Seattle City Council Briefing 2/24/2020

Oh, it's the name of the grant.

Yeah.

Those words are not actually in my speaking points.

Okay, that's okay.

I won't put you on last and ask you what that stands for.

Good morning, everybody.

So, let's see.

I've got the morning thing here.

This is Council Briefing Meeting of February 24th, 2020. The time is 9.33.

I'm Council President Pro Tem.

I was also mayor over the weekend because the mayor was out of town.

I just want to point that out.

And I was mayor last weekend too, so.

Got a lot done.

Well, you guys don't even know what I've done.

Neither does the mayor.

I renamed a couple streets.

I don't know.

Got some stuff done.

So let's see.

We got Councilmember Herboldt with us, Councilmember Morales, Councilmember Peterson, and Councilmember Strauss.

So, I have no President's Report to share today, but I understand Councilmember Herbold would like a minute to circulate and get us up to date on a letter regarding the East Marginal Way Corridor Improvement Project for signatures.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you so much and good morning everybody.

I'm going to be actually leaving briefings meeting this morning a little bit early for a press conference on police hiring and recruitment in the Chinatown ID.

And so I'm going to just quickly speak to this letter.

I don't actually have it in hand, so it might arrive in the middle of this meeting, and I'm sure folks can ably circulate it without my presence here.

If it doesn't come for some reason during the council briefings, we can circulate it 2 o'clock today.

But basically, this is a letter in support of a grant application for federal funding for the East Marginal Way project.

On Friday, my office emailed background information to all council members and staff about this project.

My interest in this project is longstanding because of its critical linkage for bike commuters from West Seattle to ensure that they're separated from traffic.

2020-25 capital improvement plan adopted along with the budget noted SDOT planned adopted this project and noted that SDOT planned to apply for 15 million in funding from this grant.

This particular request is for $13 million.

The CIP, the Capital Improvement Program, notes that SDOT anticipates about a $10 million port contribution.

And the benefits for this project is that it will improve safety and reliability in the movement of people and goods.

in its industrial maritime area, support freight loads by rebuilding the roadway, promote efficiency through signal modifications and intelligent transportation systems, and really importantly to my constituents in West Seattle who bike commute, improve safety by better separating non-motorized modes from freight traffic.

And so the letter that we're going to be circulating at some point today is in support of this grant.

So thanks for giving me the time to talk about that.

Sure, thank you.

So with that, let's see, we're gonna go to, we have our friends here from, you guys wanna come on up?

who are going to our state legislative session, our briefing and discussion.

My understanding is you should have gotten a memo from our friend Cheryl on Friday addressing seven topics, education, environment, general government, housing, homelessness and affordability, public safety, safety net and civil rights and transportation.

And Lily, you asked if we could discuss House Bill 2948, the progressive tax authority, we can discuss that last.

because I know people have a lot of questions.

So if we can go through your introductions, and then we'll go through your agenda, and then we'll discuss House Bill 2948 last.

Great.

Thank you, Council President Juarez.

Council members, Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Robin Koski, State Director, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Quinn Majewski, State Relations Associate, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

And I'm Cheryl Schwab, Deputy Director, OIR.

We are a little over halfway through the 2020 legislative session at this stage, and we have the Senate supplemental capital budget released last week and operating transportation and House capital budget rollouts happening this week.

We have passed many major milestones at this point, including the House of Origin policy fiscal and floor cutoffs, and are quickly approaching the opposite House policy cutoff this coming Friday, February 28th.

House Bill 2948 is the new progressive business excise tax.

We appreciate you all taking some time to review that initial legislation.

And we have your questions, which we will try to take towards the end of today's briefing.

So there's enough time for that discussion.

There is no preemption in the current bill, just the highlights at 0.25%.

And a hearing is scheduled in House Finance this coming Thursday.

And finally, while Quinn will brief you on block the box in his transportation report, I did want to first recognize Chief Scoggins and Chief Best's work on automated enforcement, having spent several days with us in Olympia over the past weeks advocating for this bill from a public safety perspective.

It is no coincidence that there was some significant movement in the Senate the day that Chief Scoggins was with us in Olympia.

So a big thank you to both of them for their work, and we'll see Chief Best later today.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Cheryl, who will begin with the education section.

Good morning, everyone.

I don't have a whole lot to report, except I'm going to highlight the things that are still alive.

So your report, just for clarification, those are all bills that are still alive.

Yes, unless we missed some.

But yes, that was the intention.

We took off the things that we knew were not moving forward.

And to the extent, I'm sorry to have to ask for this, and it doesn't have to be here, but to the extent that we, you know that we're following particular things that died, can you maybe just real quickly mention them in briefing?

Sure.

Okay, sure, no problem.

So the first two, the sexual health education and also the menstrual products bills are still moving.

The first one has a hearing, the second one has not yet been scheduled for a hearing, so not exactly sure if that one will continue, but for now it is still alive.

Moving on to the environment, first to highlight two pieces of legislation that did not make the legislative cutoff last week that we have been tracking and working on.

The first is the beneficial electrification legislation, which would have allowed public utilities to offer incentives to customers who choose to electrify.

That did not, unfortunately, make it out of either chamber.

Similarly, the legislation restoring the Department of College's authority to regulate mobile or indirect sources of emissions did not pass.

Moving on to legislation that is still alive.

The low carbon fuel standard is still in play.

I think I've mentioned previously it does face resistance in the Senate, but it is scheduled, it already had a hearing and it's scheduled for executive session, so a vote out of committee tomorrow.

In the Energy and Environment Committee, it will then go to transportation, which is the real hurdle.

The House version of legislation which would regulate the emissions of TNCs did pass and is scheduled for a hearing today in Senate Transportation.

I think that one does have a good chance of making it all the way.

The TNC companies have been actively engaging in that legislation.

Absolutely.

Before you start talking about the bill, can you just refer us to what number, which one we're talking about?

Of course.

So this legislation is 2310, on-demand transportation emissions.

And the low carbon fuel standard is Bill 1110. Go ahead, Quinn.

Oh, I was just going to say, Robin, would you like to provide any update on CPACER?

Oh, sure.

So that is, oh, sorry, I got myself out of order here.

That is the halfway down the page.

That bill got into a little bit of trouble in the appropriations committee with some legal questions that were quickly able to be addressed, was advanced out of the appropriations committee, and is now going to have a hearing in the environment energy And I understand that Barb Graf will be there to testify on behalf of the bill.

So, you know, we're really hoping that we can get this across the finish line this year to honor her for sure.

Those are the major updates on environment.

Great.

And on to general government, Cheryl.

Okay, so the first two cottage food industries, 2217 and 2218, are still moving.

One of these microenterprise bills, 2777, which would have created a specific permitting process for these types of smaller business, did not advance, so that one did die.

6152, the campaign finance bill, is also still moving.

And I think, can I ask you a quick question?

Yeah.

What is cottage food?

So these are small home-based food businesses.

And so the first, the two bills are allowing, right now there's a cap at how much money you can earn if you have one of these out of your home.

So it goes from 25,000 to 50,000, increases the cap.

And the other one is related to labeling, product labeling.

And it's essentially trying to make it a little bit easier for these home businesses to operate.

Can you tell us what the impact is of the permitting bill not passing?

I believe, again, it was about making it a little bit easier to operate.

And was that permitting through the public health department?

I think it was actually creating a whole specific process to that type of business.

It was called the micro enterprise home kitchens.

So I don't think it means they are not permitted anymore.

I think it just would have made it easier.

They would have had their own category.

But that one did not advance.

I think that's it for me.

And moving on to health care, Robin.

So good news on the Healthy Moms and Healthy Babies bill, Senate Bill 6128. This bill would extend postpartum Apple health coverage from 60 days to 12 months with the same eligibility standards as the current program.

The Senate Bill 6128 was voted out of the Senate on February 17th by a 48 to 0 vote.

It was amended to cap enrollment based on available funds so that pregnant and postpartum persons would need to enroll on a first-come, first-served basis.

However, the health care authority is also directed to seek federal funds, and once the match is secured from the federal government, the CAPT program would expire and the state would extend coverage from 60 days to 12 months to all pregnant and postpartum persons up to 193 percent of the federal poverty level.

Advocates hope to take advantage of the federal legislation that would provide a substantial bump in federal match to states that adapt the policy, and the program would begin January 1st, 2021. So it's very good news.

It's now going to be heard in the Appropriations Committee.

The Governor's vaping bill, Senate Bill 6234, was changed a little bit.

It was a ban on flavored vaping products, but now it's been changed to only allow sale in retail outlets that are restricted to people who are 21 and over.

It also includes an excise tax of 37%.

It's alive and in ways and means.

It's been deemed necessary to implement the budget because of the tax that's included in the bill, and the bill will have a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday.

I guess I can just now move on to housing and homelessness.

I'm sorry, it didn't write down the bill number for the Just Cause eviction bills, but those unfortunately will not move on this year.

There was, I think, advocates feel pleased about how the conversation went and feel like they did make progress and are ready to bring it back next year and have a robust conversation about it in the interim as well, but unfortunately won't be moving on.

That being said, there are still a number of housing and homelessness bills that are still alive.

One notable one is one that would allow an exemption for affordable housing at a sale.

If a building were affordable, if it were to be sold to a nonprofit developer or a housing authority that promised to keep the building affordable, the seller would not have to pay the 3%, the real estate excise tax.

This is meant to try to encourage sellers to sell to nonprofits and keep housing affordable.

So that's really good news.

Council Member Herbold, House Bill 2732, the Landlord Mitigation for Survivors of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Unlawful Harassment or Stalking is also still alive, I believe.

So that still has a chance to pass this year, which I think is really great.

And then I think I'll just leave it there because there are so many housing bills and if anyone has questions I'm happy to follow up if I don't have the answer in my head right now.

Chair Pro Tem, this portable screening for tenants, that was a bill that I know had been in the legislature in past years.

Was that something that is still alive?

Is that conversation complete, no longer existing?

There was a bill, I don't think it was introduced this year, but there has been a bill around that issue, and there was a small inroad made where now everyone must state on their rentals whether or not they accept a portable screening report.

I think it was kind of a grand compromise.

I think, I believe it was two years ago, but I didn't see anything on that this year, but I can just double check for you, but I'm pretty sure it didn't come forward this year.

That would be great.

As a renter who is moving in between two rental units, I'll have more comments on this later.

I understand it is quite an issue when you're applying to multiple apartments and you can run into quite a lot of money paying separate fees.

Question on the tenant installment payments.

Is that still alive?

It is still alive.

That passed the House and is coming up this week for a hearing in the Financial Institution's Economic Development and Trade Committee on the 25th, which is tomorrow.

And that's at the bottom of page four of the first bill under Housing and Homelessness on the report.

And would we have to, should it pass, do something similar to what we did last year with making changes to the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance to be consistent with the new rules around evictions that passed in the state legislature?

Will there have to be a harmonizing process?

But we may have to do that.

It sounds like there may be an amendment to the bill that would place a limit on how much fees could be charged, different fees could be charged.

I think of something like 25% I understood from a phone call I was on on Friday.

So we might need to change, but I think it would probably be a helpful change to our local law.

And beginning on the middle of page six, under public safety, while Senator Dinger's DUI firearm restriction bill and high capacity magazines, formerly House Bill 2240, did not make it past last week's floor cutoff, a new bill, House Bill 2947, prohibiting feeding devices that can accept more than 15 rounds of ammunition, is alive and well and scheduled for a hearing on Tuesday, February 25th in House Finance at 8 a.m.

On the other gun responsibility priorities for council, we continue to see momentum on Representative Hansen's background check bill in the middle of page 6, House Bill 2467, House Bill 2632 towards the bottom of page 6. that would strengthen penalties for false reporting of crimes that result in death or bodily harm, and Senator Dingra's proposal on the top of page 7 to establish the Office of Firearm Prevention, Senate Bill 6288. And continuing on page 7, under safety net and civil rights, domestic worker protections, House Bill 2511, passed the House and is scheduled for executive session in Senate Labor on February 25th.

The Courts for All Bill prohibiting warrantless civil immigration arrests, House Bill 2567, sponsored by Representative Tai, passed the House 53 to 43 and is scheduled for Executive Session in Senate Law and Justice on February 27th.

And Death Penalty Elimination, Senate Bill 5339, towards the bottom of page 7, passed the Senate 28 to 18 and is scheduled for Executive Session in House Public Safety on February 27th.

Can I ask you a question quickly?

Absolutely.

Going back to the people, House Bill 2567, the courts and arrests aims to protect all people from warrantless civil immigration arrests at courts, prohibits court staff and prosecutors from using state and local justice resources.

Is this just, are we, is this just limited to government property and government

It would just be in the court system.

So it's an access to justice issue that is a big priority for immigration advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union.

So it's just restricting access and data sharing for ICE within one mile of a court at this stage.

This is the bill that we sent the letter on last week.

So the only concern I have, and I just want to follow up with you, is we've seen some recent, and I just can't remember where I read it, it was last week, and I was wondering if we were looking at that, where ICE is no longer allowed to board buses.

private greyhound, any buses, and ask for people's ID, which they've been doing.

Is that something we can look into?

Because I know that we have some jurisdictional issues that we have some priority in government areas where the government can do certain things.

But when it comes to private business and whether or not ICE and particular agents can board private buses, just vehicles, that's what they're doing.

And so people who don't have cars who are using, you know, the Greyhound or wherever bus systems live now.

I can't remember what city just banned that or if it's been a federal one.

If that's something we can follow up with.

I can look into that for you.

Happy to do that.

But the session ends on the 14th though, right?

The 12th.

The 12th.

So we would have to move quickly if you were trying to amend it or expand it.

But happy to look into that and get back to you.

Absolutely.

And moving on to some good news today, I'm going to turn it over to Quinn, who will review our transportation priorities today.

Thanks, Lily.

So starting with House Bill 1793 and its companion Senate Bill 5789, these are the automated enforcement for blocking the box and transit lanes legislation.

The Senate last Tuesday passed their version out of the full Senate prior to House of Origin cutoff.

This is a really positive step forward.

The Senate was where we had a little bit of a hang-up last year.

So both the House and Senate versions are still alive.

The Senate is hearing the House version today, this afternoon, and the House is hearing the Senate version on Saturday.

We're focusing on keeping both bills alive but really trying to move the Senate version forward since it's in a a form that's already agreed to by all of the stakeholders, but as I mentioned previously, Chief Scoggins, Chief Best, and all of the stakeholders have done really tremendous work in moving this forward, and I think we're in a good position on that piece of legislation.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify previously in front of the Senate, and I'd be happy to join you again this Saturday.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

We'll follow up.

Moving on to House Bill 2362 and its companion 6652. This is the local transportation revenue options.

These bills did not pass their respective houses before cutoff.

This is not a surprise.

I think, as I've mentioned previously, both House and Senate chairs view local transportation revenue options as part of a broader conversation on a potential statewide transportation revenue package that's likely to move forward in earnest next legislative session.

So while it was important to start the conversation on these issues this year, I think we'll be doing the real work next legislative session on that.

A final update on Senate Bill 6606. This is concerning regional transit authorities.

This is the legislation that would change Sound Transit's car tab valuation schedule.

The primary update at this point is that although this bill did not pass out of the Senate before House of Origin cut off, It is being considered necessary to implement the budget, and is therefore going to be sort of in play until the end of session.

It would still require a two-thirds vote, and it's not clear if there is a path forward, but the negotiations are ongoing.

Is this the one where it was just a Scribner's error?

No, this legislation would shift Sound Transit's car tab valuation schedule from the 1996 schedule to the 2006 schedule.

And it would also maintain the current 1.1% rate that was repealed by initiative 976, which is why it would require two thirds, because it amends initiative within two years.

So this would be a substantive policy change.

Any questions?

All right.

And moving on to, I think we wanted to take the new progressive revenue bill towards the end.

We have compiled many questions from you all, and I think Robin is going to go ahead and go through those.

We haven't answered all of them at this stage, so that work is ongoing, but we'll review what we know now.

And I'd certainly be happy to take any additional questions, but I can go through my list if that's okay with everyone and Council President.

I'll let you go through your list and then we'll follow up.

The first question is, can we have a breakdown of the spending plan and rough dollars and percentages divided out by discretionary and mandatory spending?

As I understand it, at least in the current version of the bill, The idea is to have the spending plans be done at the county level.

This legislation at the state level is very broad and just gives the county the authority to levy this tax.

What, if any, or explicit or implicit limitations are there on city revenue authority and how broad are any of those limitations?

At this point, there are no limits on city authority in the bill.

There's no preemption clause in the current version of the bill.

Is section 8 of the bill intended to add 0.1 on top of the county's 0.2 authority?

What is the vehicle through which we are collecting those dollars and how will they be distributed?

So my understanding of the current version of the bill, and I do think the language is a bit confusing, is that it's a total 0.25% with 0.1% going to the largest cities in the county, including Seattle.

And that money, as I understand it, would come directly to Seattle, and the, you know, Seattle Council and Mayor would have discretion over how to spend that money within the broad, you know, categories of the authority of this bill.

And I guess, you know, the collection method is through the existing system that would need to be expanded to collect taxes that our Office of Financial and Administrative Services operates.

So it would be collected at the state level, not at the city or county level?

Actually, I'm not sure about that.

I mean, I guess I honestly don't have a...

I would kind of leave that to Ben Noble.

But we can follow up and get you more details on that, about the details of that, because I do understand that, you know, they understand that some changes would need to be made to make this happen, especially if there was a city allocation and a county allocation.

It just complicates things.

And there's an amount of time it takes to set up the system as well.

We were told when we were deliberating the employee hours tax, which was timed to phase into a payroll tax after CBO had the opportunity to set up a payroll tax.

recovery system that it would, the reason why we had to do a phase-in, nobody wanted the employee hours tax, the preference was a payroll tax, but the reason why we started with an employee hours tax and allowed for the phase-in is because it was going to take about a year.

to create a system for the payroll tax.

So I think that's really important for us to know who's doing it and how much time they anticipate it will take to set up.

Absolutely, yes.

And I understand, too, that this is further complicated because portions of the money are allocated on the population of the various jurisdictions.

And then certain parts are by how much of the tax is generated in the jurisdiction.

So it certainly has two different ways.

It's not straight across the board one one calculation Can I ask you to go back to the first question real quick just as long as we're taking a quick pause on the spending allocation Can you repeat what the answer was whether or not there's a directive on how much spending in which categories which percentages I?

As I understand it, the only directive that is in the bill now is in those broad categories of housing and homelessness, behavioral health, public safety.

It doesn't get into nitty-gritty details of exactly how the money must be spent.

You know, there's some descriptive language about shelter, permanent supportive housing, things like that.

But those are very general, and then it would be up to the county and the city to determine that spending plan.

Thank you, Madam President Pro Tem.

So I just have a follow-up question to that as well.

The public safety prong that's been introduced into this conversation after the sound cities became sort of a player at the negotiating table, I'm just kind of curious, how broad that public safety definition is, and whether money raised from this taxing authority could potentially, in some jurisdictions or even in the city of Seattle, be spent on, you know, like police and fire, or if it has to be more narrowly tailored.

It is more narrowly tailored and it is more directed towards services that the people with behavioral health issues and experiencing homelessness who come into contact with the criminal justice system may need to keep them from interacting with that system over and over again.

And I understand it's quite important to one of the prime sponsors of the bill for sure that the money be used to actually assist people who are interacting with the criminal justice system.

So would it be more accurate to characterize that as like a kind of a diversion funding prong than a public safety one?

Because I think that's been confusing to a lot of my constituents and a lot of people.

who are reading the narrative and think this might be like a secret clause to fund more kind of law and order type programs.

Yes, I think a diversion is a very excellent way to think about that bucket of money in this proposal.

I think it would be helpful for us to have a better sense of where those dollars would go.

For example, if we're talking about facilities, public safety services, how those will be equitably distributed in the city and across the county so that people don't make either an assumption that it will go into additional policing or that we are actually more directive in the legislation that this is for services in the public safety realm versus the latter.

Also, it would be, I think, extremely helpful if we had a better sense of how our priorities potentially will be represented in a final bill as it comes to spending allocation.

We haven't even gotten to the to the big question around preemption.

But as long as it relates to spending allocation, I think in our letter, second to last bullet and the last bullet, the council was really specific about a desire to see a large portion, i.e. at least half of the dollars going into housing with the majority of those housing dollars going into zero to 30% area median income housing.

We have a lot of information that we can share with you as it relates to shelter services.

A real emphasis on enhanced shelter services, specifically evidence-based services for those who are experiencing homelessness.

desire and I think the strong message from council was as the bill is finalized we would like there to be that directive in statute so that it is very clear to both the county and the incorporated cities that this is truly about housing evidence-based strategies for homelessness behavioral health services and to Councilmember Lewis's point specific public safety issues and I think our letter can help with that.

or we can help clarify if needed.

I'll follow up to that.

I'm going to underscore what Council Member Mosqueda just shared, but for those of us that were not around during the head tax, one of the criticisms and concerns I had is that 80% was going towards sheltering the unsheltered and 20% was still uncertain to some degree, in my opinion.

And my position has always been that if we're going to tax and we're going to move forward, to shelter the unsheltered and look at homelessness and behavioral health issues, that a majority, that our clarion call here is that it goes to sheltering the unsheltered and the services that are provided, not to public safety.

I understand that there was a big push for intervention programs, and I understand that.

But again, it took us a lot of time and effort and political will and capital to get it from the Regional Policy Council across the street over here, to get it passed, the long history it took.

And so I just want to make sure that we are clear in our North Star that the reason we're doing this and we deal with the Sound Cities people which is fine, but to ensure to them two things that we kept pushing, and we did this with the opioid issue as well, is not all the difficult things that go on in our county are located in the city of Seattle.

That homelessness, addiction, behavioral health issues, they come from everywhere.

And the regional approach is what has been our our rallying point to get these other cities on board to understand why we want to have this regional response.

And my feeling is, and I'm hoping when I'm done with this job, after this, is that we continue to have a regional response to these kind of issues, whether it's public health, public safety, housing, that we are not held by the tyranny of the minority when we start seeing those ordinances passed about, we don't want safe injection sites in our neighborhood.

Well, you don't get to do that.

The Board of Health makes those decisions because it's a county issue.

It affects all of us.

So I'm kind of on the soapbox here, but my point is, what I'm trying to say is what Councilman Esqueda said, is we want to be true to our word, not only to our constituents and our residents, but to all of King County.

that we want to look at sheltering in and sheltered and having these homes and all these programs built so we can do that.

So, I'm just going to say, did you want to follow up?

Just one follow up on that, if I might.

And just to be clear, I think that's a great example for the safe consumption sites.

But I want to be clear for the viewing audience.

This bill 2948 has nothing to do with safe consumption sites.

This is all about housing and shelter services.

So just before anybody thinks that, Is the case it is absolutely not and I know there was some confusion from some on the other In the other chamber, so I want and that's my fault because I use the I use the same example again I apologize and then just lastly very quickly.

I think a really good, you know specific requests to the president pro tem's point about equitable distribution is in section 9b to sub 2 it would be very helpful to have a definition of what equitably cited means and If we're talking about equitably citing services across the region, it would be helpful to have that clarification of the legislative intent before it moves out.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, can I ask a clarifying question?

You want the definition of what could be equitably cited?

Yes.

Under public safety, local areas can spend money on facilities as long as they're equitably cited.

So that's what I think gets back to the question that Councilmember Lewis asked as well.

Councilmember Morales.

I want to back up and ask, I guess, more technical questions.

One is as it relates to the rate and understand if there's any conversation about changing that rate.

Because as we all know, this would raise a fraction of what we actually need to begin to address the problem if we're really talking about this bill being a homelessness, a tool for addressing our homelessness crisis and housing issue.

My read of the latest version is that it raises a little bit more, is intended to raise a little bit more than the first version, but that our allocation would still be.

a fraction of what we need, 40, maybe 50 million.

So that's one question.

And then the other thing is that I don't have a clear understanding of what the conversations at the county are like.

If the county is prepared to accept this authority, if there's any conversation happening at the county council level about how they would plan to implement this.

So maybe you can address that as well.

Sure.

Yes, it's my understanding that there are active conversations ongoing about raising the rate to a higher level and trying to come to a negotiated solution on that, certainly.

It is also my understanding that there are active conversations with the county council members happening and that the county's lobbyist is engaged in the conversations in Olympia and is similar to what I'm doing with you all, providing information back and forth to them because ultimately they would have to enact this tax at the county level.

So having them on board is of course important.

Thank you.

What would be helpful I think to all of us is, you know, in reading the bill, you really need to transfer everything to a spreadsheet to understand how much money we're getting.

So can we get a spreadsheet that translates how much money we're getting?

Budget has started on something along those lines.

I think part of it's like, well, how much, what's the payroll tax number that we're multiplying these numbers to?

And this particular bill is more complicated because it has the 0.10 as well as the 0.25.

And so, you know, my rough calculations, it's more like 75 million, but I think we need a spreadsheet so we all are on the same page.

you know, our finance chair can plan and we can all determine, you know, how much is this to Seattle?

Yes, certainly.

And I understand it's a bit of a moving target, too, with different versions of the bill.

And it's like 20% of this and 10% of that and 45%.

So it does get confusing.

And I do know the budget office has started that at our request so that we can understand it as well.

So we will be happy to provide that to you.

And I do believe we have a clarifying call with legislative staff with the budget office later today.

So we should have more for you soon.

Thank you.

And I was under the impression that we had been talking about, and the questions at this table make me wonder whether or not it's actually ended up getting in this version of the bill, that there would be a percentage that could only be used for permanent supportive housing.

Is that not in the bill?

I believe that, I believe the current version of the bill, and I will double check this for you, says that 50% of the money of the 60% that goes to affordable housing, of which Seattle gets 45%, but 50% of that entire bucket, not just Seattle's portion, should be used to serve people earning under 30% of their immediate income.

Okay, so, but there's also, I guess, maybe I didn't ask the question the right way.

You very helpfully answered the question that I asked, which is permanent supportive housing, so that's 30% and under.

Is there, what is the percentage of the total amount that is used for housing?

60% directly to housing, yes.

60% to housing, and half of that for under 30% AMI.

Correct.

Thank you.

Exactly.

It's a very confusing way to get there, but it's true, but that's even got it Okay, I guess I could go back to my questions or I don't know I don't want to take up too much of your time.

We're scheduled till 1015 so Okay, terrific

I think I just answered this question, but there's a question on what subregion is Seattle in, because the bill talks about subregions.

Seattle is its own region, and then there's two other subregions that would be sort of the north and east and then the south area of the county.

So we are our own region, all on our own, from the current version of the bill that I understand.

What intersections is this bill intended to have with the Regional Homelessness Authority?

Specifically, how will the advisory committee and the RHA work together to coordinate?

I think to some extent that that would be decided again at a spending plan at the county level.

But I do understand that there is some intent behind, you know, the city has an interlocal agreement with the Regional Homelessness Authority so that we could, you know, obviously put some of the money toward the Regional Homelessness Authority.

I think there's also been a conversation around retaining some authority for us at the city in case we did still want to use some funds around homelessness for a specific use.

So I do think that that's all things that would be decided at the local level and that don't go into the detail in the state legislation at this time.

What is the intention behind the ability to supplant funds?

I understand that it's important to the business community in particular in some of the conversations that this not be used to provide funding for existing programs, but that it's really used to build new housing and create new shelter and create new behavioral health facilities and services so that we're not just backfilling current budget.

So that's why that language is in the bill.

I'm concerned that the 50 employee threshold might be too low and that the $3 million threshold is too low because it's gross revenues instead of net.

I do understand that this part of the bill is still under discussion.

I think that's a policy decision for, you know, you and interaction with the state legislators.

I do know that small businesses have been in conversation with the legislators, so I do understand that that's been happening, though I haven't been directly involved in those conversations in my role.

Section 3, why are there exemptions for motor vehicle and fuel and liquor?

As I understand it, there are existing state laws that make it a requirement that that happen.

And we could certainly provide you with additional information on that and what RCW it is and things like that.

But it's my understanding that that's the way it has to be under existing state law.

Section 7 and 9, the bill defines affordable housing as only income restricted.

This is a long question.

I think I'm just going to try to summarize it.

I think essentially it's trying to get at, like, why are we only saying that it needs to serve below 80% of AMI?

Wouldn't we want to also rent restrict so that people couldn't, you know, people might be cost burdened by paying their rent?

I do think that that's the overall intent, that it run just like other affordable housing does and be income and rent restricted.

I also think that in all likelihood in Seattle, the funds would be blended with our other sources of funding, like mandatory housing affordability and the Seattle housing levy, which is all restricted to 60% of area median income.

so that we would even be going lower.

There's some home ownership opportunities potentially at 80%, although I don't know if that money would be here.

But I think just the braiding of funding that we normally do would necessarily income restrict the funds at a lower level here in the city of Seattle.

I think the next question is really a question about the exact allocation of funds.

And I think rather than do some quick math here on the back of a napkin, I'll leave that to our budget office and give that to you after this meeting.

Can the reference to shelters be changed to enhanced shelters?

We should not be expanding mats on the floor model without case management because it does not have high enough success outcomes.

You know, I think we can certainly advance that as a priority.

One of the things that I think I've been hearing from the city, the other cities, the suburban cities, is that they feel like they need lots of flexibility and that their needs are very different from Seattle needs.

So I think all of these policy decisions in this bill are, you know, trying to walk a line where we're making sure we're meeting needs of all of the stakeholders.

So I think, you know, that's probably a conversation around that, but it seems certainly it would behoove us to add, you know, enhanced shelters to the list of things for sure.

May I just clarify on that question?

Sure.

Not only is it cost savings to do that, we know that it also helps stabilize people and get them into housing when they have enhanced shelter at a rate of four or five times that of folks who are living on mats on the floor.

Since this is a finance bill, I think it makes financial sense for us to really ensure that these dollars are going into enhanced shelter.

A lot of the conversation we had earlier around evidence-based strategies, and I know that Council Pro Tem was there and I wasn't able to be there when we were talking about regional authority and our desire to see evidence-based strategies emphasized in basically the creation of the Regional Homelessness Authority.

I understand that language wasn't included.

So when it comes to this, I think it's really important that we do emphasize the evidence-based strategies, the enhanced shelter model, because we don't want folks coming up with new ideas and just throwing money at the wall when we know what works, especially when folks are dying without these services.

So thank you for taking that back.

And just want to clarify, at this point, does the bill say evidence-based strategies still in it, or is it silent on evidence-based strategies?

I'm actually not sure, but I won't check on that.

I feel like I should know that.

Even though I've read it a few times, it just doesn't stick.

So I'll double check for you and get back to you.

And then I'll also bring forward the point that you feel strongly as a council that evidence-based strategies should be included and that we should make sure we're focusing on enhanced shelter.

Thank you.

There's a public safety question, but I believe I've already answered that with some of the other questions.

How is the 0.1% to Seattle constrained?

It appears to be constrained to 60% for housing, 25% for public safety, and 15% for homelessness and behavioral health services.

I believe as it is, it would be outside of the housing realm that that 0.1% is there, but I need to double check that because I do think that the way the bill is written, it's a little bit confusing.

I think with all these different percentages and the moving pieces that sort of things have gotten taken from one version of the bill and put into another.

And then when you change the percentage, it doesn't work quite as well.

So it's not surprising that there's some confusion around that.

So I will get from Ben Noble exactly how that works and others at the budget office so that you all can understand that.

And same thing, there's a question about, is there a redundant or copy-paste typo?

I think that that may be the case with some language in the bill.

And there's just a technical question on maybe reimposed by ordinance for one or more subsequent periods, maybe reimposed by county ordinance for one or more subsequent periods to make sure that the governing body is clear in the language.

I think, as Lily said, our budget office is having a phone call with staff, you know, staff in Olympia at this time of the year are moving at an incredibly fast pace and being asked to change things.

And of course, this is not the only bill that is down there, despite how important it is.

They're under a lot of pressure.

So our budget staff did have some questions about technical issues, about how things would operate, about language that needs to be included to make sure there's functionality to actually make this, you know, policy come to fruition at the local level.

And so we're convening that call today to start that conversation to make sure that the bill is technically correct.

I'm curious about the exemption from tax due to an employer's extreme financial hardship.

I think there's going to be an effort to further define extreme financial hardship, and I think if that's just meant in the case of a business that may be experiencing, you know, any number of issues, a bankruptcy or something else, that they might be able to get an exemption from the tax for a limited period of time if it was going to be, you know, somehow make their business worse off.

And I think it would be, it's meant to be quite a tight definition.

So, with that, I think we are, is there anything else you guys want to add?

I don't think so, unless there are more questions.

Can I say a quick thank you?

Of course, I knew you had one.

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you.

I know that folks at the Intergovernmental Relations Office received about six questions initially.

We now have about 16 questions, so thank you for walking through those.

For our council colleagues, we tried to collect some of the questions you have.

We'll provide you with the full list of those questions that Robin was responding to.

And thank you, because I know many of these questions, the answers have varied depending on the draft that you looked at.

So happy to have additional information as you suggested.

Love the idea of a chart and some more information around the spending allocation.

But just want to say thank you for fielding those questions and doing so.

this morning because we know that it's all being thrown at you very fast, but appreciate your representation of where the council's at especially around preemption down in Olympia.

We know that many people have been asking for preemption in this bill and I think that to Councilmember Morales' point, we all see this as an important down payment to an incredibly challenging situation, a crisis that's been declared in this city.

state of emergency for the last three years.

And so every dollar that we can bring into the region is going to be so appreciated.

I saw Representative Macri this weekend at her town hall, along with her colleagues in the 43rd, and applaud her for her steadfast leadership in this.

It truly is, I think, because she and our friends are there saying we need to have the floor raised in terms of bringing in dollars, but also don't want to limit the ability for us to think about creative solutions in the future.

It's just good governance.

And so I really applaud her for her steadfast leadership and you guys for helping to shepherd our council priorities down in Olympia and for answering all those questions so quickly.

Really, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Anything else?

And Council Pro Tem, it's always great to be here with you.

Thank you, Cheryl, Lily, Robin, and Quinn.

We'll see you again.

Thank you.

Right, we'll see you next Monday, right?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Okay, so with that, now that we're done with our Olympia report, let's go into our committee reports.

So, let's see.

The next, for my committee, the next meeting of the Public Asset and Native Communities Committee will be Tuesday, March 3rd at 2 o'clock.

There are three items on the agenda.

Number one, the reappointment of Kelly McCaffrey to the Park District Oversight Committee.

Number two, a bill which authorizes the superintendent of Parks and Recreation to execute an amendment to the amended restated concession agreement with the Tennis Center in Magnuson Park.

Council Member Peterson, I understand that you've been briefed on this item, and so we'll go through what kind of public benefits of this proposed amendment and what that means.

I look forward to learning more on committee.

We also, which is really important for you folks, Since we're all part of the Metropolitan Park District, there'll be a presentation from Parks on the six-year spending plan.

This is an important budget year for the Parks District.

And so, for those of you, it actually is very critical because when the voters passed the Metropolitan Park District in 2014, There was a six-year plan and there was very clear leadership in about how they what that in that six-year plan what we were going to spend on operation and maintenance and programming.

So now the six-year plan is coming up.

So there's a lot of money there for different projects and I'm looking at it with an eye towards district as well as over across the city.

One of the areas that I'm focusing on are community centers, not just community, parks, fields, pools, and there was another one besides community centers.

I don't know if libraries are separate.

So we're looking at, I'm looking at, and I'm still in discussions with, about the brick and mortar projects that need to come online and how we start planning for that and how we look at not just counting up for district for district's sake, but seeing what the needs are in particular neighborhoods and how much our city has changed since a lot of these brick and mortar and programming programs have begun.

So with the six-year program coming up, this is the good time for us to all start having conversations about what that six-year programming should look like and make sure that I'm transmitting that and working with the executive on that.

So that will be in committee for the first time.

So I do sit on Sound Transit this week.

I'm looking forward to the final vote on the 130th Street light rail station, the construction schedule.

There's an opportunity to open earlier than 2031, and we want to save, obviously, taxpayer money, not move dirt twice.

And we are looking at about 60,000 riders in the North End if we have this type of service disruption.

So I will be at the board meeting to vote for this project to open earlier than 2031. The meeting will be at Union Station this Thursday at 1 30 p.m.

Again, I want to thank Councilmember Strauss for appearing and for public comment for our light rail and for our transportation system from Pierce County to King County to Stohomish County.

All right, Councilmember Morales.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

We have a Community Economic Development Committee meeting at 2 p.m.

on Thursday.

We will be getting an update on the workforce development work from the Office of Economic Development.

We have a couple of appointments to make, and we will be voting to accept funds for the AIDS Memorial Pathway that I talked about, I believe, last week in Cal Anderson Park.

Let's see, this last week we had a Board of Health meeting, Council Member Mosqueda and Luis and I, where we had a presentation from several young people on the need to improve community conditions if we really want to address gang violence and really just support our young people.

So I felt vindicated because many of the things they were talking about are things that we've said we really need to invest in our neighbors, in our young people.

And if we're going to turn things around, it means really committing to improving community conditions for people.

This week we are, well, we have begun outreach throughout our district.

So we are having a meeting with folks in the CID this week to talk about all the different things that are happening in that community and make sure that folks know that we are here to advocate for them, whether it's around transit issues or housing or any of the other kinds of issues that are happening.

I also had dinner in the CID last night to celebrate my wedding anniversary.

And want to remind people that though we do have a coronavirus internationally, we do not have any confirmed cases in Seattle, so please go to the CID.

They need your business.

You need to have dinner there, buy something.

It's beautiful.

Please go to the CID.

I will, and I have just recently.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Did you guys vote on the president for the Board of Health?

We did, and Council Member McDermott is the new chair of the Board of Health.

What else?

So we are doing district hours every Friday.

This week we will be in Columbia City.

So if you want to have a little one-on-one with me, you can go to our website, council website.

We'll be at the Taproot Cafe in the morning and then doing a business district tour in the afternoon.

And on Friday, I am honored to be introducing at the Unity Day event, Town Hall, six o'clock, I'll be introducing Ijeoma Oluwa, our very fantastic author, artist, and constituent of mine.

So if anybody's interested, please join us at Town Hall, Friday night at six o'clock.

That's all I have.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good morning, colleagues.

Last week, I was able to attend the State of the City Address with many colleagues, and I appreciate Mayor Durkan summarizing her vision and recent initiatives.

I think I heard a lot of common ground on high-level principles, like reducing homelessness, improving safety, expanding affordable housing.

I'm happy to see on the agenda today the watch list.

Thank you very much for that to Councilmember Mosqueda, Councilmember Herbold, and others who put that concept together.

There are large transportation utility and technology projects on there, so I really appreciate that attention to the fiscal responsibility.

Transportation Utilities Committee has three items on today's agenda.

The first ordinance enables SDOT to accept easements for retaining walls.

All three of these items were recommended unanimously by the committee.

The second ordinance approves a spending agreement between SDOT and Sound Transit related to the pedestrian bridge that will span I-5 to connect to the Northgate Sound Transit Station.

Thank you, Councilmember Jorrez, for being a champion of that.

That station, as you know, opens in the fall of 2021 along with Roosevelt and Brooklyn Avenue.

The third ordinance enables SDOT to accept grant funds from Sound Transit as already approved by the Capital Improvement Program budget.

Specifically, this will improve pedestrian access to both the current Mount Baker Station and the future Judkins Park Station.

Central staff and I are happy to answer any questions about these three ordinances.

The next Transportation Utilities Committee meets on March 4th at 930. Last week in District 4, I was, it was a big time for former councilmembers, former councilmembers.

I was interviewed by former councilmembers Gene Godin and Sue Donaldson at the Space 101.1 FM, which is in Magnuson Park in District 4. They have a radio station called The Bridge.

And also, former Councilmember Abel Pacheco gave me a tour of the Sound Transit Station at Roosevelt, which opens in the fall of 2021. This week, I'll be meeting with officers in the West Precinct because that actually is connected to East Lake.

They patrol East Lake, which is in District 4. a big public safety week.

Also, I'll be meeting with the head of the North Precinct and also the University of Washington Police about issues going on in the university district on the Ave.

Thank you.

Do you know who you're meeting with at the North Precinct?

Is it Captain Sano?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Good.

Thank you.

Mr. Strauss.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council President Pro Tem.

There are zero items on the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

There are four items for the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the introduction and referral calendar.

There's CB 119750, an ordinance This is the ordinance portion of the contract rezone of 4600 Union Bay Place, which we heard about in committee.

CB 119748, which is designating an ordinance for the Sunset and Telephone and Telegraph Exchange building.

There's a landmark designating for UW's Eagleson Hall and two appointments for the landmark preservation board.

Our next Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is this Wednesday, February 26th.

There are five items, a vote on, so there will be a vote on the reappointment for Director Torgelson of SDCI, two appointments to the Landmarks Preservation Board, and two landmarks designating ordinances for the UW's Eagleson Hall and Sunset Telephone and Telegraph Exchange.

I had a really great week last week.

It was a good week.

On Tuesday, we had the Regional Transit Committee, which this year we will be looking at the strategic plan for Metro and how we roll out service throughout the region.

On Thursday, I spent the entire day in district, so that's primarily why it was such a great day.

D.

Strauss and D.

Six, DJ D5 over there, you know.

And so in the morning, we spent the entire morning and into the afternoon in the Green Lake neighborhood, visiting with nearly a dozen businesses, stopping at the Green Lake Community Center, which we should all be discussing as, I don't believe that it's been updated since the Olmsteds designed it.

That and the Lake City were set for pretty much a demo.

There's a list of two in Green Lake.

I was just at Green Lake Saturday and I was actually looking at the pool and walking around in that area.

So I'm hoping we have some good discussions about Green Lake.

Yep, I have some comments that are maybe best left for off the dais.

And so some other, you know, some things that I noticed also is Spuds Fish and Chips has had, you know, its notice for development.

And I was, you know, a little bit So I went in and we had a nice meeting with them.

And what is amazing about their story is they are redeveloping the property.

They're going to retain, they will be technically leasing at a very beneficial rate.

In the front space, they'll be keeping the sign, the Spuds Fish and Chip sign.

It will be inside.

There's going to be affordable housing in the building.

They are going to be staying in place.

They do all compostable.

They have very little trash.

I mean, this is just such a great story of somebody who began working there as an employee, took over the business, is now stewarding the business into how Seattle is changing.

So this is a way for Seattle to keep the things that are unique to its character, spuds, fish, and chips, that everybody knows.

Say it again.

Spuds, fish, and chips.

And really being able to create the density that we need to welcome our new neighbors, to keep the affordable housing that we need to keep the people in place in our community.

We also didn't just stop at spuds.

We also had lunch at Bongo's, which if anyone has not been to Bongo's, since you absolutely have to go there.

Other updates for this coming...

Also, oh, for the afternoon on Thursday, I spent the afternoon in district having district constituent meetings.

And so it's very important to me to have meeting availability after 5 p.m.

so that folks who have nine to five jobs are also able to meet me in district.

Another update for this week is that the 40 and the 18 bus routes going through Ballard will be back to their regular scheduled stop.

They had been rerouted after a fire in Ballard.

This week, I will also be attending the Fremont Neighborhood Council meeting.

And again, Thursday, we'll be holding district office hours.

As noted during OIR's presentation, I am a renter and I am moving, and there are significant costs associated with moving that I would be happy to talk about in another time.

I'm moving from a 1960s building, which does not have secured access to a 1980s building that has laundry and a nice in unit.

So thank you really move it on up All right Well, I was also going to give an update about spuds, but I guess I have to do something else now District 6 yeah so The select committee on homelessness going to meet this week on Wednesday the 26th We don't have any items on this afternoon's council agenda.

We're going to be getting a update from the nav team so Definitely and encourage everybody to come for that discussion.

It should be a good conversation about where we are with the NAV team and some of our ongoing challenges to make sure that we're doing everything we can do for that intervention to be an impactful one.

The district office hours, well first actually I'm gonna do this proclamation.

So there is a great community activist in my district in Belltown, Jane Savard, who may be known to some folks here on the council.

She's the former chair of Parks and Art.

She's retiring and moving out of the state unfortunately on, I think at the end of this month, early March, there's going to be a farewell celebration for her and her work on March 1st, and a number of stakeholders in the community have requested a proclamation, and I'm happy to sponsor that proclamation.

It was circulated before council briefing, but I understand that's a tight turnaround, so I think I'm going to circulate it instead this afternoon at full council, unless people are willing to sign it.

Now, I do have it here, so I can pass it around.

If folks wanna take their time, I can circulate it again at council, full council this afternoon.

Is she gonna be here this afternoon?

Or are we just signing it?

She's not gonna be here in person this afternoon, but the timing is to allow us to present it to her in person at her farewell party on March 1st.

So it will be done in time to do that.

But the volunteers and philanthropists that spend their time volunteering on these projects, serving on our community councils, are the folks that really serve the core of our civic community here and really appreciate the work that Jane has done and people like Jane.

And I do think it's good that on occasion as a council, we have an opportunity to recognize that sacrifice.

So I'm happy to bring that proclamation forward.

District office hours last week were really rewarding and just getting out in District 7 and going to more community councils and including some of the ones that are often overlooked has been a really rewarding part of this job for the first two months.

I am happy to report that last Wednesday I went to the Cascade community council which is a sub council of the South Lake Union Community Council.

They had never had a council member visit them ever for their meeting and they were pretty struck that someone would come and talk to them about a lot of the work that they're doing in that sliver between Fairview and I-5 where They are working on a lot of community building activities.

I was struck too that a majority of the Cascade Community Council are folks from a number of the Lehigh buildings that are in the Cascade neighborhood.

There's a very high density of Lehigh buildings.

I do remember during the campaign, I went and spoke to the Bart Harvey, which is one of them.

So it was really great to see the civic engagement from the folks that are in those buildings, the community building that they're doing around Cascade Park and planning a potential art walk, planning a potential inter-Lehigh building kickball league.

And it's just great to get out there and see everything that folks are doing all over District 7 to build strong communities and really enhance our civic life.

I will be, this week, conducting office hours at the Uptown Coffee in Magnolia on Friday, February 28th.

Definitely encourage those watching at home to go online and grab an appointment.

I think there's still quite a few that are available.

Of course, I'm always down to meet with folks if there aren't enough appointments.

they would like to find a time that's more suitable to their schedule.

I mean, echoing Council Member Straus' comments earlier, I do similarly try to have hours that go after 5 p.m.

I think that definitely is a best practice, and it certainly has been one for me so far.

The last thing I'm gonna distribute is I did have an opportunity during my last office hours in South Lake Union last week to meet with a delegation of folks from MOHAI, You know, I didn't have the heart to tell them Ojai is actually not in my district.

It's in Council Member Sawant's, but they came to my office hours, so I didn't have the heart to break that to them.

But they did tell me about the Democracy Project, which is going to be something that's coming to MOHAI April through August of 2020. They want to engage us as an institution to be active participants.

They told me that they, as part of the programming for this, are going to have live oral arguments before the State Supreme Court in MOHAI.

on matters that are on the court's spring docket.

I told them that I'm happy to schedule my Committee of the Whole meeting for either April or May off-site at MOHAI, potentially, if that's something that would fit with their programming, which they were excited about the prospect of.

I'm going to distribute the flyer now that they provided me with the details about the Democracy Project, which is an initiative of the Smithsonian, you know, about democracy, the challenges democracy faces, the participatory nature of democracy.

And it sounds like something that will be quite the great exhibit and really a great boon for the young people of the city of Seattle and the region.

I look forward to that when it comes online in the spring and look forward to seeing how we as a council can partner with that project.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Skeda.

Thank you, Madam Pro Tem, President and colleagues.

I want to first say thanks to my team and Sejal Parikh as Chief of Staff for collecting all of the questions that we had on 2948, the Progressive Revenue Bill.

I want to just recognize the fast turnaround on that and as I mentioned to OIR, I appreciate their response to those questions, but we're really appreciative of all of your offices for engaging with us as we really try to get to The details and to identify how the spending will come to the city the good questions about whether or not This is going to be directed to the services that we know and just want to clarify as well the earlier comment That was made that said something around, you know, the the businesses want to make sure that this money is not going to supplant I think that's our intent as well.

That's everybody's intent.

We know we need additional funding and that there's in no way is intended to supplant any funding given the dire need for housing and homelessness.

But a huge thanks to Sejal for grabbing all of those questions and circulating those as we see new language sent around and appreciate your quick work with our office to get those sent to OIR and our other colleagues in Olympia.

Thank you so much because you've been on top of this all this homeless housing stuff since the day you got elected I really want to thank you.

You've been so kind so good about dialogue and conversation and what do we agree on what we don't agree on how do we craft this ordinance to make sure and I really really appreciate that about you and your leadership so thank you.

Well thank you and it takes a team so I appreciate all of you and our team in our office too.

Speaking of our team, so our team in our office had a really great idea.

We know that February is Black History Month and we also recognize that this is the first time I think in 52 years that we haven't had an individual from the black community on the council.

So we took it upon ourselves to introduce a proclamation that really recognizes February as Black History Month, and we're excited.

We're going to have four people come and join us today.

Thank you all for signing.

I saw the proclamation was making its way around the table.

We're going to have Councilmember Larry Gossett, former Councilmember from King County, former Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harreld, and community leader Mary Flowers, and Reverend Harriet Walden, who you all know from her various work, but including at the CPC.

They will be here to accept the proclamation today.

Excited to be able to have this proclamation that recognizes the legacy of resilience and advocacy in Seattle's black community and the fight for civil rights, housing justice, workers' rights, and police accountability.

So thank you all for your efforts to make sure that we raise that up and celebrate it officially at the City of Seattle.

We'll be presenting that this afternoon, and there will be one other item on today's full council agenda.

from the Finance and Housing Committee, which is the Capital Projects Watch List Resolution.

I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for your amendments.

I think that made it stronger.

And again, this is something that Councilmember Herbold, but also Councilmember Rob Johnson worked on quite a bit prior to his departure.

So excited to see a greater transparency and accountability on those projects.

There is no Finance and Housing Committee this week, and we will look forward to I think being pro tem again next month for a series of days.

I want to recognize for folks We are gonna have a presentation from the Board of Health Sorry, the director from Public Health Seattle King County to give us an update on coronavirus as well Both to dispel myths that are out there.

I think Councilmember Morales you made a really important point we don't want the urgency of tracking coronavirus to get caught up in a any racist or xenophobic concepts around who potentially has the virus.

There is a clear interest in making sure that the information is clarified and that members of the public understand what coronavirus is, how it's transmitted, and where the threat currently is.

And as we talk about that, though, I want to remind folks, more people in this city and in this state are dying from the flu.

So please continue to wash your hands, but most importantly, get that vaccine if you haven't yet.

And we'll have some updates in March from our friends from Public Health Seattle, King County, ideally.

Dr. Duchin and Director Hayes can join us for that presentation.

And thank you for putting the Lake City Community Center on the watch list.

And you're right, Councilmember Johnson did start that because we start these capital projects and they just go away.

We get the money in the door through a budget that we don't know what happens after that.

So thank you for staying on top of that.

Before we adjourn, there's two things I forgot to do for the record, and I want to thank our staff for letting me know.

Number one, I want to note for the record that Council Member Lewis and Councilor Mosqueda did arrive.

And number two, I was supposed to approve the minutes, so I'm going to move to approve the minutes right now.

Seeing no objection, the minutes are now passed.

Is there anything else?

All right, we stand adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. President.

Yeah.