Transcript of seattle-city-council - Committee on Economic Development, Technology, and City Light 6/28/23

SPEAKER_00

special meeting of the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

It's June 28th, 2023. The meeting will come to order.

It is 9.01.

I am Sarah Nelson.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_01

Council President Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Chair Nelson present for present one absent.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

This meeting is special because we're starting 30 minutes early to accommodate my participation in the launch of the mayor's downtown activation plan that starts at 10am at Westlake Park so.

I am attending, because the plan will will have several components that are likely to come to this committee so I think everyone for your flexibility and being here early today panelists and also colleagues.

All right, we only have two items on today's agenda, continuing our now three-week tradition of fairly short meetings.

The first is an ordinance giving Seattle City Light flexibility on moving overhead electric facilities on streets and alleys in the First Hill neighborhood underground.

And the second is a resolution from ITD that would authorize the city to begin cable franchise renewal proceedings with Comcast.

All right, are there any objections to the agenda?

Seeing none, the agenda is adopted.

And let's see, with that, we'll now move into public comment on items listed on the agenda.

Let's see, are there any people on the signup sheet remotely?

SPEAKER_01

There are no commenters signed in remote or in person.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

Seeing as how there are no public commenters remote or in person, I now close public comment.

And will the clerk please read the first item into the agenda?

SPEAKER_01

Agenda item number one, Council Bill 120594, an ordinance relating to underground utility districts, authorizing the City Light Department to evaluate the risks presented by overhead facilities on streets and alleys in the First Hill District and to determine, based upon the department's engineering standards, whether electric facilities should be undergrounded and whether to dispose of remaining utility poles, and amending sections 21.68.070 21.68.090 and 21.68.100 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Discussion and possible vote.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

At our last meeting, we had a briefing and presentation on June 13th from Seattle City Light, which is linked to the agenda right now.

So if you want to refer to that presentation, you're welcome to.

And today I'm hoping to vote this legislation out of committee.

So to recap, 55 years ago, council enacted an ordinance requiring that all electric distribution, telephone, telegraph, CATV, and other wires and facilities in four districts across the city go underground.

And that was a long time ago, and we're not exactly sure why that, why council did that.

Now fast forward to today, and I'm seeing that council member Herbold has joined the meeting.

While facilities are mostly completely undergrounded in those districts, there remain portions of the First Hilton neighborhood that still has overhead wires.

And this resolution, I mean, this council bill would provide some flexibility to Seattle City Light when they are replacing infrastructure to leave them above ground for many different reasons, including the fact that the property owners adjacent to the main line have to pay the cost of trenching and undergrounding from the main line to the actual building.

And providing more flexibility could make development costs less expensive, and that would decrease the cost of housing.

There are other good reasons.

And with that, we have our presenters.

to provide more information at the table and perhaps provide a synopsis.

And I am hoping that you will introduce yourselves and answer any questions that may come up.

SPEAKER_03

Good morning.

My name is Jeff Wolf.

I'm a Legal Affairs Advisor at City Light.

SPEAKER_00

Hi, good morning.

My name is Hina Arai.

I'm a Senior Policy and Project Manager at Seattle City Light.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Eric McConaghy.

I'm a Council Central Staff.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

So continuing from last meeting, I have not received questions from my council members, but I am wondering if you could just provide a brief synopsis for anybody who was not watching last time, and then we can proceed to a vote if there aren't any questions or comments.

SPEAKER_03

Certainly.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

This ordinance amends the code so that it gives City Light some discretion in terms of whether when it modifies a system, whether it needs to underground everything or whether it can underground certain portions to meet safety requirements.

So it's a safety oriented code provision.

And, and it by giving us discretion, it enables us to maintain systems that are perfectly good shape that don't need to be underground did so that we can save on the cost of.

of a significant project.

And we do need from time to time and in the First Hill District, we need to underground certain areas of that district in order to meet clearance standards.

But in large part, those are only a few of the polls that are in the district, not the vast majority.

And so what we would do is we would review the area that is going to be impacted put together a plan, a design, and in that design, we would look to see what areas need to be undergrounded for safety purposes and what areas can remain as is and move accordingly, which would enable us to be more expeditious, more efficient, and more cost effective.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

And please remind us what work is happening right now or will be.

What is planned coming forward?

I think it's next year or this summer.

SPEAKER_03

We're looking hopefully to start next year.

That's the impetus for this amendment to these to the code provisions is that we had an area between on the East Belmont Avenue and on the West Summit Avenue on Capitol Hill, the west side of Capitol Hill, bounded on the south by East John and on the north by Roy.

And it is a very dense area made of a large apartment buildings, but also single family homes.

And we had some issues both with clearance, because we have a 4KV system, which is an antiquated system, still in place that's operating, we have some urgency because if something went wrong with that system, we don't have enough replacement parts.

They no longer are manufactured.

So we would have a hard time fixing that system.

So we want to move that over to the current modern 26 kV system.

And in order to do that, we would have to increase the clearance, which would require us to move some of those poles.

And we showed a picture of an alleyway where the poles were right up against an apartment building.

And they would have to get moved underground because we couldn't move the pole in the middle of an alley because that requires traffic to go through.

So that small area would have to be underground.

But the area that borders Belmont, Harrison, most of East John, and Summit, could remain overhead.

And in fact, many of those lines are currently 26 KV and don't need any modification.

So we could make what would be a very large project into a much smaller project.

And we would save, as you indicated earlier, we would save the cost for homeowners who would need a trench to connect to our underground system because it's like a side sewer.

The owner of the property owns the infrastructure that leads up to the connection point.

and has to build it and maintain it.

And that's a big expense, particularly in an area that's been long developed and is densely, where homes are densely located, and there's a lot of existing underground utilities already.

So we would save the homeowners a lot of money.

We would be trenching in the street, which would close a lot of streets, which would take away parking from Capitol Hill, which would be a huge headache for people who don't have garages because they require parking in those areas.

And anyone who has been up in Capitol Hill knows it's hard to get parking.

So we believe this will be a benefit, a win-win to both the utility and to the citizens.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Eric, do you have anything to add?

SPEAKER_02

I don't.

That's a great rundown.

I thought that your intro was really thorough and I really appreciate the recap And I also have not heard from members of the committee or the council members or any other commentary since the last meeting two weeks ago, just to sort of say that out loud.

I haven't heard any concerns.

SPEAKER_00

All right, thank you.

I am looking to see if there are any questions from my colleagues.

I see none.

So with that, I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120594. Is there a second?

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

And thank you, City Light, for attending today early.

I appreciate it.

Hello.

Okay, so every 10 years, the city's cable TV franchise must be renewed.

And this resolution authorizes renewal proceedings with Comcast to begin.

And it also authorizes the city to implement processes to comply with the city's obligations under federal law.

And this is the first step in a fairly long process in the council bill authorizing the actual franchise renewal will not be before council until I believe 2025 2025 Thank you very much.

With that, we have our presenter at the table, could you please introduce yourself and begin the presentation.

SPEAKER_04

Hi, yes, good morning.

I'm John Morrison Winters, Digital Equity Program and Broadband Manager at Seattle IT.

Happy to be here today to represent the Digital Equity team at Seattle IT and the Office of Cable Communications that now resides within the Digital Equity Program.

So yes, today I'm going to be talking a little bit about cable franchising and the process of cable franchise renewal and this resolution that would sort of kick off the process of franchise renewal.

So cable franchises in the United States are governed by federal law, the Cable Act of 1984. And, and here in Seattle, we have as part of the Seattle Municipal Code, we have the Cable Code, and that does require the Operators who wish to operate in the public right of way and provide cable services to meet our standards, which include what is as far as we know, unique and that we have a cable customer bill of rights.

That cable operators must abide by and as in addition to the technical specifications.

and privacy standards and other customer service standards.

In the city of Seattle, we currently have two cable franchises.

One is Comcast, which we're talking about today, and the other is Astound, formerly known as Wave.

The cable franchises last for 10 years, and so they must be renewed after 10 years.

The Federal Cable Act sort of outlines what's required for cable franchise renewal, and it does outline a formal process and an informal process for renewal.

The majority of cable franchises, this is true across the country, are renewed via an informal process, which includes a negotiation with the cable operator.

But what the process does is the formal process and the informal process can sort of advance concurrently.

And so by taking this step of having this council resolution that begins the process commences the process of renewal we are retaining our right to that formal process.

So if we go to the next slide, I'll talk a little bit about sort of those two options.

The formal process is an RFP process.

All of the details of that are laid out in the cable code, sort of what's required there.

It is a lengthy process.

And as I mentioned, typically across the country with franchise renewals, it's pretty rare.

The other option is a negotiation with the cable operator.

So at this point we're in the commencement proceedings sort of that first step there and kicking that off.

This is triggered by a letter that we received from Comcast, asking us to asking the city to commence with the proceeding.

And so the cable code requires that we commence proceedings within six months of receiving that notification from the cable operator.

Then I think on the next slide we have a little timeline, oh I'm sorry we have a little bit more about what this is and what commencing entails.

So the cable code actually does not really explain what is required for commencing a proceeding.

In the past, and it's actually twice, the Comcast franchise has been renewed.

It was renewed in 2006 and in 2016. And then we'll be, this is commencing the proceeding for the franchise that would expire at the end of 2025 and would be renewed in the beginning of 2026. So in both of those times, we did this similar process of having a council resolution.

in order to clarify that we are kicking off this process and also begin the process of community engagement that allows for public comment and for residents to comment on what their needs and interests are for cable services.

Next slide please.

So this is just a little timeline and it shows both, both of the cable franchises in the city and the timelines that they're that they're on.

So, we can anticipate that we will receive a renewal notice from Astound here pretty soon because they're only about a year behind Comcast in terms of when their franchise will expire.

The process is laid out here shows that under the cable act we are required to commence proceedings by August 21 so that's why we're here today.

And then the renewal period runs, really from this year through the end of.

2025 and then we'll look for the actual renewal which requires the ordinance to be passed sometime in 2025 but ideally by the end of the year in time for the expiration of the franchise in January 2026. So that's really what I have for a presentation today and would be happy to answer any questions.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

So we just heard that we are, we're bound by some guidelines, I mean, by some deadlines here.

And that is why I'm asking my committee members to vote this out of committee today.

You did mention something that piqued my interest, which was that you just received the letter from Astound.

And my understanding is that within three months, we have to signal the beginning of franchise renewals for anything, not just Comcast.

Is that the case?

SPEAKER_04

Oh, I'm sorry.

I suggested that we could anticipate receiving the letter from Astound probably within the next few months.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, because we are running up against the budget in September.

And so we'll have to make sure that we can accommodate that in committee.

Thank you.

Within the timeframe.

Okay.

Are there any questions from my council members?

Okay, I have a question you said that there will be time for public comment that is the reason for the resolution to signal hey we're doing this so what role will see tab have.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, thank you.

So this, I'll present this information to CTAB.

They've, the CTAB chair is actually just yesterday requested on that.

So we'll get this on their agenda.

And in the past, the CTAB has played a really active role.

The...

Continue, please remind us what CTAB is.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, it's a community technology advisory board.

So that's an advisory board that we work really closely with.

They are really engaged in areas of digital equity and in broadband expansion, also looking at security.

This year, they're looking at things like AI, generative AI is on their agenda.

And in the past they've been very engaged and active and have worked with staff in order to help, help us really define what the community's needs and interests are for cable franchises.

It's a little bit lower priority on their agenda.

Now because the way these franchises work really is focused and covers the video portion of.

as cable services are defined.

So they have other priorities at this time, but we will still absolutely be working with them and make sure that they're aware and that we receive feedback from them.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

All right.

If there are no further questions, I will move this bill.

I move that the committee recommend passage of Resolution 32095. Is there a second?

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that resolution 32095 pass will be forwarded to the city council for final consideration at next week's council meeting on Wednesday, July 5th.

All right, thank you very much.

This concludes the agenda on of the June 28 meeting of the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, July 12, 2023 at 9.30am.

And just a note on that meeting, we will have our second, the committee's second small business roundtable.

discussion and it will be with representatives from neighborhood business districts across the city and they will be talking about some of the barriers to starting and growing a small business in Seattle and some solutions and what they're working on right now.

So that is one component that I'm pretty excited about at our next meeting.

And if there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.

I'm not seeing any further business.

It is 922 and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you everyone for your flexibility.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you.