liability on the back end.

Someone could sue the city.

So how has that all worked in these two other cities?

And is this exactly what they've put in place or is theirs different?

And if so, how is this different from what they're doing?

Right.

And so Minneapolis, I believe, passed it in 2014. And San Francisco, I don't have that off the top of my head, but I believe it was around the same time.

It was in the tens.

We can kind of get into how this is different under the policy considerations, because I have noted that in terms of the venues that are required to comply.

That's...

the list of venues is sort of inspired by San Francisco, but it's a little bit different.

And in terms of how they've been applied or what lessons have been learned, I can look more into that.

In my research, there was a lot of information about, at the time, of passage.

And a lot, but I don't know if there's a lot of information out there regarding any issues since passage.

But that is something we can, I could even like in the next couple weeks reach out to those jurisdictions to see if I can get more information.

I think that's prudent.

If we're going to do something, we should know how well things are working, especially if they've had it for a decade, it sounds like.

Yeah.

And then it sounds like ours is not exactly like either of theirs because we've tweaked it.

So you're going to get into that later.

I can go into why.

Actually, it's a good segue into the next slide unless there are other questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Yeah.

All right.

So.

Sorry, I see Council Member Socker.

Do you have a question?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, I'll wait till you finish, and then I'll ask at the end.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Kettle, we're going to wait.

All right.

Take it away.

All right.

So, yes, the next couple of slides go over some policy considerations as sort of a preview for what policy considerations memo might be once this gets introduced.

The intention of surfacing the policy considerations now is to see if there's feedback that could inform the legislation at this stage in the drafting.

So first and potentially the most complex issue for consideration is who is going to be implicated by this.

In other words, how do we define what a loud music venue is?

And the distinction between this proposal and Minneapolis and San Francisco is that both Minneapolis and San Francisco have a type of venue that this could easily, this type of regulation could easily apply to.

So in Minneapolis, they applied it to entertainment.

I can't remember, I can look at this, I'll look this up later, but they have like an entertainment venue type of permit that this applies to, that hosts live music.

And then in San Francisco, they have an extended hours permit.

So businesses that have that permit, then this applies to.

We don't necessarily have the same type of licensed or permitted venues that this type of regulation could easily apply to.

So we kind of cobbled it together.

The San Francisco chair, I didn't hear what the area was.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear what you were saying.

No one can hear each other.

We all need better replies.

I know, this is a good microcosm.

Can you hear the venue in San Francisco?

Sorry, I actually could not hear you.

What type of venue in San Francisco?

I'm going to take us back down.

Everyone, please use their microphones.

And it sounds like Vice Chair needs the information regarding San Francisco repeated if possible.

Okay, thank you.

So in San Francisco, they have a type of permit called an extended hours permit for which this type of regulation applies.

And it seems to be kind of the same universe of businesses that this draft bill would attempt to cover as well.

So what the proposal does is it gets inspired by the San Francisco model, especially that number two, to say that venues, so it's a proxy for extended hours permit.

It says venues license to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on premises which contain a dance floor or other place primarily designated for dancing and have a maximum occupancy of over 500. That kind of gets a little bit at what the same target audience or venue as San Francisco.

We also have a couple of venues that are already defined in our code.

We have music venues as defined in section 1114.376.

That's the music venue parking permit definition.

And then we have all ages dance venues as well.

And then finally, the proposal also would cover venues, like larger venues, like arenas that host live music or dance at least 20 times per year and have a maximum occupancy of over 5,000.

And then venues hosting special events permitted that host live music or dance.

So that would potentially cover like Bumpershoot or Capitol Hill Block Party.

So another approach, I mean there's certainly policy questions as to whether the capacity thresholds are at the right level, whether there's a desire to bring in smaller venues under the requirement, whether the amount is too low and there needs to be a focus on larger venues, and maybe there's just too many parts to this definition and we need to simplify it.

even if that means leaving some venues out.

These are all policy considerations for you all.

Another approach that was considered would have defined loud music venue based on the decibel levels that patrons are exposed to.

That is more like the European approach.

However, that poses some other thorny policy and implementation questions.

Who would monitor the decibel levels?

Over what period of time?

How often would it need to exceed the recommended level for the requirement to apply?

So the uncertainty of it was harder from an enforcement standpoint and potentially would be undesirable for businesses as well, because businesses might want more predictability about whether they're covered or not.

So rather than getting into the business of monitoring decibels, you know, this approach you see here seemed more enforceable and straightforward to know what types of premises this would apply to, even if it doesn't get at the entire universe of relevant venues.

So this is, again, the policy consideration for council as to whether this strikes the right balance.

Thank you, Jasmine.

I would say let's get through the rest of your presentation because we're almost to the question slide.

Colleagues, I'll just share with you my North Star with this policy is minimizing negative impacts on businesses and maximizing positive accessibility for music lovers to hearing protection.

And so we want to make sure we don't become punitive in expanding our scope unnecessarily.

Back to you, Jasmine.

So, I mean, the other policy considerations, it might actually be more helpful to go back to the summary slide because all of the policy considerations are just basically mirror the bullets here.

So is the dollar threshold, you know, is that too high?

Is it too low?

Should it be adjusted for inflation?

It says venues would be encouraged to post notice.

A policy consideration maybe should we require them to post notice or would that be overly burdensome and potentially not necessary because businesses may have actually a profit motivation to let folks know that these earplugs are available for sale.

So we may not need to have a regulation about the posting of notice.

That's a question.

The enforcement, you know, there may be a good reason, as Chair Strauss mentioned, to sort of set the amounts where they are and have a warning.

You know, the council could choose to increase those penalties or have a stronger enforcement approach as well.

And finally, the effective date is also a policy choice.

It could be that council may want to move it forward to allow the regulations to go into effect sooner.

But on the other hand, it's possible that allowing a longer lead-up time would allow time for more outreach and more time for businesses to voluntarily comply.

So again, these are all just questions for consideration.

And that brings me to the next steps.

So the goal is to have this for introduction and referral and time for, I believe, the committee meeting that's April 16th.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And then it's for discussion and possible vote, depending on how the committee discussion goes.

And that's it.

Thank you.

So colleagues, if we will be sharing the draft since it's not been introduced, this is a great time to have your fingerprints on it.

If we, because again, I'm looking for collaboration here.

And if you do have amendments, once it is introduced, please be ready to bring them to the April 16th committee.

So in just under a month, I see a number of hands.

Council member Saka, you lowered your hand, but you were, First, do you want to go and then I'm going to go in the order in which I see council member Kettle Rivera Nelson.

Sure.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you for ordering this or directing this proposal and, and, sharing an opportunity for all of us to learn more about it today.

And a few questions that I have, and just for clarity, I think I know the answer, but just for clarity, there is no currently central staff analysis memo available yet because the legislation hasn't been finalized.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

OK, cool.

I share some of the curiosity expressed by my colleague, Councilmember Rivera, a moment ago in terms of, and it's good to hear that there are already models and schemes in place in Minneapolis and San Francisco, two cities I've lived in personally, and with, of course, some Seattle-specific tweaks.

But I would be curious in that central staff analysis to also learn more about implementation challenges and mitigations of some of the potential unintended consequences, et cetera.

But this potential legislation, as noted, I guess, yeah, we're at the potential legislation stage.

It would introduce a new regulatory scheme in Seattle for, I think, a valid purpose.

I guess at a high level, I'm just curious to make sure it's narrowly tailored enough to meet the valid need.

And so some questions I have in my mind is like, that I'm thinking of right now, just quickly based off of looking at, hearing your presentation, looking at it live, and then just looking at the model or the current draft of the bill is, what's the rationale for the hearing protection to be offered at, $1 or less, or $1 or less?

And why not a reasonable price, like I heard Minneapolis has, has a requirement for.

And so that's just a question.

Also another question I have, and my sense is especially because there's no central staff analysis memo available yet, but it's a question I would appreciate more clarity on, is what is the total anticipated cost of implementation?

Set up a new regulatory scheme, there is a cost associated with implementing it.

We shouldn't, as policymakers, endeavor to write laws on the books if we're not prepared to enforce and administer those.

So what is an anticipated cost?

How is the decision made to select FAS as the enforcement authority as opposed to other...

40 plus departments, executive departments.

How many total impacted venues as currently written?

And as you aptly pointed out, that is a policy consideration at the end of the day, but under the current proposal, how many venues would be impacted?

That would be a good starting point, but I appreciate the hearing about this today so we can flush out some of those and in the spirit of collaboration to the chair's point, you know, bring this to life, do something that we can all rally behind.

So, thank you.

That's great.

Those are great questions.

I see Jasmine's got some answers.

Yes, thank you.

Those are great questions, and I can take a stab at an initial answer for some of them.

Regarding the cost of implementation, I did send this to FAS under their Consumer Protection Division.

and they identified no red flags, and in fact the enforcement scheme, having it cite to the RCW citation process, allows there to be less administrative burden on FAS to sort of come up with a lot of that scaffolding for enforcement, and was recommended as like a way to have it be a little bit less impactful on FAS.

It is complaints-based, and my understanding, and we can confirm this with FAS, is that they believe they can absorb this if it's a complaints-based system.

But we can definitely confirm that, and I can nail down whether they anticipate there to be any direct costs.

I can imagine there might be some outreach costs or some staff time, and we can see if we can get some figures on that.

it's possible that we may not have a full answer, a complete answer on that.

Why FAS?

It falls under Title VII, under their consumer protection code, and it sort of fits in their line of business in terms of regulating consumer protection.

So that's my FAS.

And then I had a question myself about the impacted venues and something I'd love to be able to nail that down or at least maybe consult with the Music Commission or other stakeholders to get more of that information.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We did invite the Music Commission.

They are currently meeting right now, which is why we had a double booking conflict there.

I'm going to move on.

I see Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Hearing loss is very important.

It's like my left ear, and sometimes my wife thinks I don't hear, so maybe I do have some hearing loss myself.

I would know probably the most mama noise ever is if you've ever been on a flight deck of an aircraft carrier during current operations.

That's one, but here locally, Uh, street racing creates a lot of noise, uh, for our residents.

Um, sometimes it could be, you know, slight just to wake you up at four 15 in the morning on a Saturday morning, like last weekend, or if you're right there, it could be, you know, very loud decibels, um, impacting.

And that kind of highlights, you know, a challenge that, um, I'm not sure if my other colleagues have sense as much as ours, maybe new district, but the, uh, With the increasing number of residents in the greater downtown, like the three regional centers, and there's more and more, and there's still activity, these conflicts are starting to brew in terms of noise, maybe not to the level of this, But I just got one the other day.

I won't mention the venue or where the resident lived, but it's funny how this has come up within the last week in my inbox.

And so that's the first part in terms of my remarks.

My question or thoughts, my initial thoughts were something focused more on children.

Because the potential for more damage, children under 18, under 21, those kinds of things, that's a consideration.

I was going to ask about the Music Commission.

It seems like the Music Commission should have an opportunity to weigh in on this, particularly because we're working with them on so many other issues that are out there.

So this is just one.

And through that collaboration with the Music Commission, who knows, this could be like an avenue.

And I guess these are first reflections.

You know, a pilot program where we work with the Music Commission and the industry kind of in some ways may take the lead and have like a two-step process.

I don't know.

But those are just considerations.

These are just the first things that came to my head.

And the last one related to costs and FAS and so forth, Council Member Saka.

I'm learning this through our after-hours bill.

Sometimes it's not as easy as you think in terms of trying to do regulation and the cost of it and implementation.

Trust me, I've learned.

And so that's an important question to ask.

And sometimes the answer could be way more difficult than you thought.

Let me just say it that way.

So Chair, those are like my initial things in terms of hearing loss and locally here in the city, some of the new areas beyond music venues.

that we're seeing more and more of.

And then the children, the Music Commission weighing in, you know, potential pilot programs and I understand the costs and FAS pieces to that.

So thank you.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

I'll just quickly respond and then I'll pass it over to Council President and Vice Chair.

The Music Commission was actually the first, after receiving this request from the audiologists in my district, Music Commission was my next stop.

And so originally the idea that had been presented to me was to provide hearing protection for free.

I brought that up with the Music Commission immediate feedback was, can you let us sell it for a dollar or less, right?

And it's, again, in the spirit of creating the fewest negative impacts and the most positive impacts.

And so my staff has also met with the Music Commission a number of times.

Again, they were invited to come, but we've got a conflict.

And so I think we're aiming to have them be able to join on the 16th.

I'll make sure that they do before we vote out the bill.

Council President and then Vice Chair Rivera.

Thank you.

It's funny because this is the first time I've heard about this, and so I did email Scott saying, have you heard about this?

So it's clear that they are aware of this.

Who else has been outreached to?

What other nightlife venues or, well, loud music venues?

Yeah, so we've done some initial stakeholder outreach.

I'm not going to read down the list right now, but I'm happy to share that information with you.

You can't mention a couple of the clubs or festival promoters or whoever this would be.

If it's possible for me to get you that list after committee, Jesse has been staffing me on this, and he's been doing a lot of the direct outreach, and he's currently on well-earned vacation.

And so that is the issue of today.

I can tell you that I've spoken directly to a few people, but happy to talk to you offline about that.

Thank you.

For me, I'll be wanting to make sure that there was wide outreach, because what I hear from music venues is that they just got through a pandemic, and they're really focused on rebuilding their businesses after that, and they've got some public safety issues.

And so I just want to make sure that they have been, that they're partners at the table.

And I'm also curious to know what other ways, What other, well, Councilmember Kettle brought up children and street racing, et cetera.

There are a lot of things that can cause hearing damage, and so I'm just curious what other sources of loud music were put on the table for addressing when it comes to really protecting people's hearings.

Thank you, that's actually very helpful, because in this context, Jasmine brought up that we had discussed setting it at a decibel level, and one of the things that we realized pretty quickly there, rather than using some of the other definitions, is that it could include churches, it could include, you know, many churches have rock bands these days, it could, the, And that's where it became a little blurry of are we putting a regulation on a business or entity that doesn't realize it?

And so that's why we're looking at those definitions to be associated with business licenses so that we can be sure that we're not unintentionally...

requiring something of someone without letting them know.

And kind of to Council Member Kettle's comment about the pilot project, pilot program if you will, that's a bit of what we're looking to do here rather than make it expansive by decibel level that could ensnare many unintentionally, for a good reason, but unintentionally.

being more narrow with the definition allows us to pilot this with the places that we already are sure that hearing loss could occur.

In Jesse's absence, is there anybody else in your office that could forward me the list of venues that have been outreached to?

We'll make sure to have staff work with your staff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Thank you, Chair.

In addition to all the questions, I echo echo the same questions of my colleagues.

I notice you have outdoor that has been selected.

So in my mind, there's a difference between outdoor and indoor.

So why was outdoor festivals included?

How does that work?

Again, I still have the questions about the legal liability, because every time cities take on a regulatory piece, then it becomes can people sue us because they lost their hearing, et cetera.

Council Member Kettle, you bring up a great point about street racing.

Obviously, and I know you know this, but I'm going to say it out loud, is just street racing is different from someone has chosen to go to a loud music venue they are taking.

It's almost like an assumption of liability.

People are choosing that, unlike the street racing.

And then I'm going to say something else, which is, In my district, we've had serious issues with partying at parks that while it might not be a hearing loss issue, it is very much a quality of life issue.

And we can't seem to get that under control.

So it's something that we really need to look at.

And so that is...

really important to me, that piece.

This, like I said, folks are going to a music venue.

They know it's going to be loud music.

So I want to hear more about who requested this.

Is this the best way to meet what was requested?

Like I said, the legal liability piece.

I find it interesting that only two cities across the country have done it.

They did it 10 years ago.

No one else has done it again.

And this isn't like, in general, when we're going to decide to start regulating something we do not currently regulate, there are just a lot of questions.

And there's got to be scrutiny on all of it in general.

And this has nothing to do with whether or not we support the merits of it.

We just have to do our due diligence.

And there's a lot of missing information here that I'm hoping that will become part of this conversation obviously sooner rather than later if this legislation, if the timeline is to be kept for April.

I am nowhere near being able to take a vote on this in April.

because I think there's a lot here that needs to be teased out.

Thank you.

Let's see if we can get your questions answered in the next month.

And if you need more time, then we'll take more time.

Any other questions at this time?

Council Member Stocker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So certainly this would pick up many concert venues, you know, hence the importance, as you know, the Music Commission.

But I was, the last concert I attended, me and my wife went to Justin Timberlake last year.

And it was very loud.

And I was, it was loud in part because of me.

I was screaming like a teenage girl.

It was awesome.

And then, you know, burn a boy before that.

And so, yeah, when we go to certain events, we like, Many people, but not all, know that they can expect this.

Well, they can expect some level of noise.

So as part of the forthcoming analysis, be curious to learn more about the signage requirement versus encouragement in the other jurisdictions.

And I would be curious to explore that, because maybe Maybe it makes sense in Seattle, for example, to have signage, like require signage versus encourage it.

And maybe if we do that, I'm just hypotheticals here.

All this would have to be further explored.

And maybe if we do that, for certain venues that would be sufficient, and so wouldn't have to impose an additional requirement that they offer for sale or provide for free earplugs, which is an additional, in my mind at least, an additional layer of overhead, because they have to maintain that, have someone available to sell it, versus posting a sign one time in a readily accessible location.

So just the deconstructing in understanding the trade-offs of the constructs of encouraging signage versus requiring it.

I, too, share the concern about the liability, but I think it's a solvable one based off of my understanding.

Once governments get in the business of regulation, it, as a general proposition, opens the door for increased legal exposure and risk in lawsuits.

my understanding is that we can also limit our own liability statutorily.

And so if we do something like this, would also like to have a provision that does exactly that.

And then finally, I'll note that, so I represent District 1, and I have two world-class venues, stadiums in my district in Soto.

And I know Councilmember Kittle has climate pledge in his, and I'm sure they have a point of view on this as well.

But so in addition to the Music Commission, curious to hear their thoughts in any event.

But I do, I 100% agree with the policy goals, like the principal level.

And I think that's what's most important at this early stage for us to align on, because we can figure out the nitty-gritty specific details later.

So I just want all this to say, I want to thank the chair for bringing this forward and teeing up this important conversation.

Thank you, Council Member Saka.

I'm just gonna chat briefly about the signage and then I'll pass it over to you, Vice Chair.

Your question was the same one that I had.

I believe the Music Commission recommended that we require signage and that made me a little nervous, to be honest, because I don't want a venue to get a penalty if they didn't put the sign in the right place or didn't, or the sign fell down and the manager forgot to put it up, right?

And so that is a policy choice that we can and will make.

That's why I chose encourage rather than require.

And it's my understanding, but I'll double check that Climate Pledge and many venues across the city already provide hearing protection for free.

But we'll dig into that, so good points.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, chair and council member Saka.

Thanks for putting into words what I was alluding to, which is we would need to have some statutory requirement or not requirement language to limit our liability so that would need to be part of it if we were to move forward with this it seems to me that we're this is a public health issue that we're trying to address the hearing loss issue is this you know historically do we have data around people are losing their hearing because they're going to these music venues I understand the risks, but are there actual, we're trying to solve for something that is very tangible, which is people are losing their hearing because they're going to these venues.

And then also, is there a different way that we can get to the public health benefits?

Because I agree, people should know.

We often do PSAs.

Public health does PSAs when they're public service announcements to educate the public about a health risk.

And I don't know what public health is doing in the realm of loud music and hearing loss.

But I would love to hear if public health around the country have some type of campaign to let folks know.

Because I do agree people should be aware of the risks when they attend these kinds of venues.

And then I also would love to know, over the years, has the sound increased at these music venues or not?

You know, what's different?

We haven't gotten into the realm of regulating this, so why now?

Music venues have been around for decades.

You know, things of that nature to me are really important, Jasmine, to hear about as we are reviewing all of this.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

And again, we originally had hoped that the Music Commission could join us, but our committees at the same time.

And we did have one of the audiologists invited.

Initially, she could attend, but at the last minute, she couldn't attend today.

So I think you're teeing up all.

And part of this is me setting the stage so that everyone can engage in a meaningful way.

There's no surprises or gotchas or anything like that.

And so I think when we have that panel up, it'll give you an opportunity to hear from them directly.

Do you have something else?

Thank you, Chair.

I just really want to, what are we solving for exactly?

And is this going to meet what we're solving for?

And it seems to me that you've raised the issue of the loud music and hearing loss.

And I want to make sure that whatever we decide to regulate we're doing it, is this the best way to achieve the goal?

Wonderful.

Each of us as separately elected officials will have to come to that conclusion on our own.

I will tell you from my perspective, we've tailored this to be as narrow with the least amount of catching people unnecessarily to solve the issue in pretty much as council member Kettle was asking about, in a pilot setting because it's not as expansive as it could be.

So this is a very narrowly tailored bill with the least amount of gotchas or opportunities to be ensnared.

And still, I would love to have your input and collaboration.

And so if there are things that we would like to change before it's formally introduced, happy to do that.

Or if there are amendments that you'd prefer to bring so that it demonstrates your work on the bill, happy to do that as well.

Do you have something else, Vice Chair?

I do.

I just think we need the answers to all these questions from central staff before we move forward.

I appreciate what you're saying, and then I feel like I'm surprised not that we don't have answers to these questions today.

And that's in part because most bills aren't discussed until after they are introduced, and we're taking an earlier step to engage folks sooner.

Council President.

This is a question that perhaps wasn't asked, but I am wondering, are there earplugs that are not rubber or plastic?

Are there disposable ones or compostable ones or whatever?

Yeah, that's a good question.

In my research, we see the basic one up there on the slide that you can get for like 10 cents a pair or like $60 for 600 or something.

I do believe there are a variety of different types of earplugs.

So that's partly why the draft is written, to be able to provide flexibility for businesses in terms of what types of earplugs they want to provide.

Got it.

When I go to shows, that makes it sound like I do a lot, which I don't, of course.

What I see is grown-ups using their basic AirPods in their ears and things like that.

And so it could be that that is what a lot of folks are doing so as not to have to rely on these sorts of implements or bringing bigger.

Because you kind of know what you're in for when you go to a music show.

So I would think that those options are already, people are aware of those and I just don't want to see a bunch of these things being littered on the ground outside of shows, et cetera, you know, just because they were handed or something like that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Socken.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And one other kind of final thought that I think we'll want to consider as this moves forward is Potential FIFA impact.

Is this intended to apply to indoor facilities and venues only or is there outdoor venue impact?

We know that I think the state legislature or at least one of the chambers recently authorized one of our priorities to allow watch parties basically through all parts of the city and we're gonna have over one million people here.

from other parts of the world visiting here in Seattle.

And so just kind of thinking through, so what does that mean?

Do we suspend?

Do we carve out outdoor venues, exclude them from the scope and the ambit of the ordinance's reach?

Do we suspend for a certain period during FIFA?

And I'm talking about FIFA World Cup, FIFA Club, club cup or whatever, that's cool too.

But the big bang is gonna be next year.

How are we thinking about this in the context of FIFA?

I think we'll wanna collectively think through.

So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, council member Saka.

And in part that gets back to the definitions.

And I'd love to work with you on the definitions because It goes, again, back to if we regulated this by decibel level, then it could ensnare those places unintentionally.

And when we build it towards a business license, it allows for the educational information to be sent easily.

That's part of why we put the effective date out, so that when businesses renew, that they are able to be educated in this way.

it often many people do I bring my own earplugs places and sometimes I forget them and we in Seattle something that's special about us is that we have a lot of folks coming in for tourism reasons and we're known internationally for our music whether it was the Kingsman or Nirvana or Macklemore I guess now that I'm listing those, I should probably list everyone and I'm gonna get in trouble.

It just comes back to the fact that folks come to our city for music because it's a highlight of our reputation.

And sometimes people forget them.

I see you got another comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

What about Sir Mix-a-Lot and my constituent Eddie Vedder in West Seattleite?

Yeah, no, I'm just joking.

All I can say is Dave Matthews leaves me in.

There we go.

Before we continue on, do we have, let's see, Vice Chair, do you have further comments?

Just a quick question.

Do we know, because I brought up the outdoor piece earlier, do we know if Minneapolis and San Francisco regulate the outdoor music or is it just indoor?

I believe I can look into what the permitting, what falls under their existing permits.

It could be that outdoor venues or like special permits would still need a extended hours permit in San Francisco, for example.

I just don't know right now, but I can look that up.

Great.

Thank you.

And vice chair fun.

This is for fun.

Question here.

What is the most internationally known stationary outdoor music?

establishment in your district?

Internationally known?

Totally.

Well, I mean, there's so many music venues.

The Neptune, the Varsity.

Installation is where I was going.

The answer for me, at least, is the Soundgarden at Magnuson Park.

Magnuson Park.

Yep.

But the Neptune is...

The Neptune is a great place as well.

The sound garden is not so loud, but more fun facts here.

Seeing as we have no further questions and we're six minutes ahead of our scheduled end time, I will take this opportunity to see if there's anything for the good of the order, any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn.

Seeing none, we are hearing no further business to come before the committee.

We are adjourned.

Thank you, colleagues.