Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development & Arts Committee - Special Meeting 9/21/2018

Good morning and welcome to the September 21st meeting of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.

It is 9.06 a.m.

I'm Lisa Herbold.

I'm the chair of the committee and the city council member representing District 1 of the city, which is West Seattle and South Park.

Just real quickly before we get started, I'm going to go over what we have on our agenda today.

We're going to start with our monthly edition of Cultural Spotlight brought to us by the Office of Arts and Culture.

We'll then have 15 minutes of public comment and then move into the items of business for the day.

The items of business for the day include appointments, several appointments of, first of all, the Seattle Public Utilities Strategic Business Plan Customer Review Panel.

We've got six, seven, eight, nine, 11 of those, and then we have one appointment to the Seattle Arts Commission, we have one appointment to the Seattle Women's Commission, we have three appointments to the Seattle Human Rights Commission, and two appointments to the Commission for People with Disabilities.

After that, we'll hear a briefing from the Office of Film and Music about their efforts working in the media production sector, specifically related to some funding that the Council provided in last year's budget process.

take a second look at some legislation that we discussed in our last committee meeting related to Seattle Public Utilities, one piece related to the adoption of the 2019 Water System Plan, and another two bills related to the drainage and wastewater rates.

And then finally, we are going to hear a presentation from the Seattle Women's Commission and some researchers that have been helping them put together a housing justice study specifically on the impacts and frequency of evictions in Seattle and impacts on protected classes of folks.

So with that, let's move right into cultural spotlight.

Jenny Ku from the Office of Arts and Culture will present.

We have with us today Cleo Barnett from Amplifier.

And I'll let Jenny take it away.

Great.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for having us.

We have Cleo Barnett from Amplifier Foundation who has a lovely presentation for us.

Great.

Hi everyone, thanks so much for having us.

My name's Cleo, I'm the Deputy Director of Amplifier.

We build visual media experiments to amplify the voices of social movements, and this presentation's gonna take you through how we came to be, what we've done, how we do it, and what we're doing now.

So we started with a series of photographs, and we brought these photographs to, this is taken by our founder, Aaron Huey, who is a National Geographic photographer, and he wanted to see how he could bring these photographs from a magazine into public space.

So he collaborated with Shepard Fairey, who's most known for these iconic posters, the Hope poster and the Obey poster, and turned his photographs into a series of visual artworks that could be brought into public space and could all point to this website, which provided education for the public about treaties that have been broken across the United States.

and folks carried it in the streets with them.

And really, this is the foundation for our organization, Amplifier.

We started working a lot on other issue areas, so criminal justice reform.

We'd bring these artworks out into the street, believing that once you see something, you can never unsee it.

So we wanted to bring these images into public space to tell a story about social justice, to really amplify grassroots movements across our country.

So we were doing this for a lot, and then this happened.

And so we knew that we needed to respond to this moment in time, so we brought folks together all across the country to say, ask the question, what do you wanna say when the entire world is watching, was really the question we asked.

Using human-centered design, we gathered folks together, and we came up with this phrase, we the people.

And so, We want this artwork to be all community-generated.

We believe in communities' power to tell their own stories.

So we reached out and asked photographers to take photographs of people within their own communities.

So these are the photographs.

And then they got turned into this artwork.

We knew this, we wanted this to be for the people, we wanted this to be crowdfunded.

So we put the artwork available online as a Kickstarter campaign and we ended up breaking Kickstarter history with almost 30,000 small backers over the course of six days powered this movement.

We had over a million downloads of the artwork.

We made all of the artwork open source, so it was available on our website.

And basically, we wanted to get this artwork into the hands of as many people as possible.

And so, we realized that for $1, for each donation of $1, we could get this artwork into six newspapers.

So that's what we did.

We did the crowdfunding campaign and we took out full page ads in the Washington Post so that anyone in the street could pick up this paper.

And they did.

They did in the hundreds of thousands all across the country.

And they carried this artwork in the streets with them.

And they ended up printing the artwork on our website and carrying it all around the world.

We had over a million downloads of this artwork.

People made it into dresses.

People projected it onto buildings.

People printed it up as 25 feet cubes in downtown Los Angeles.

made them into stamps, got them tattooed on them.

It just became this viral campaign.

And the purpose of this campaign was we wanted to unite people across party lines.

And we wanted to connect people based on shared values.

This wasn't about left or right.

This was about what do we stand for as American people.

And so...

It went to the top of Mount Everest.

And so...

Yeah, a couple of those images on this floor as well, on some council offices.

Amazing.

So we really wanted this artwork to be for the people.

And so learning from that campaign, we had all of these educators printing out this artwork and putting it in their classrooms.

And so we started an education program because we got more funding than we were originally anticipated.

We used that funding to start an education program to get artwork into classrooms for free for educators and to build lesson plans around this artwork to provide teachers with tools to talk about social justice in the classroom.

This is a longer story than what I have today, but these young folks raised money to print this artwork on t-shirts when the principal banned the artwork from the school, saying that it was anti-Trump.

This artwork is not anti-Trump.

This artwork is about values.

We the people are greater than fear.

So this was a thing that students did, a protest.

So these are educators that we currently have in our program.

We have educators in every single state around the country who want to talk about social justice through a nonpartisan lens in the classroom.

And so we hosted language labs similar to what we did with We the People around this phrase, we the future.

And we highlighted the voices of 10 youth leaders all across the United States who are real life youth leaders.

We made artwork about each of them.

And now, our goal right now, we've just launched a campaign, and our goal is to get this artwork and lesson plans developed by the youth leaders in collaboration with their nonprofits into 20,000 classrooms this school year.

And so this is how you can learn more about this campaign.

And we also have a space in Pioneer Square.

We're located in Seattle.

Seattle's our HQ.

So if anyone wants to reach out about collaborating with us on a local project, we would love to.

Thank you.

fantastic.

It's really inspiring how you've taken this concept of using images to convey shared values and the need to amplify those values through the image that you've been able to sort of take the next step in amplifying those values with of lesson plans.

It's just, you know, it's another strategy to get at the same goal.

And that's a shared understanding, as you say, across partisan lines of that we do have shared values that we should strive for.

So it's really interesting.

Could you explain to me, you referenced a number of times about how you collaborated with people in their own communities across the country.

How do you do that locally from Seattle?

Do you have offices in other places?

Or do you use virtual means of communication or collaboration with other partners in other places?

Yeah, I mean the collaboration takes many forms and it depends on how much resources we have.

Obviously face-to-face is always the most powerful, so we host gatherings at our space in downtown Seattle.

But then we also fly all across the country and bring people together.

We use human-centered design a lot.

So we really believe that humans are able to solve their own problems.

And we believe that people most closely impacted and most directly impacted by social justice issues have the solutions to their own problems.

So we use a human-centered design methodology to bring people together and really have people create their own language and their own solutions.

And then one thing that we really focus on is the distribution strategy.

So how are we going to get this artwork out into popular culture in order to shift consciousness and to be able to bring these artworks and these messages into public space?

So it's really a collaboration.

Sounds like really impactful and fun work that you're doing.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

Do you ever work on any local campaigns?

Yeah, so we've recently done a collaboration with Seattle City Club all around driving people to go to their debates to learn more about elected officials, and really, it's about civic engagement, and it's about turning out to vote.

And we work a lot with Citizen University, who also has similar mission around civic engagement, and we work with the Seattle Art Museum, and the Vera Project.

So I've actually only been in Seattle for eight months, so I'm still getting to know the local community.

So hopefully, it's just the start.

Yeah, well, I've got some ideas.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

Thanks for joining us.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, let's move on to public comment.

We've got seven people signed up.

Noel will be keeping time, and I'm going to read names into the record.

two at a time, and each person will have two minutes to speak.

And like I said, we'll keep you on time.

There are also some clocks that can help you keep track of when your time is running up.

I do ask that you speak to items within the committee's purview.

So with that, we'll get started.

We have Alex Zimmerman, who will be followed by Robert Canamar.

Hi, my name is Alex Zimmerman, and I want to speak with you about position number 14 in the agenda, about your appointment, somebody for Seattle Human Rights Commission.

I tried being Seattle Human Rights Commission for the last year, three times, and nobody accepted me.

So my question right now, very simple, why I cannot qualify?

I probably qualify more than everybody in Seattle for this position, but never happened.

So the situation that I have right now, I once spoke with you, Consul Halbert, because you're responsible for civic, and civic for me is a mean constitution law, what we have here and what we have in the United States.

You trespass me before eight time for 900 day.

Absolutely not legal.

A few pure crime, eight times for 900 day.

Only one man, not only in Seattle, in all United States have eight trespasses from people who sit in this council chamber.

My question to you, because you're supposed to be controlled civic.

In civic, this mean law and constitution for everybody.

Why you don't stopping this?

And right now there will be another trespass because they call you a Nazi, a Gestapo, a crook, a bandit and criminal.

What is wrong with you guys?

Are you doing something not legal?

You don't like this?

What is I can doing?

But you try to interrupt me, is stopping me in every most meeting.

Because I go right now a candidate for Seattle Council, you don't want somebody who have different opinion.

My question to you, when you stop acting like a Nazi, Gestapo, criminal, and pure cretina, we have law.

Why always broken law and rules?

What is you establish?

Not me.

Americans, the people establish this.

This high, my Tory Führer, a Nazi pig.

When you start acting like a normal.

Thank you very much.

Robert Canamar will be followed by Cheryl Fellack.

Good morning.

My name is Robert Canamar.

I am the founder, organizer, and past commissioner for the Commission for People with Disabilities.

This is a first.

When I became a commissioner, we had a co-chair by the name of Deborah Whitmer, who was causing, who was bullying.

She was causing havoc and dissension within the commission.

That got straightened out within the commission.

As a police, the same tactics with much more vitriol has been used in the commission and in the commission's name.

I am asking you not to confirm Sean Bickley for the commission.

I am requesting that Katrina Wojcicki do get confirmed as commissioner.

The people following me are going to be giving evidence and testimony as to why Sean Bickley should not be confirmed as a commissioner.

Thank you.

My name is Cheryl Felak and I oppose the confirmation of John Bickley.

As co-chair of the commission, Bickley posted on the commission's Facebook page, Cheryl Felak is a creepy stalker who can't respect boundaries and I'm genuinely concerned one day she's going to be one of those caregivers who kills their child.

It took two weeks and several requests on my part to have this libelous, abusive comment removed.

Bickley is a legal liability for the City of Seattle.

Bickley brings division to collaborative advocacy efforts in our community.

I urge the City Council to deny confirmation of Bickley's appointment.

This is an example of how he treats disabled citizens.

You're abusive.

You're banned because you were being abusive.

So what has been abusive about what I've said?

Oh, Diane.

You're calling people low-functioning.

I did not do that.

Okay, I don't, I don't really, like, what is your point?

Why are you here?

My point is I would like to have some information shared with some facts.

And I have told you repeatedly and you've said, you've said it's a lie.

You've been answered.

You did a public disclosure request.

You already have the information you asked for.

I do.

Did you pay for it?

Did you pick it up?

Yes, I have.

Okay, great.

And I would like to tell you Can you please not get through my face?

You're way too close to my personal space.

Okay, I will stand back.

Thank you.

I'd like to tell you that there's information and facts that were not shared with the Commission and with others about jobs.

And do you understand transportation, what it costs, training, job development, job skill development?

Was any of that addressed?

Yes, what's your point?

My point is, was that addressed by this Commission?

You're talking about the special certificates.

Right.

Were the issues of job skill development, job coaches, that was all discussed in this commission?

In relation to elimination, let me finish my sentence.

In relation to elimination of those certificates, was that discussed?

It's not a factor because they consented and they agreed.

We had two people, we had two.

You didn't answer my question again.

Yes, we discussed it, and we discussed that there weren't any barriers.

We were ready to go.

And so, listen, I need you to understand, I need you to understand.

Now, listen.

Now, you back up.

You're in my space.

I'm not in your space.

Sean, back up.

Okay, we're done.

Goodbye.

Okay, thank you.

You're abusive.

I don't need to speak to you.

I'm a volunteer.

Thank you.

Go fuck yourself.

Next, we'll have Eric Scheer, followed by Steve Lewis.

Hello, Your Honor.

May I have your permission to add 30 seconds of time?

Because there is a delay with the interpretation.

Thank you, Your Honor.

Dear Seattle City Council members, there has been a systematic attack on the Commission, not just its leadership, but on its whole process.

Since I first attended the Commission for the People with Disabilities meeting last February 2018, at every monthly Council Commission meeting, Since, Sean Bickley has conducted numerous instances of cyberbullying, both on the Commission's social media page and his own page, which he listed himself as Commissioner.

I notice his behavior has grown more tense with his ongoing harassment, name-calling, to several commissioners, current and former, and using vulgar language within the social media, the Commission's Facebook and Twitter pages, and letters to the Office of the Mayor, City Council, Office of Civil Rights Commissioners, and to the public at large, which is a violation of our bylaws, Article 1, 1.2, and Code of Conduct.

The biggest problem for the last eight months is that Sean has ignored the bylaws and runs the commission meetings as if he were his own ship.

Time and time again, I've cited the bylaws, Article 5, 5.2, Robert's Rules of Order, and he ignored this.

At last night's commission meeting, I brought to their attention to have elections for co-chairs as stated in the bylaws article 3, 3.2.3.3 election process at the end of September's commission meeting.

See the September commission agenda appendix.

Sean didn't conduct this and does not follow the bylaws whatsoever.

Every month, I request to establish the bylaws committee Sorry, to establish a bylaws committee to revise on a regular basis due to ever-changing city and state laws that we must conform to and adhere to.

After the meeting, Sean yelled at me saying the bylaws are unnecessary.

Today, our collective group of presenters have submitted documents with facts and evidence to identify the ongoing harassment.

Sean has bullied me and called me names, i.e., racist, white supremacist, misogynist.

I am a deaf, white, Jewish, gay, married man of 25 years.

Calling me these names is a form of harassment against my disability, religion, and sexual preference, which is a violation of the SMC 3.110.250 Code of Ethics.

Sean has degraded and humiliated me.

Sean continues to attack the Mayor, City Council, Office of Civil Rights, former and current commissioners, and the public at large.

Therefore, I would request that you not accept the appointment of Mr. Sean Bickley.

Thank you.

Steve Lewis will be followed by Jason Morris.

I have some written materials to go.

With my statement, I think your office may have seen some of these already.

I'm Dr. Steve Lewis.

I'm the former co-chair of the Disability Commission, and I am here to ask the Council to vote not to confirm Sean Bickley's appointment to the Disability Commission.

In January of this year, Sean and a few allies launched a series of attacks on the leadership of the Commission.

These attacks were motivated by attempts of the leadership to limit cyberbullying by Sean and by my public position on sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities, a position which essentially defends proper implementation of current state law.

The campaign was sufficiently brutal and disruptive that at least six commissioners resigned.

At the same time, he persuaded two of his friends to generate complaints to the Office of Civil Rights.

One complaint attacked my position as, quote, endorsement of euthanasia.

A second complaint stated I had used the N-word in a conversation in June of 2017. The city launched an investigation into my use of the N-word.

No one recalled that conversation.

I have, however, told a story about wheelchair access to the Fairmont Hotel.

This access goes through the kitchen, up the freight elevator, and out the waiter's alley.

And I have described this entrance using a term from the Jim Crow era.

On the basis of this one incident, one word, the city, specifically Andreas Mantella, removed me from the Commission in February, the night before we would have had a vote on Sean's motion attacking the co-chairs.

This established a standard of prohibiting offensive speech by commissioners.

Offensive speech attacking specific individuals has characterized Sean's service on the commission.

In public statements, he has called members of the commission, the Office of Civil Rights, and the public, eugenists, white supremacists, anti-Semitic, pro-rapist, Nazi misogynist, and racist.

He has described the commission on its website as, quote, a cesspool of ableism, racism, and sexism.

There is a recording which you have heard of him telling a member of the public to F off in a Facebook discussion when somebody says that she has been committed to An institution, he says, I hope you are committed again.

This generated a complaint to the city.

In another conversation, he suggested that someone commit suicide.

These are brutal, personal, and public attacks.

They are not normal.

They violate the standards of behavior we want to represent the city.

Thank you.

Jason Morris, will be followed by Cindy Laws.

Yes, good morning.

I hope everyone's well.

I just want to come up here and kind of defend myself.

There's been some public attacks from Sean and I encourage the no confidence on his appointment.

And I believe he owes me a apology and a public statement.

Clearing my name and and thank you for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

I understand there might be some other folks who did not sign up who would like to speak.

If you could join us at the podium and sign in on the sign-in sheet that Noel has.

Cindy Laws sent me a text and an email stating that because of a panic attack, she could not make it, but she left me a statement.

Thank you.

There are some other people who'd like to speak, and I'd like to give them a chance, too.

I understand that Cindy had her name signed in but can't make it, but thanks for letting us know.

You can speak and finish signing in afterwards.

Thanks so much.

Just announce your name for the record.

That'd be helpful.

My name is Carla Mazzoni and I'm here today on behalf of NARAL Pro Toys Washington.

We urge the council to reform the eviction process.

Reproductive justice is defined as having the economic, political, and political power to make decisions about yourself and your family, like whether to and when to have children.

Yet unfortunately, our current landlord-tenant laws make it too easy to evict tenants.

Combined with the high cost of rent, this puts a strain on women, which prevents them from making any real choices on these issues.

Women simply cannot afford to live in Seattle, and 21% of single female-headed households in Seattle live in poverty.

Here, in one of the wealthiest cities in the country, $100 or less often means the difference between a tenant living in a home or being evicted.

And if you're a woman in Seattle, you're far more likely than your male counterpart to be evicted over this amount or less.

Approximately 81% of evictions filed over small amounts.

which is $100 or less, are filed against women.

And the barriers women face in society are compounded here in Seattle by policies that permit aggressive eviction actions for disproportional offenses, such as falling behind in one month's rent due to a personal emergency.

Unsurprisingly, women of color experience a higher rate of eviction.

Compared to white women, black women make up 34% of all evictions filed against women, while they only make up 6.7% of the population in Seattle.

Of all evictions filed against women, 57% were filed against women of color.

while women of color only make up 34% of Seattle's population.

This impacts women's health when they are forced to choose between paying a slumlord rent for a moldy or infested apartment or risk eviction, when an emergency room visit puts them behind on rent and they're forced to choose between groceries and staying inside.

Having a home is central to our health and well-being, but our policies in Seattle do not reflect that, nor do they adequately protect communities subject to mistreatment, such as women, people of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, or people with chronic health problems.

So today, we call on lawmakers to pass policy recommendations listed in the report by the Seattle Women's Commission and the Housing Justice Project, because women in Seattle will not and cannot have access to reproductive justice until you all take this action.

Thank you.

And I think I saw somebody else sign up.

Come join us and please state your name for the record as well.

Hello, my name is Michael Padilla.

I rent and work in the city.

I'm also a member of the Seattle Renters Commission, although I'd like to make it clear that I am here representing my own, myself and not the whole commission.

I am here to ask that you strongly consider the eviction report presented to you.

You know, what we're seeing out here in the city is not the way things have to be.

So I do also want to ask that you not only consider, but you act upon the issues, specifically using the recommendations outlined in the report.

I think there's some great ideas in there that you all could, you know, use.

I also encourage you to think particularly about immigrant and refugee communities.

You know, Seattle is a welcoming city, but what we're seeing in this report is that, you know, maybe it's not.

And so we really have to take some actions to make sure that folks who have the least protection and the least support, you know, that that's no longer the situation.

You know, I want to acknowledge that as a city council, you all have, you know, you have difficult jobs, you're making tough decisions, but people out here, you know, are living difficult lives, and it doesn't have to be that way.

So thank you for your time and attention, and I hope you move forward with recommendations in this report.

Thank you.

Okay, with that, that will conclude public comment.

And Noel, if you could read items 1 through 11 into the record.

Item one is appointment 1133, appointment of Suzanne Burke as member, Seattle Public Utilities 2018 to 23, strategic business plan customer review panel for a term to July 31, 2020. Item two is appointment 1134, appointment of Kyle M. Stetler as member, Seattle Public Utilities 2018 to 23, strategic business plan customer review panel for a term to July.

31, 2020. Item 3 is appointment 1135, appointment of Laura C. Lippman as member of Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23, strategic business plan customer review panel for a term to July 31, 2021. Item 4 is appointment 1136, appointment of Noel F. Miller as member of Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23, Strategic Business Plan Customer Review Panel for a term to July 31, 2021. Item 5 is Appointment 1137, Appointment of Thai Q. Pham as Member of Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23, Strategic Business Plan Customer Review Panel for a term to July 31, 2021. Item 6 is Appointment 1139, Appointment of Robert E. Coleman as Member of Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23, Strategic Business Plan Customer Review Panel Panel for Term 2, July 31, 2021. Item 7 is Appointment 1140, Appointment of Rodney A. Shaw as Member, Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23 Strategic Business Plan Customer Review Panel for Term 2, July 31, 2021. Item 8 is Appointment 1141, Appointment of Puget Shaw as Member, Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23 Strategic Business Plan Customer Review Panel for a term to July 31, 2021. Item 9 is appointment 1142. Appointment of David F. Leighton as member Seattle Public Utilities 2018 to 23 strategic business plan customer review panel for a term to July 31, 2020. Item 10 is appointment 1143 appointment of Maria L. McDaniel as member of Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23, strategic business plan customer review panel for a term to July 31, 2020. And item 11 is appointment 1144 appointment of Jessa Timmer as member of Seattle Public Utilities 2018-23, strategic business plan customer review panel for a term to July 31, 2020. Thank you, Noah.

That's quite a mouthful.

Start with introductions, please.

Mami Hara, Seattle Public Utilities.

T-FAB.

Maria McDaniel.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm just going to talk a little bit about background, and then, Director Harrah, you can give a little bit more meat about the Citizen Review Panel, what it does, and introduce the nominees.

Great.

Thanks.

So the Customer Review Panel, something that we refer to as the CRP, was established to give input on the strategic business plan and to periodically review the progress in implementing the plan.

In February last year, we, the council, amended the resolution that created the customer review panel, updating the panel to have continuous engagement.

And this was something that the customer review panel requested last year when we were reviewing the strategic business plan.

In that resolution, we also increased the number of panel members from 9 to 11 so that we could have a more diverse set of customer views.

Nine of the members who were previously on the panel will continue to serve and will be appointing two new members.

We have two folks at the table because it's our convention that we don't require reappointments who often are working people to come before us.

And although technically the reappointments are new appointments, we are going to treat them as reappointments for that purpose.

They're new appointments because we actually dissolved the panel and reinstituted.

The council reappointments are Kyle Stettler, Suzanne, otherwise known as Susie Burke, Laura Lipman, and Noel Miller.

The mayoral reappointments are Jessica Timmer, Dave Layton, Bobby Coleman, Pooja Shah, and Rodney Schaaf.

And then the council new appointment is Ti Tham, and the mayoral appointment is Maria McDaniel.

With that, I'll turn it over to you.

So I am thrilled to present the proposed appointments to Seattle Public Utilities Customer Review Panel.

We feel very fortunate to have this fantastic group of very capable and committed community members who are willing to commit their precious time and to help us be better.

You provided a lot of context.

Apologies if I reiterate a little bit of it.

In November last year, the council adopted Seattle Public Utilities 2018 through 2023 strategic business plan update and requested that we establish an ongoing customer review panel to maintain continuous customer oversight and to monitor the six-year rate path endorsed by the plan.

As you mentioned, five panel members are to be appointed by the mayor and four by council.

And they are selected to ensure fair representation of viewpoints across our customer base.

So in February, the council approved a measure, as you mentioned, to increase the original nine members to 11 members in order to expand the base of knowledge and experiences of the panel to make it more reflective of our diverse community.

And so the, you mentioned as well that the nine nominees that you described earlier today served on the customer review panel and helped review our current strategic business plan and all of them have graciously elected to continue their service overseeing its implementation.

So today I am introducing our two new proposed appointees T.

Pham would be the council appointee, and she is a program officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Maria McDaniel would be a mayoral appointment, and Maria's a market development professional for McKinstry, which is one of the top contractors in the Northwest, which designs and maintains heating, ventilation, fire protection, and rain collection systems for major buildings.

Maria, McDaniel, and TFOM are willing to share their time and knowledge to serve their fellow ratepayers, and we are sure to benefit from their fantastic credentials and perspectives.

So I'm going to hand over the conversation to T and Maria now so they can speak for themselves about their willingness to serve.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Before we get started, I've been remiss in not mentioning that we've been joined by Councilmember O'Brien.

Thanks for joining us.

Good morning, and thank you for having us this morning.

I am a current member with the Creeks Drainage and Wastewater Advisory Committee, and I've appreciated being a member of the Seattle Public Utilities community outreach efforts, and very interested in helping with developing the strategic business plan.

Thank you, T.

Yes, thank you.

This is really exciting.

I was born and raised in Seattle.

I've lived in various neighborhoods, and I'm always committed to doing what's best for the city and taking the information that I learn.

And I've learned a lot in being on the committee as well, and I like passing that on throughout the community.

So this will be really exciting.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

I really appreciate your willingness to serve and appreciate your willingness to serve at this particular time when we're, I think, working together to get the utility to focus more on really important issues of affordability.

So your engagement and your expertise in planning and working with diverse communities is going to be really important to that effort, so thank you.

We've been joined by Council Member Sawant.

Anybody have any thoughts?

I just want to say thank you for your willingness to serve on this.

This is an important committee.

It can be time-consuming.

It has significant impacts, the decisions, you know, the long-term decisions we made around the utility.

And so, and yet, it's not necessarily a high profile committee.

It's not something that a lot of people in the public will be aware of.

And yet, it impacts all of our lives in the city.

And so, it's often really hard to find folks that are willing to come and dedicate the time to do it.

And yet, without folks like yourselves stepping up and committing to it, it makes it really hard for us to do our job as well.

So, I'm just really grateful that you're willing to do this.

Thank you both.

And I hope you know that we really take the recommendations of the review panel really seriously in the deliberations that we do around the strategic business plan, which, of course, then drives the rates across the lines of business of the utility.

So again, a lot of work, very long meetings, but really important to us.

Sorry.

I shouldn't keep rubbing in about the long meetings.

But the outcome of those meetings is very impactful to all of our work, so thank you.

All right, well, if there are no further questions, I am going to move appointment 01133, appointment 01134, appointment 01135, appointment 01136, appointment 01137, appointment 01139, appointment 01140, appointment 01141, appointment 01142, appointment 01143, and appointment 01144. Thank you.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

And your appointments will go to full council not this Monday, but the following Monday.

Thank you and congratulations.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Well, can you read item 12 into the record?

Agenda item 12 is appointment 1147, reappointment of Sharon N. Williams as member Seattle Arts Commission for a term to December 31, 2019.

Thanks, Newell.

Sharon Williams is a council appointment to the Seattle Arts Commission, and she is a reappointment.

So as I mentioned earlier, we don't require reappointments to come and join us.

And so for that reason, I think we'll have Newell present the reappointment of Sharon Williams.

Oh, Ron, do you want to join us?

Oh, that's a good observation, but yes, we would love you at the table maybe to say a few words before Noel to talk about the Arts Commission.

Yeah, and I do want to come and particularly lend our support and enthusiasm for Sharon's reappointment.

She's been an incredible asset to the commission for four years.

As you know, the commission, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, there are 16 members, seven appointed by the council, seven appointed by the mayor, one at large, and one YMCA get engaged.

They advise our office, they advocate for arts and culture in the city, and they act as a bridge to the communities that we serve.

They do that work primarily through three subcommittees.

They have a Public Art Advisory Committee that reviews and approves all the public art that goes out into the community.

They have a Cultural Investments Committee that reviews how we distribute resources through the nine funding programs that we have.

And they have a Facilities and Equitable Development Committee, which has led the cultural space work of the office for many years.

They're our partners in our commitment to racial equity.

And one of the, they serve in a number of other ad hoc capacities, several of which Sharon has been pretty involved with.

She's been part of the transition and establishment of Langston Hughes into a nonprofit organization, the nonprofit that we helped foster in partnership since the very beginning in 2012, 2013. and continues to serve on the board of that nonprofit.

She also was just elected chair of the Historic Central Area Arts and Cultural District, the second district that the council designated three years ago, and has also served on the review panel for the Mayor's Arts Awards.

She's the executive director of the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas, previous winner of a Mayor's Arts Award, and so she's helped review nominations for that as well for several years.

It's great that...

Serving on the Arts Commission gives folks so many different ways to get really, really deep into the work of not just your office, but all kinds of arts activities.

Sharing's the deep.

Sure, in addition to what Randy said, Sharon Williams has a history as a playwright, filmmaker, solo performer, producer, stage manager, research assistant, production assistant, and producer for several performing arts organizations in the Seattle area, including Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center and the Seattle Rep Theater.

She founded the collaborative arts organization, The Mahogany Project.

She's a graduate of Seattle University, Master of Fine Arts and Leadership Program, and a board member at Cornish College for the Arts, an adult advisory board member with Creative Justice and other organizations.

Fantastic creative justice who has just been the recipient of the Crosscut Courage Award.

Yeah, it's a great program.

It absolutely is.

Boy, Sharon's busy.

She's got a lot going on.

I don't have any further questions.

Thank you for joining us today.

Newell, thank you for presenting.

No others.

I will move passage of appointment 01147. Thank you.

All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

And Sharon's reappointment will go on to full council, not this Monday, but the following one.

Thank you.

Happy Friday.

All right.

Noel, please read item 13 into the agenda.

Item 13 is appointment 1148, appointment of Vivian Lee as member of Seattle Women's Commission for a term to July 1, 2020. Great.

Thank you.

We need to start off with some introductions, please.

Hi, so my name is Vivian Lee.

I was part of the Seattle Women's Commission this past year as a member of the Get Engaged cohort from this past year, which was very exciting.

This past year has been an incredible experience, has renewed my faith in civic engagement.

I've learned so much from the incredible women that serve on the commission.

And I'm really excited about the opportunity to really take what I've learned from this past year and apply it in a more thoughtful way this coming term.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

I'm Lauren O'Donnell.

I'm with the Office of Civil Rights, and I'm the liaison to the Women's Commission.

Great.

And Vivian, you are a commission appointment, as I have explained on occasion.

But for the viewing public, I think it's helpful to understand that our commissions have different appointing authorities.

The council is an appointing authority.

The executive is an appointing authority.

The mayor is an appointing authority.

And the commission is also an appointing authority.

Your soon-to-be fellow commissioners, well, your fellow commissioners because you're an engaged appointee, have collectively decided that they wanted to put you forward to the council.

Lauren, can you talk a little bit about the commission?

do the best in their absence to represent the commission's interest in Vivian's continued service?

Yeah, so the Seattle Women's Commission advises the mayor and city council and city departments on issues that impact women in Seattle.

In the last year, they've really put a lot of focus on driving the conversation around sexual harassment and gender-based violence in addition to looking at housing instability and affordability and how that impacts women and gender non-conforming people in the city of Seattle.

They've put on a lot of events.

They've done a lot of article writing and really driving discourse and pushing the envelope, I think, in a lot of ways this year.

Vivian, I'll just speak broadly about Vivian.

She is currently a marketing communications manager at Microsoft.

She leads diversity and inclusion campaigns and initiatives tackling issues like the gender gap in STEM and gender equity in the workplace.

She's an advocate for changing biases and perceptions to create better workplace environments and is focused on maximizing the private sector's positive impact on society.

As a passionate advocate for a variety of social justice issues, she also sits on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.

Vivian has been very involved in her year as a Get Engaged commissioner.

She's really put a lot of work into helping make sure that our events run smoothly and has provided a, I think, a really great and fresh perspective.

The commission is really happy to have her and is looking forward to have her continued service for the next two years.

Thank you.

So, thank you for the work that you've already done.

We're going to be, obviously, according to the agenda, and you are well aware, hearing from the Commission, a report that is the product of yours and other Commissioners' work.

And I don't want to ask a leading question, but can you talk a little bit about your priorities for your time on the Commission?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think this past year, what I've been able to contribute is in a lot of my areas of expertise kind of around communications based off of the work that I do in my day job.

And so some of the most exciting efforts have been, you know, when we put out op-eds or when we have events, figuring out kind of what the storytelling elements are around that and making sure the public is informed in both a compelling and informative way.

So for this upcoming year, I hope to kind of help continue to bolster that and continue to help the Seattle Women's Commission have really great infrastructure around how we respond to current events, what our events look like, what our op-eds look like, but also to build new muscles around understanding policy on a more granular level and being able to dive into a couple areas that I may be unfamiliar with in order to be of the most use for the commission.

Fantastic.

Thank you, Vivian.

Thank you.

Folks have any questions?

Looking forward to the discussion on a very important study that the commission played a big role on.

Yes, very excited for that.

And just in your capacity as somebody who focuses a lot on the importance of messaging and using our shared values, hopefully, to convey the areas in which we need to make social change, I don't know if you were here when we heard from Amplifier.

Earlier at the beginning of the session, we heard from Amplifier, which uses images as a way to amplify shared values across partisan lines.

I just think it would be really exciting to figure out if we could work with them as it relates to the housing project that we're going to be working on over the next year.

So just a pitch for that.

All right, well, if there are no further questions, I will move appointment of 01148. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

Congratulations, your appointment will move on to the full council Monday after next.

Noel, can you read appointments 14, 15, and 16 into the record?

Item 14 is Appointment 1107, Appointment of Tyrone Grandison as Member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission for a Term to July 22, 2019. Agenda Item 15 is Appointment of Erin G. Orovio as Member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission for a Term to July 22, 2019. Agenda item 16 is appointment 1109, appointment of Jessica C. Bullion as member of Seattle Human Rights Commission for a term to July 22, 2020. Thank you, Noel.

So if folks can come to the table, that would be great.

Thank you.

Greetings and welcome.

We could just start off with a quick round of introductions before we get started.

My name is Aaron Orlillo.

I'm Marjorie Edelman, Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

Jessica Bouillon.

Thank you.

Shanna Prez-Darby.

Great.

Thank you, everyone.

Marta, do you want to start us off with a quick description of the Human Rights Commission?

And we'll just start there, and then we'll move on to the appointments.

We have an appointment who is brought to us from the commission, and we also have two council appointments.

And Tyrone isn't going to be able to make it today, so we'll only hear Erin for counsel.

Okay, sounds great.

Marta, kick us off.

The Seattle Human Rights Commission essentially advises the mayor, city council, and city departments on issues of the whole community because human rights entails everyone.

Thank you.

Shannon, do you want to start with the council appointment?

Absolutely.

So Erin, since the 2016 presidential election, Erin has been looking for a role in which he could live his values.

make an impact, and serve a purpose within the community.

He's been working towards a goal he set for himself, not just to be an active participant in his community, but to help others who may not have the privilege to do so.

He's been building skill to further social justice by recruiting project members, facilitating giving projects, and raising money for community organizing.

Thank you, Shannon.

We'll give you an opportunity to talk to Wai in just a second, but Margo, you want to present the commission appointment?

Yes, thank you.

I wanted to first acknowledge that both candidates have been attending meetings and we're pleased and already taking part in Human Rights Day events and activities and stuff in that planning.

Jessica Buion serves as Executive Director of World Without Hate, dedicated to building bridges and connecting others through the transformative power of forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and understanding.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater and Liberal Studies and Master of Arts in Liberal Studies, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

concentrations and lives in Seattle with her husband, cat, dog, and looking forward to all the contributions she can make to the work of the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

Thank you, Marta.

Erin, how about you tell us a little bit about your interest in serving on the commission?

Thank you for the time you've already been spending with the commission.

We really like it when people spend time with the commission prior to being appointed so you know what it's all about.

I'm actually happy for the space and to be invited to the commission before even joining the commission.

So right now I am helping plan the Human Rights Day and I am on the Immigration Justice Task Force and hopefully one day when I have the capacity to join the Homelessness Task Force, Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

And Jessica, you want to also speak to your interests?

Thank you.

Yes, I think a big part of my interest is actually Wonderful Day, which is International Peace Day today that I'd like to recognize.

A lot of my work is in the human rights arena.

Today is actually my husband's rebirth day because 17 years ago, 10 days after 9-11, he was a victim of a hate crime in Dallas, Texas.

and was shot from point-blank range by a white supremacist.

And so that's another reason why I sit here today and do the work that I do.

I've been a part of the nonprofit community for my entire career, and I'm thrilled to be part of the Seattle community to do that in any capacity that I can for this commission and truly for the people of Seattle.

Thank you, Jessica.

Really appreciate the work that you guys have already done, the work that you're making a commitment to continue to do, and like many of the commissions that, and boards that the city works with, the volunteer and lived experiences and expertise that you bring to our work on the council can be very, very impactful.

to the residents of the city.

So thank you.

Any questions?

I just thank you both for already serving in the commission, but also I just wanted to say that it's particularly notable when somebody faces a personal crisis or tragedy, some larger conditions, and then decides to channel that outward because you, as you put it, we cannot fight these things individually.

And so, I really appreciate that particular thing.

Great.

Thank you.

So, with that, I will move appointment of 01108 and appointment 01109. All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

None abstaining.

Congratulations and thank you.

Noel, can you read item 17 into the agenda?

Item 17 is appointment 1145, appointment of Christina M. Zawicki as member, Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities for a term to April 30, 2020.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining us.

We do a quick round of introductions.

My name is Kristina Savitsky.

Thank you.

Kristina Obey Sumner, co-chair of the Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities.

And Shannon Perez-Darby, Councilmember Herbold's office.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

So, Kristina, you are a council appointment, and you want to just kick it off?

Normally, we have a little bit of a discussion about what the commission does.

So, Kristina will speak a little bit about the commission, and I'll speak about Kristina.

The Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities provides guidance and counsel to the mayor's office, the city council, and to city departments around the lived experience of disability as it pertains and leads with that, as it pertains to the intersectionality of how people are able to move and be in the world.

Thank you.

And you want to speak to our nomination?

Christina, it's a council appointment to the Commission for People with Disabilities.

Christina is interested in working on policies and legislation that affects individuals and families with disabilities.

She wants to work on the barriers that individuals with disabilities struggle with and suggest policies and ideas that can help remove them and promote inclusion.

She sees a disparity in Seattle and hopes to bring these issues to the light and get involved in bridging gaps and providing equity to individuals like herself.

She loves Seattle and wants to help make it a better place for all people that call Seattle their home.

She is dedicated to this work and will be a strong member of the commission.

Thank you, Shannon.

Christina, thanks for joining us.

And do you want to just talk a little bit about your interest in serving on the commission?

Yes, ma'am.

I'm sorry, there's feedback.

I've presented before City Council before.

I've been homeless on the streets for four years.

I live in my vehicle, working towards getting out of that situation.

As a full-time college student, now I've transferred to Seattle University.

I've seen the issues and struggles individuals who are homeless with disabilities have had, trying to get into housing, get into the basic services.

Yeah, it's got a lot of feedback from me.

I guess I could probably take it off because I don't need to hear me.

But I don't.

And so with those disparities, I'd like to promote some ideas and some suggestions on how to change that from my perspective from being on the streets as a person with disabilities, as well as trying to access other services, being in a wheelchair, going around town.

and just the basic fundamentals of being an individual with disabilities, but also bring that perspective of being a person with a Native American background to also that perspective as well.

Thank you.

And as you'll often hear us at this table say, we really appreciate the diverse lived experiences that folks can bring to this work.

Your experience not only as somebody living with a disability, but somebody who has been living unhoused.

I think is incredibly important.

And, you know, we really have to ensure that we are focusing our efforts in policymaking in this city on the greatest need.

So, thank you for bringing that perspective to the commission.

Thank you, ma'am.

Folks?

Just to add to what Council Member Herbold said, Cristina, you've been an active part of the movements that have been advocating for the needs of homeless people and also those who are disabled.

And as was mentioned earlier, there's a lot of commonality.

Some of the community members are facing the brunt of every aspect of inequality.

And having personally seen you on the forefront of the struggle, I'm really delighted that you're also going to be serving in this capacity.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'm also very grateful.

So I look forward to having you on the commission.

And I hope you know that we're here to be a resource if we can help.

And we really want to hear your ideas, as we do with all the commissioners.

Thank you, sir.

So with that, I will move appointment 01145. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

None abstaining.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Agenda item 18 is Appointment 1146, Appointment of Sean L. Bickley as member of Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities for a term to October 31, 2020.

Thank you, Newell.

All right, Sean.

So, Sean, you are a commission appointment, and I will kick it off over to Christiana to tell us why the commission is putting forward your nomination.

I've had the pleasure of working with Sean for several years now, and as someone who's been on this commission officially since like 2013, I've seen a lot of large-scale change come from the leadership of Sean Bickley.

Most notably through the city ban of subminimum wage, which is now going to be brought possibly to state legislation, and Sean will speak more to that.

I think what's also great about it is Sean helped to begin the Inclusion Jubilee, which creates and recognizes champions of disability in the larger community.

promoting a space where there's not often a lot of promotion and amplification of those narratives.

And this is not just what the Commission has seen.

Sean Bickley was currently awarded Advocate of the Year this year from Disability Rights Washington in the state for not only the subminimum wage but also for advocacy of addressing issues of implicit bias within groups and organizations, most notably the Seattle Commission of People with Disabilities, as well as he was the LGBTQ Community Social Justice Award winner for 2016 from the LGBTQ Allyship Coalition.

I say all this to mean that Sean is making great waves and opening doors and dismantling barriers for disabled folks in Seattle, and this is why I recommend Sean for this appointment.

Thank you.

I just want to ask a little bit about the most recent recognition, the Disability Rights Award Advocate of the Year.

Who is the arbiter of that award?

Is there an organization?

Disability Rights Washington.

All right, thank you.

So let's see.

Before we get started, and Sean, I want to just turn it over to you and have you speak to why you're interested in the commission, I just want to make a couple points that I think are really important as context for your appointment here today.

I just want to remind folks in the viewing public as well as council members that last year the council passed ordinance 125370, expanding the number of seats on the commission from 16 to 20 members.

And in doing so, we granted the commission increased appointing authority than had been allowed previously.

and we newly allowed each commission to appoint four members to their respective commissions.

And in that ordinance, we identified the fact that one of the reasons why we were doing that is because we wanted to recognize structurally the value in increased independence of the commissions from the mayor and the council.

And so that really, to me, speaks to the authority of the commission to make its own appointments, representing the desires of the commission for whom they want, representing them on the commission in a way that is unfettered from interference from either the council and the mayor.

Sean, you know, with that said, why don't you talk to us a little bit about your interest in continuing to serve on the commission.

And I also want you to feel free in a way that, you know, respects the decorum of this room and respects the rights of folks to give their opinions.

I want you to feel free to speak to any of the public comment that we heard.

Okay.

So I joined the Commission two years ago.

I think the biggest thing that I participated in was getting the city to end subprime wage.

We're the first city government in the country to do so.

There are a handful of states.

And this is really exciting.

I think that People are not used to disabled people, especially developmentally disabled people, making their own decisions or advocating their own positions.

And when we, as disabled people, take positions that go against the mainstream status quo, even if it's something that's been around since the 30s, it ruffles feathers.

I wanted to share with you that we are moving forward on on state legislation, and by we I mean my community, in ending sub-minimum wage on the state level.

There are 71 organizations that are signed on to do so.

They're not just disability organizations.

There's also a lot of federal movement right now, and a report expected to come out on moving away from sub-minimum wage as a practice.

Beyond that, I have...

I've done some work, I'm working with Council Member Sawant's office on addressing the housing crisis, where 6.4% of the county's population, but disabled people are 53% of the household's population.

And that's because those systems aren't set up to acknowledge us.

I successfully worked on preventing a change to, sterilization laws that would make it easier for guardians to sterilize people under guardianship without their consent, which is something that Washington State has a long history for that has never been apologized for.

And we still do occasionally have mostly women sterilized non-consensually.

Non-consensually, you said?

Yes.

We, let's see, I'm being honored next week as Advocate of the Year by Disability Rights Washington.

That has, it's primarily to do with the work I did on subminimum wage and also addressing implicit bias in the commission.

I think that there's a difference between calling out racist behavior or sexist behavior and calling an individual racist.

And I think as white people that we're really programmed that when someone criticizes our behavior, that it's very hurtful and defensive.

And, you know, I've had my behavior criticized.

I'm sure you've had as well.

But that's not a hate crime.

And I think that we still have a lot of work to do on the commission in addressing these sort of issues.

I'm not as interested in getting into that because when every person of color on the commission signs a letter that current or previous members have had racist and misogynist behavior and have created a toxic environment, attributing that to me and having that conversation with me as a white person is really a way of removing people of color from the conversation so that it can be a some kind of philosophical debate between white people on what is racism.

And I think that if you're interested in that, many commissioners have written about that, have asked for intercession, and some of them are actually affected by racism, which I am not.

Yeah, so I'm really excited to work on...

The last time I talked to you, I was trying to figure out how we would address sever wage and how that would work and we put together a really strong coalition that advocated for its removal and that was led by disabled people.

I'm excited now.

I don't know if excited is the right word.

We are dealing with the unforeseen impact of the straw ban in our community.

And this was something that was passed through without any consultation of disabled people.

And we still want to be part of the conversation and see how this has impacted people and their ability to live their daily lives and hope that we can work with the city government to that effect.

Thank you, Sean.

Christiana, can you speak a little bit to the commission's process for appointing commission seats?

Yes.

So when, as you articulated before, when there are some, a need to consider a commission seat, whether that's because there is someone due to, unfortunately, the sociocultural and sociopolitical expectations of folks, that we feel that there may be too much bias in the appointment process due to implicit or unconscious bias, or whether there is a conflict with who we may see as a great advocate, but may not be necessarily agreed upon from another appointing body, then we present that person to the larger commission at a commission meeting.

And we have that person speak to why they would like to be a commissioner in a commission seat.

And then after discussion, the commission votes and the person, if they win by majority of that vote, will then be put forward to go through the process appointment to a commission-based seat, which is where we are today.

Thank you.

And if you could just talk a little bit about how the commission has thought about the difficult conversations that the commission has been having over the last year as part of that appointment process.

how you've thought about the fact that there's been some turnover on the commission because of some of the difficult conversations.

And, you know, frankly, I believe that there is a need for some dispute resolution for the commission to somebody with some expertise in this area.

And I will continue arguing that that would be a resource that would be of great value for the Commission.

And I also want to mention that we received significant public comment in the form of email in support of Sean's appointment to the commission.

And I say so because it is unusual for us to have people come and speak against somebody's appointment.

But I'm really interested to know a little bit about the commission's discussion about, you know, frankly, the controversy.

I want to frame this, my comment, with the fact that in the entire life of the Commission of People with Disabilities, I am the first person of color to be co-chair, let alone the first black person, let alone the first woman of color, let alone the first black woman.

And as a lot of you probably know, my work is in talking about educating on and consulting social equity.

I think that's important to state in that there's also a lot of...

microaggressions and misogynoir when it comes to listening to black women, especially black women in leadership, especially black women of power.

And I feel that what has happened, and I can speak from my experience as co-chair and also becoming co-chair, that while I have had a lot of support on the commission, especially as a commissioner, a lot of that support has been very marginalizing, oppressive, and misogynoir.

Now, what was really exciting for me was to be appointed to the commission, and especially with my counseling background, the first thing that I thought is that I would like to have this commission to be more cohesive.

I feel like we have been in a forming and storming stage for a very, very long time.

And that we have had dispute resolution in the past that did not happen.

I think what's also important to realize is that the lived experience of people with disabilities and disabled people, especially with cognitive, developmental, and psychiatric disabilities, is that our bandwidth can sometimes get stretched really thin.

And especially when the hours of working within a commission goes beyond the 10 hours a month to countless hours due to emails, online onslaughts, calls in the middle of the day asking for follow-up information.

going to court or going to council to talk about these different things, it sometimes becomes too much.

And I think that what we're seeing in the commission and what we have seen in the commission is not only people taking care of their selves and self-care, which is important.

I think we're also seeing that when you come from a historically oppressed and marginalized identity, there is a tendency to feel like crabs in a pot, trying to be the one that gets out and climbing on the backs of others to make sure you are the one that gets out.

And I really hope that this is a dynamic that, already speaking with members of the Office of Civil Rights, that bringing in a mediator during our next retreat will be something that we can address.

I also hope that as we see what's happening in our larger community, in our federal government, that we can begin to bring in a spirit of being reflectful and mindful of loving kindness and radical acceptance of all people meeting them where they are, and working together towards a shared horizon of understanding.

We don't have to be on the same path, but we do have to be all going in the same direction.

And I hope that during my time as co-chair, I can help to facilitate that environment.

Thank you, Christiana.

Councilmembers?

When you said that dispute resolution was tried before but didn't happen?

It didn't work, I would say.

I mean, it kind of, but I mean, there's...

It took place, though.

It took place.

I would say there's a difference between explicit and implicit bias.

And there's difference between overt aggression and microaggression.

There's a difference between overt assault and microassault.

And I think that what the dispute resolution did before was stifle it down into a space where it was not something that could be point to and egregious enough to say, did you see that?

I think what's really hard, especially for those who have historically oppressed and marginalized identities is that when you experience those microaggressions, especially, I'm an East Coast transplant, especially in this city, with the way that the personality profiles are, it leaves you feeling like, was that really what I thought it was?

Is it me?

Is it something I did?

Is it something I said?

But really what it is is that Sometimes people are unconscious of the impacts that they have with their behaviors and actions.

And what I'm hoping is that this upcoming mediation will have some implicit and unconscious bias training as part of that.

Thank you.

I think dispute resolution, mediation, these are tools that, to be effective, I think they have to have some elements that are sustained, not just a one-time session and hoping that that addresses the underlying issues.

I think it needs to be some sort of ongoing work.

And I just want to say that all bodies made up of individuals working together on issues that they care really, really passionately about.

They all sometimes feel bad about how they treat one another or how they're treated by others.

The city council, individuals on the city council sometimes are upset about how they're treated or the words that are said about other folks on the council.

So these are all things I think that we struggle with, and it sometimes is more difficult to struggle with these issues because of our deep passion about the work that we're trying to do.

And it can be really upsetting, I think, when these issues get in the way of the work, but I think it's part of the work.

And I guess I will end and say that as co-chair, and as a commissioner, it always has been to advocate for the lived experiences of all disabled people and people with disabilities.

And I think that part of the work, as you said, is to facilitate spaces where people can grapple with these concepts, which is why myself and another commissioner, Ankita Adams, who was recently appointed, has been organizing the Race and Disability Summit to talk about racialized ableism, which is something that has not really been talked about, I'm unsure if at all, on the city level, and that'll be next month, October 17th.

I think that it's important to have, like you said, not just one dispute resolution, but to have ongoing opportunities for learning, growing, and grappling, so that people can externalize and deconstruct some of those negative internalizations.

I wanted to thank all the commissioners for dealing with some very, very difficult issues.

And I appreciate you also being willing to talk about it because it's not easy to go through it and it's not easy to talk about it in public.

And I particularly appreciate one point that you made, which is that sometimes these disputes can also arise when rather than working on a collective goal, sometimes individuals can put their own individual questions, whatever they might be, without going into it, ahead of what's desired collectively.

And I think it's important that you state that that's what it is and that we all, we make a conscious and sort of open effort to go towards a collective goal rather than putting our own questions up front.

Because ultimately, if we work for the collective, we all benefit.

So thank you for describing that process and I also agree with Council Member Herbold that the dispute resolution is something that should be sort of an ongoing process where everybody's engaged on a continual basis and we can't really expect that one time session would change anything or anything much anyway.

And I just wanted to also add that Sean, just moving to Sean's reappointment for a second, just wanted to appreciate publicly how much he has brought the voice of the disabled community to larger struggles and pointing out, as he did himself just now and through his work in the last many years, that our disabled community members face specific questions that we all have to be in solidarity with them, even though we may not face those issues in our daily life.

because we may not have those disabilities, but also that disabled community members are also disproportionately impacted by workplace harassment issues or the lack of affordable housing.

And I really wanted to thank Sean and other members of the Disability Commission and also disabled community members at large who have brought disabled questions to be part of larger issues, and specifically wanted to commend you all, many of you, Sean, and also I wanted to mention Chastity Ranger, who's not a commissioner, but she is a disabled community member who has played a leading role, along with Sean and others, on also the Amazon tax struggle, bringing forward the question of disabled members of the community, but in relation to affordable housing, and the crisis of the lack of affordable housing.

And also the question of sub-minimum wage, and I just wanted to mention, you know, four years ago when we were, you know, voting, when the then council was voting on the $15 minimum wage, I remember certain council members, present company excluded, made arguments that were completely unfounded in economic data, that having a sub-minimum wage is good for teenagers, having a sub-minimum wage is good for disabled community members.

And we fought as much as we could.

And at that time, we needed that voice more.

And so I really appreciate Sean prioritizing that.

And it's been a real honor for my office to work with you and the commission.

Thank you.

Councilman O'Brien, anything else to add, or should we call for the vote?

Yeah, I'd like to say a few words, if that's okay.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sean, it's clear you've done a lot of amazing work, and I really am grateful for all of that, and there's a lot of folks that speak very highly of that work, and that's not in question.

It's great.

We also hear from a lot of folks that have concerns about interactions, and it's hard for me to weigh in on that because I'm not in those rooms.

know people that are on both sides of those arguments, and without being there, there's, you know, I'm not really in a position to insert myself into that.

What I will say is, and again, because I'm not in those rooms, these are more general comments, not directed at you, because I don't know exactly what interacted, but, you know, there's plenty of examples where people do some really amazing work, and that doesn't justify or excuse other types of behavior, and so, And when I hear what's happening on the commission and more broadly in the community around some concerns, there's a couple things that it highlights.

And I really appreciate your comments, too, because this isn't just, this is, what I hear you saying, this is also about how biases, in particular racial biases, are showing up in people's work.

Sometimes these uncomfortable conversations that can get very personal and heated and provides an opportunity for a lot of personal growth and even collective growth.

And those are really great when folks work through it.

Other times, they seem to be places where it just causes lots of harm and people go back and retreat from doing the work that needs to be done.

And I'm not qualified to say what moment we're at right now.

And as Councilmember Herbold said, it's unusual for us to have an appointment that's controversial at all.

In fact, I'm not sure if it's ever happened since I've been here.

But that's worked for us too, right?

I mean, that's not an excuse for us to walk away from it, because sometimes controversy is important for folks making change.

What I do hear, though, is from a lot of people who feel that they've been harmed.

I hear it from you talking about, well, you mentioned specifically microaggressions, and I imagine there's a lot of other things that are happening in your position, and particularly on the commission, perhaps.

I hear from folks in the audience that feel like comments directed towards them have caused harm, and I hope that the commission as a whole and under your leadership And under, with our support and the city's support, we can bring some resources to help have the conversations.

You know, conversations about race and how that shows up.

You used some terms today that are new to me, so I don't want to repeat them because I don't know exactly what they mean.

But I can imagine that the intersections between race and disability show up in really unique ways.

And folks, we all, you know, including myself, need to better understand how that shows up.

And this is a great opportunity to do that.

And then you know personally how we behave and how we interact and how we take in our own concerns and concerns for others in the room.

It's important that we have the right skill set to do all that and so I'm willing to support this appointment unless I hear otherwise from my colleagues.

But I really hope that I hope that the city can bring the resources to have more conversations and I hope that folks and the committee do that.

And I hope that you all, especially you, can let us know if there's a lot of harm being done and we need to rethink how this all works out.

And I don't know exactly what that means, but I don't want to sit by idly while people are getting injured.

And I heard a lot of people talking about injuries, but I hope that they can come back and people can re-examine what happens.

And I hope that there can be some conversations to help do some healing and hopefully some growth.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

I am too prepared to support the commission's recommendation.

I take very seriously the intent of having commission nominated appointments and the intent that it needs, that that's about your independence as a body from the other appointing authorities, but I'd also, take very seriously the fact that there have been problems identified by members of the public, people who have previously served on the commission.

And because of that, I feel that I personally, as well as the council, need to be more involved in helping to find some sort of long-term solutions to addressing the the hurt that people are feeling.

So with that, I thank you for participating in a difficult process, I'm sure for you as well.

I would like to move appointment 01146. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

Your appointment will move on to the full council, not this Monday, but next.

Thank you.

All right, we are way over time, but I thought that was a necessary conversation to have.

Let's move on to item 19, Noel.

Item 19 is review of Office of Film and Music, Film and Media Production Sector.

Thank you.

Greetings.

Hello, and thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me, Councilmember.

You all are doing such important work, and I am delighted that you have taken some time to make some space to talk about our film industry and the work that we are doing.

The support you have given us this year in allocating some funding to the Office of Film and Music has allowed us to do some things that we have only dreamed of heretofore, like launching the inaugural Film Career Day and launching a film ecosystem study.

And I want to clarify that when we say film, we mean content creation.

So film, video, virtual reality, augmented reality, emerging technologies, all of that we refer to when we say film.

And Kate, while you are working on getting the PowerPoint up, I just, as you touched on, I just want to, and I appreciate that you're talking quickly because you know that we're over time.

But I do want to, as context, touch upon and remind council members that last year the city council, during the budget process, approved additional funding specifically for the film and media production sector work of this office.

This is funding that had not been provided and that the council thought was really important.

So we've asked Director Becker to come and speak with us about how those funds were used.

Thank you, and I will try to be succinct in my comments, but thank you for having me.

So film is an important part of our cultural and economic fabric.

It allows us to tell our stories, export our cultural and commercial capital to the world, and it certainly helps generate tourism.

Within the Office of Film and Music, we have eight staff, and our mission is to grow, equitably grow the creative economy with a focus on strengthening the film, music, nightlife, and special events sectors.

Seattle's film industry is rather unique.

This is a slide we showed at CIFF, so it screened to more than 400 screenings to thousands and thousands of people.

The industry overall is largely a private sector industry that is heavily incentivized in other regions and not in Washington.

So we have a very small state incentive.

It is one of 32 across the nation.

It's at the bottom of the list.

And we are sandwiched between British Columbia, which heavily incentivizes the film industry, and Oregon, which also heavily incentivizes the film industry.

So our competitiveness profile is based on what we can do locally and a little bit of the state film incentive.

To give you an idea of how that incentive works, Largely, it's been allocated to the eastern part of the state for the last four years.

This year, we got a little bit of it allocated to a production here in western Washington.

It was a feature film.

You'll see our numbers are up a great deal in 2018 because of having one feature film here that employed 175 people throughout its run.

It based out of Magnuson Park, renting space from the city at market rate, and it's just been a boon to the industry to have that here.

So what makes Seattle's film industry unique?

We have a very strong commercial sector and a very strong independent sector.

We would love to have more feature work and more episodic work because that's the kind of thing that keeps people regularly employed.

One of the most unique things about Seattle's film industry is that it's largely a female-led industry.

We are the only city that we know of where most of our leading directors are women.

We also have a huge virtual reality opportunity here right now with the gaming sector on the east side of the city and the emerging technologies that are developing here both in people's homes, there's lots of micro businesses, there's also some large scale industry developing virtual reality here and creating jobs that are family wage jobs that don't require higher education.

So what is the core function of our office?

I think you know that we coordinate more than 500 film permits annually.

We have special events leadership in our office, so Chris Swenson is our special events chair and coordinates more than 500 special event permits, everything from festivals to free speech events to parades to all sorts of things we are coordinating throughout the Office of Special Events in collaboration with the Special Events Committee, which Chris also chairs.

We also work on nightlife and helping nightlife proprietors navigate our city processes.

We also do advocacy and promotion, of course, to grow the film industry, advance our city of music initiatives, collaborate with the Seattle Music Commission, who are some of the most hardworking and committed volunteers I have known, research the creative economy, and offer recommendations.

We do this in collaboration with arts and OED, and promote Seattle as a hotbed of creativity and innovation.

This is what our data looks like in 2017. You can see that we coordinated 518 film permits for a total of 1,100 and some filming days, almost 4,000 crew hired, and 2,000 talent actors hired throughout that.

And here's some more data.

Feature films are 20% of what we do.

You see that we have a very strong commercial sector.

The commercial sector is important to our film industry because it's high wage work.

People can work a few days on a commercial, make very good wages, and be able to get by until they find their next project.

It is hard for the film industry to survive right now because of the affordability issues in our city, and they work job to job.

So making it work in Seattle and afford living here is challenging for a lot of our people.

Sorry, the previous one, the percentage breakdowns, is that percentage of permits or percentage of days or percentage of people?

Thank you for asking that, Council Member O'Brien.

So the data that we have that we're showing here is the data that we know from permitting.

There is much more industry happening in the private sector that we don't permit.

We only permit what's happening on public property.

So this year, as part of the funding that you have given us, we're doing a film ecosystem study to find out what else is happening in the sector beyond what we're permitting.

So this is strictly what's happening on city property.

So that's when someone needs to get a permit.

And so this could be an hour or it could be a month.

Correct.

You are absolutely right.

One permit.

Yes.

And one other question, on the 2017 film permitting data, numbers of permits coordinated, total filming days, local crew hired, local talent hired, because so much of this work is, you know, we consider it in comparison to the work that other jurisdictions are getting in this sector.

Do we have sort of comparative numbers for other jurisdictions maybe in this part of the country?

We certainly have done peer city research and we certainly pay attention to what's happening regionally around us and that is part of the film ecosystem study to highlight that data this year.

And that study has begun, but the formal part of it with our consultant is on deck for this fall.

So you can see that in 2016, we only had a 1.6% increase in local and city permits.

The year before, we had nearly a 25% increase.

Our film permit specialist coordinates all those permits.

And then our special events chair is also our film program manager.

He's been doing both jobs since 2012. And so he oversees the orchestration of more than 1,000 film and special event permits annually.

I talked a bit about commercial work before, very important to our sector, and very important that the city work in collaboration with the industry to make this work.

When film comes to town, if it's an out-of-state producer and they're coming to town, they're hiring our local talent, this is important to us, as well as keeping our local producers working, but they expect us to move quickly and get them the access they need to do what they need to do when they come to town.

For the hiring component of that, we talk a lot about in the construction trades about local hire and things like that.

Is there proactive things we do or requirements, or is it just really a function of the industry that it's cheaper to hire local talent, they know the ways, you don't have to pay per diems, or do we do things to?

It is primarily the latter, although our state film incentive does emphasize the local hire.

You must hire the majority of your crew locally in order to get an incentive from the state.

However, locally in the city, we don't incentivize film that way.

We, of course, always encourage local hires.

And producers, when they come from out of state, do prefer to hire locally for all the reasons you said.

Yeah.

So we also work on creative economy workforce development, certainly in collaboration with our partners in arts and OED.

And we are working on film and media education and skills development and jobs creation on a regular basis.

To that end, one of the things we are doing is launching our inaugural film career day in partnership with NIFTY, which is the largest emerging filmmaker film festival in the world based out of Seattle.

And Onewheel is our producing partner in that.

We have expanded our permitting education program to take our film permit specialists out to schools and bring students to sets to educate them about what we expect with film permitting as they become filmmakers.

So I'm going to keep moving right on through this.

One of the other things we're doing this year is really trying to emphasize the need for us to leverage what we have when we don't have cash incentives, to leverage our one-stop shop in our film office and to make our public properties available to filmmakers as much as possible.

So we are working on that.

And one of the things we are doing is some lunch and learns with industry professionals and city department leaders this fall.

The film ecosystem study we are doing, the last time there was a film ecosystem study in Seattle was 2003, so we really need some new data, some new information to work with and know what is our baseline, where are we right now, and then we have the information we need to work with to grow the industry.

On deck for this fall, we have executing that film ecosystem study, cross-departmental work to support drone filmmaking, leveraging our commercial media industries to work with emerging filmmakers, partnering with you in the mayor's office and key departments to implement some soft incentives.

We would love to work together with all of you to really make sure that the next generation of film industry professionals does not look as homogenous as the industry has historically.

So here are some of the investments that you all are making this year.

Film Career Day, the Film Ecosystem Study Contract, a marketing campaign to promote local talent and locations, sponsorship of community access at Northwest Film Forum to editing suites.

Those are free to the community, thanks to your sponsorship.

Sponsorship of the Seattle Film Summit, which is working industry professionals.

That is not emerging talent, that is the people who are trying to survive in our industry right now, so we are sponsoring that.

We have new street signage for drone filmmaking, big street signs.

And we are also hiring a scout for our period of maximum constraint because it will be difficult for filmmakers to work during that time in the downtown core.

And we want them to be able to find alternative sites, not just choose another city to work in, but figure out how we can help them do it here.

And we will submit a wrap report to you in January of 2019 for all of this.

Thank you.

So I think moving into this year's budget process, we're going to have likely additional questions about a lot of what you just told us right now, comparing the work of the film office to the work that was identified as desired in the green sheet providing the funding, and whether or not there are some elements of what the council was thinking at the time that didn't happen this year, whether or not we can think about ways to make it happen next year.

Fantastic.

All right.

Very much appreciate your support.

Thanks for coming and giving this presentation.

I think it's going to be really useful to our budget deliberations coming up.

Yeah, and I appreciate how quickly you moved this information.

I don't want to make sure the folks understand when you and your team do amazing work, And both film and music play such a critical role to the identity of the city, the economic opportunities in our city.

It's great that we have that ecosystem out there.

And you touched on a lot of stuff in just a few minutes.

I appreciate that.

And I know there's a lot more for us to learn and understand.

So thanks for the work you're doing.

Thank you very much.

And thank you for taking the time.

I know you'll be on schedule.

So thank you.

Appreciate it.

So next we're on item 20.

Item 20, Council Bill 119347, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities adopting the 2019 water system plan.

Great, thank you.

And this is our second discussion on the water system plan.

And let's start with introductions, please.

Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Joan Kersnar, Seattle Public Utilities.

Great, thank you.

Want to kick it off?

Yes, thank you.

So as you mentioned, this item was introduced and discussed at the previous council meeting, council committee meeting on September 11th, and it would adopt the 2019 water system plan for the city, which would replace the 2013 water system plan that was adopted in December of 2012. The plan describes how Seattle Public Utilities, or SPU, will meet current and future water demand, ensure the provision of high-quality drinking water, and invest in and maintain the water supply system in an efficient manner.

It focuses on near-term plans for the next 10 years, and also discusses longer-term capital plans through 2040. And SPU prepared the plan under regulations adopted by the Washington State Department of Health, because an approved plan is required for the system's operating permit, and the plan is also consistent with state and local land use.

plans.

Much more detail was provided last week in SPU's presentation, but a couple of the key takeaways from the plan are that no new water supplies will be needed through 2060, even when accounting for climate change impacts, and the focus of future capital investments will be on replacing aging infrastructure and on making seismic improvements to the distribution and transmission systems.

Adoption of the plan will also do a couple of other things.

First, it will set a new goal for the 19 members of the Saving Water Partnership to keep the total retail water use under 110 million gallons per day through 2028, despite forecasted population growth.

And just for comparison, the current goal for the 2013 to 2018 period is to keep use under 105 million gallons per day, and the partnership has achieved that goal every year.

And second, it will update the city's water shortage contingency plan.

And the updated plan will allow SPU's general manager CEO to authorize the first water shortage response stage, which is known as the advisory stage, to begin planning and coordination activities.

And that stage doesn't require customers to alter their habits in any way, but the future stages have to be approved by the mayor.

And so finally, if council were to approve the water system plan, then it goes on to King County and the Washington State Department of Health for adoption or for approval.

And approval by the Department of Health needs to occur by April 19th of next year to avoid a lapse in the city's having an approved plan.

Great.

Thank you.

So I just have a couple questions that have arisen since the last committee presentation.

I don't know if it makes sense to maybe pull up the presentation from last time.

Maybe Alex, you can help with that just because some of the questions relate to specifically the PowerPoint presentation.

The first question I had relates to the slide that has the graph entitled Meeting Future Water Demand.

And I'm sorry, the slides aren't numbered.

But that slide, well, in the presentation last week, SPU said there would be no need for new water supplies until 2060. The graph on the slide doesn't show the use going above the current firm yield line, and so Because of what the graph says versus what we heard you say in committee, it just would be helpful to understand why 2060 is the assumed time frame in which SPU should consider additional water supplies and what additional water supplies look like.

That's the one.

What the graph shows is the total water demand is less than our current firm yield, which is based on historic climatologies or hydrology, and the statement is that we don't need a new supply before 2060. We haven't looked beyond 2060 on that.

Population forecasts are available to 2040, so we're already extrapolating between 2040 and 2060. Not enough information.

Yeah, and we did look at the uncertainty that the plan does have uncertainty around that demand forecast, and there's a given the variability or the range in population that could occur and other factors that go into that demand forecast, it reinforced that we didn't need a new supply source before 2060. That does not consider the climate change impact.

So that's one other piece that we'll be continuing to look at.

Okay.

And at what point can you extrapolate that far out about need?

Beyond 2060, well, we're already extrapolating beyond 2040. So we're assuming the same growth rate going forward.

So it's a very conservative forecast in that sense that if things go lower and not at that pace, then it would be lower.

But then that uncertainty graph that we don't have in the presentation, but it's in the plan, looks at what happens if number of households ends up being higher, employment is higher or lower, price increases higher or lower.

So we looked at that.

Thank you.

And then I have two other questions that are not related to the presentation itself, but related to the plan.

One relates to the section of the plan that talks about water main flushing.

Water main flushing that was conducted in 2016 in North and West Seattle.

Apparently, there is a new system called Neutral Output Discharge Elimination System that was used in Arbor Heights.

And apparently, this system was effective in that it removed 150 pounds of sediment.

It clogged faster than anticipated.

So the question is just, is this a system that SPU intends to continue to use for moving forward?

And are there other areas of the city that require this kind of flushing?

As you noted, that system did clog because of the high sediment load.

So we're finding that that system might work very well in maintenance mode, but when we're doing major flushing like the one that occurred in West Seattle and Arbor Heights, we would need to do the more traditional discharge to storm systems or something else besides that system.

So there's some applications where that would work okay and others not.

Okay, great.

And then my last question relates to one of our favorite topics of the past, goosenecks, lead goosenecks.

You talk about that in the plan, and there was the scare that Tacoma had a couple years ago.

It turned out that there was actually no issue of lead in their pipes.

We used that as an opportunity here in Seattle for SPU to contract out to conduct closed circuit television scans to discover the relation of the lead.

remaining lead whips.

The report doesn't mention this and states that the location of the remaining lead whips estimated at 2,000 is unknown.

What's happening with the contract and the effort to discover these additional...

Yeah, so for those that don't know, lead goosenecks or whips are one to two foot sections of lead pipe that connect the main to the service line to a property.

And they were used in the past because they were very flexible.

We did a pilot around ground penetrating radar to get a 3D image of the piping.

What we found though was that the results were inconclusive.

We couldn't find the difference between a lead whip or a section of pipe and some other materials.

Unfortunately, that did not work very well for us.

And it seemed to have potential because we would not have to dig up the street in order to investigate whether there was a lead web there.

So going forward, we're back to looking at our data that we have on our water system.

They're typically on galvanized service lines and of a certain age.

So we will be using opportunities to dig up those sections of pipe and then compare it against the data to see if we can hone in on those 2,000 estimate and get better information about the age of the pipe and the locations where these still might exist.

As you mentioned, 2,000 out of around 200,000 services that we think that these lead whips are still in existence.

So this is an ongoing effort.

It's an ongoing effort.

I don't have any further questions.

Council Member Bryan, any for you?

Okay.

So before we vote, I just want to thank, there's also an advisory committee for this body of work.

It's the Water System Advisory Committee.

I want to thank them for their work with SPU on the report and their letter to the council where they emphasize the need for equity and affordability for all customers moving forward.

And these are issues that we're going to continue to watchdog.

And so with that, I'll move Council Bill 1193-47.

Second.

All those in favor vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, none abstaining.

This bill will move on to full council Monday after next.

Okay, thank you.

Can you read items 21 and 22 into the record together?

Item 21, Council Bill 119355, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, amending sections 21-33030 and 21-76040 to Seattle Municipal Code to adjust drainage rates.

And item 22, Council Bill 119356, an ordinance relating to Seattle Public Utilities, amending sections 21-28040 21-28-080 and 21-76-040 of the Seattle Municipal Code to adjust wastewater rates.

Thank you, Alex.

Brian, good night.

Council Central staff.

Thank you.

Mami Hara, Seattle Public Utilities.

Great.

Cameron Finlay, Seattle Public Utilities.

Thank you.

You want to kick us off again?

Thank you.

Yes.

So these two council bills would establish the city's drainage and wastewater rates for 2019 through 2021, and they would also establish rate discounts for certified low-income residential utility customers for the same period.

Like the previous item, these items were introduced and described by SPU during the last committee meeting on September 11th.

So, drainage and wastewater fees work in tandem to provide SPU with sufficient revenue to manage both the drainage and the wastewater collection and treatment systems.

Practically speaking, SPU customers pay these two types of fees in different ways.

Wastewater fees are paid directly to SPU through wastewater bills, and then drainage fees are billed through King County's property tax system.

For context, in 2018, a typical residential customer would pay an average of just under $98 per month for these two fees combined.

Last fall, council adopted two pieces of legislation related to drainage and wastewater rates.

The first was a resolution adopting the 2018 to 2023 strategic business plan update, which included an endorsed six-year rate path for all of SPU's lines of business.

And the second was an ordinance which increased the 2018 drainage and wastewater rates in order to moderate the increases that would be required over the rest of that six-year plan, business plan period.

And there is a memo in your packets today that summarizes the legislation and the proposed rates.

And I'm going to walk through a few of the tables right now.

Thank you.

So table number two, which is on page two of the memo, compares the endorsed drainage and wastewater rates from the rate increases from the strategic business plan update to the rate increases in the proposed legislation.

As you can see, the proposed rate increases are lower than the business plan across the board, and we'll get to some of those reasons in just a few moments.

But to determine the rate adjustments that are necessary to support the drainage and wastewater systems, SPU performed a detailed rate study that revised rate usage, sorry, revised customer usage estimates, determined the resources that were needed to meet departmental financial policies, and then calculated the revenue requirements for each of the two systems.

And SPU's rate study is attached to the summary and fiscal notes for each of the council bills, just for reference.

Table number three, which is at the bottom of page two, shows the impact of the proposed rate increases on SPU's revenues from 2019 to 2021. In 2018, SPU is projected to bring in approximately $400 million in the drainage and wastewater fees.

And by 2021, the revenue will increase to a little over $500 million.

So getting back to the changes since the adopted business plan, planned capital expenditures have increased, largely due to combined sewer overflow projects, including the Ship Canal water quality project, and the forecasted wastewater consumption rate has been lowered.

And just as an aside, the consumption rate is essentially basically the amount of water that's expected to be used by the customers that then flows into the wastewater system to be treated.

So both of those changes exert upward pressure on the rates.

And there's a few things that have worked to more than offset this upward pressure.

Some of those are improved financial performance in 2017, including favorable bond issuance, and then also increased use of cash balances over this three-year period.

And then one of the larger factors is a lower than projected wastewater treatment rate from King County.

So both of the systems, the drainage and the wastewater system, contain a pass-through amount that goes to the King County Wastewater Treatment Division to pay for the treatment costs for wastewater that's conveyed by SPU's system.

And King County updates those rates every two years.

And then last fall, during the business plan update, it was projected that the increase for 2019 would be 6.4%.

It turned out that it was only 2.5%, so that resulted in significant savings for SPU.

And then just one final note about the pass-through, if you're looking at the memo or the presentation from SPU from last week.

is that King County is projected to increase the rate in 2021 by 4.5%, and so that has been assumed in all the tables in both my memo and then in SPU's presentation from last week, but the legislation doesn't actually include that treatment rate increase.

By including it in the tables and in their presentation, it's kind of a more honest assessment of what the rates will be for ratepayers, but because it's not been decided yet, then it's not included in the legislation.

And do those just automatically pass through once, when the county does it, it doesn't require an ordinance on ours, we just?

It actually will require an ordinance.

Oh, it will.

So every kind of third year, so in 2020, the council will see an ordinance from SPU that will codify that change, yeah.

And then the last table is table four of the memo, or table four, which is on page four of the memo.

And that shows the estimated monthly impact of the rate increases on a typical residential customer and then a typical small business.

In this case, it's a convenience store.

So as you can see, for a residential customer, the drainage rate is expected to increase from about $40 a month in 2018 to a little over $50 in 2021. And then on the wastewater side, the monthly bill goes from about $58 up to not quite $72.

in 2021 and then the bills for the convenience store increased by similar percentages, but they overall they pay more for both systems.

And these numbers are the They're sort of typical monthly single family fees.

And these aren't the increases.

I mean, they show the increase, but they're the projected rate.

That's right.

So the lines in bold are the total rates that they would pay.

And then below that in italics is the increase over the previous year.

Got it.

And again, these increases are now, because of the work described and the changes as a result, are going to be smaller increases year to year than what we anticipated last year.

That's correct.

A couple things I have as relates to the good news is one of the things that SPU is doing that has helped to bring the rate path is drawing down cash reserves.

And the balance in the drainage and wastewater fund in 2018 was about $168 million.

And it's projected to be $77 million by the end of 2021. Just wondering whether or not there are potential consequences of doing this now when we're about to bring on the construction of the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, and whether or not there is sort of a best practice for what percentage we're supposed to be holding in a reserve fund.

And then finally, does drawing down this reserve fund at all impact our credit rating?

Because our credit rating was another thing that led to unanticipated savings and in the way of issuance of positive bond issuances.

Great question, something near and dear to my heart.

For the cash balances, there isn't a perfect number.

What we've tried to do here in the rate study is utilize the guidance that we're hearing from the bond market that says we'd like your cash reserves to be higher given how big you are, how much debt you're going to be issuing.

So there is a risk of having it draw down over time in order to maintain our high bond rating.

We, based on conversation with our financial advisors, think that it's not unreasonable.

And what we've committed to the rating agencies is that as we have good news, we may, we'll just put it back in there and not go look for other things to do, but instead try and maintain those strong financial indicators.

We will be going to the market about every year for the next few years, so this rating's pretty important.

But since there's no-.

But you can also monitor whether or not there is any unanticipated impact.

Exactly.

I mean, I think the one thing that would be important to know is once we, if we do, if we were to get a downgrade or anything like that, it does take a while to come back.

So it's something that we want to maintain to the best of our ability because once you're down, you know, it's hard.

So, you know, we think it's a reasonable package, but there's no guarantees in any of it.

And the canal water quality project, any need to keep a larger reserve because of that project?

No, we think it's baked in just like all of our other projects.

So we think it's reasonable.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member O'Brien?

Yes, on that chart, I noticed the percentage changes are identical for both residential and convenience store in all columns except for 2019. And so I'm curious, is it just, is it completely different schedules and it's just coincidence, or is there something going on in 2019 that's unique?

Do you want to take it or do you want me to?

I'll try.

Cameron can step in.

So my understanding, the kind of overall rates, there are many, many tiers for drainage.

So it's based for small residential, they're kind of set amounts.

Once you get, I think it's above 10,000 square feet, and then for all the commercial ones, There's various tiers based on impervious surface levels and all these kind of different factors.

So what happens is, in a combined sense, as an average over all the customer types and tiers, you get to these kind of annual increases.

So they generally tend to be pretty close to that average.

So drainage is around 8%, you know, for those years.

But for each and every kind of different customer type, you're going to have a little bit of a different scenario.

So I don't think 2019 is supposed to be unique from 2020 or 2021, but it is a factor of the fact that it's a convenience store.

But if we ran them all out, they'd all kind of trend around that 7.5, 8%.

Cameron, do you wanna clarify?

Yeah, and the only thing I would add is we do think that before we come back for another drainage wastewater rate study, we will be looking, maybe taking some time to look a little deeper into our structures and seeing if there's anything that needs to change or be updated because it just has been a while since we've looked at things.

So I think it's an ever moving piece, how things move between tiers, but it's probably a good time to take a look at it prior to the next rate study.

That'd be great.

Another question about conservation.

I know the folks at SPU do amazing work with our customers to figure out how we can conserve, similar to City Light does it.

One of the things I'm constantly looking at as we go through and do rate increases for any of the utilities, because we have a strong conservation ethic and make investments in conservation, folks will often look at percentage increases.

And the bill increases that are associated with it, but we don't really forecast savings that may come from conservation efforts.

I'm curious, the drainage, is there any way for folks to change their landscape to save, or is it really just, that's just a fixed rate?

And then on the wastewater, I think there are probably things people can do to, you know, offset through conservation if they haven't done that yet.

So there's certain programs that we have on the drainage side that can help with elements.

We have, oh.

Rainwise.

Rainwise, thank you.

The Rainwise program that people can participate that would help and offset certain bills.

So you'd be changing part of your landscape or capturing rainwater and things like that.

On the wastewater, exactly what you said, how you utilize water.

So it's basically your consumption.

So that's things like, what, low flow toilets, low flow fixtures, rain sensors for landscaping, you know, the whole suite of things that we normally do.

And I imagine every year there's more and more technology where we can deliver.

And does Seattle Public Utilities continue to provide, you know, rebates or subsidies for fixtures that can do that?

We especially do for low-income customers.

And the thing, though, to remember, though, with conservation is that there are still fixed costs of the system.

So there is room for the individual customer to move the needle on their bills, but it's not a one-to-one correlation related to their consumption.

Well, as we go through this, I guess I just hope that when we're informing the public of the rate changes, that we make sure they're fully aware of all the conservation opportunities which benefit our ecosystem, benefit them financially, benefit our system, if we're not having to build.

Obviously, you mentioned the combined sewer overflow work we're doing, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars.

But to the extent that, you know, we know that every gallon that's captured in some other way that we don't have to build, you know, hard infrastructure in the street, that saves those fixed costs.

So I hope this is an opportunity to continue to educate folks and make sure that they know what's available.

It's amazing to see that there's still some old, high-volume flush toilets existing in our city, and I hope that folks know that there's some really amazing alternatives out there, along with a lot of other things to be done.

Seattle's story of averting the huge capital costs of trying to look for other supply through conservation over these past decades is an amazing story, and the community should be proud of their work.

That's great.

All right.

Separate from the changes to the rate path, but intrinsic to the rate path itself, I just wanted to mention as part of the strategic business plan last year, we also asked the utility to do an efficiency study, and that was one of the ways that we in the council process last year worked to project a reduced yearly increase, average increase, and we're gonna be, the utility's working on that efficiency study, and I understand we're gonna be getting the results of it at the end of this year.

So with that, if there are no further questions, let's move to a vote.

I move passage of Council Bill 1193.55, All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And then I move passage of Council Bill 1193.56.

Second.

Aye.

All in favor?

None opposed?

And both items will move on to full council Monday after next.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

All right.

Item 23. I think this is a record for us.

Item number 23, Information 1230, Seattle Women's Commission Housing Justice Study.

Thank you, Alex.

Folks can join us at the table.

And we are way behind time, and I know council members have other business, so.

I'm Freetown Newton.

Are you?

Oh, I thought you were done at 1130, so that's great.

Oh, well, let me confirm that.

And just as a little bit of background.

Correct.

I have something at 1130.

Earlier this year, the Women's Commission informed the Council that members of the Equitable Development Subcommittee of the Women's Commission, as part of their policy priority of promoting stable housing for women and families in Seattle, would be conducting this research on evictions in Seattle.

Their proposal looked at the common causes of eviction, its financial impacts.

potential public health implications and the overall evictions on women.

And if possible, they included looking at specifically gender non-conforming women.

Today, we have members of the Women's Commission to hear that research and present their report, Losing Home, the Human Cost of Eviction in Seattle.

Can we do a quick round of introductions first, please?

My name is Jamila Williams.

Xochitl Makevich.

Who would like to kick us off?

So we'll try to make this as concise as possible.

Council Member O'Brien just said that he's good till noon.

Okay, great.

My crew managed to move something around, so here we are.

So for the past eight months, we dug really deep into the eviction process in Seattle.

And so what we did was we took all of the cases that were filed last year in the city of Seattle, and we manually went through every court record.

don't recommend.

And we also looked at other public data, such as the complaints filed with the SDCI, medical examiner records, and other similar information to compile this report.

And we did this study because We know anecdotally that marginalized communities, in particular women, women of color, immigrants, are impacted disproportionately by the housing crisis.

And we also know that evictions are traumatic.

And you go to the courthouse and you can see how many women, people with disabilities, people of color are sitting there waiting to be evicted, essentially.

But we didn't have any data, and there was really no firm data on, you know, from before you get evicted, during the process, and the outcomes afterwards.

And so that's why we dug into this.

So, and as far as the methods go, oh yeah, I already said that.

Looking at a lot of public data.

That's about it.

So I will turn it over to Ed to talk about the eviction process.

Okay, I did bring three copies in case I wasn't sure if you would have one for the committee.

I had not printed it out yet, so thank you.

So that way we can refer to it.

And I'll do this very quickly because I don't want to get into the weeds of the eviction process.

If you do turn to page 13, though, you will see a colorful graphic that just sort of outlines the process.

Generally, the one thing that I would like the committee to just understand that is a very quick process.

We have a lot of volunteers in my clinic who are, we have actually, for example, one who's a landlord side attorney from California who flies up to Washington on a monthly basis and volunteers for us on the tenant side.

And he is shocked on a routine basis about how aggressive and how fast this process is.

So the one thing I'll just keep, just sort of explain very quickly is, for most cases, and as we found, about 86% were about nonpayment of rent.

When rent is due, it's typically around the first of the month, might be the fifth of the month, could be even a little bit longer, but generally we find between the first and the fifth.

Once that rent is not paid by that time, then the landlord can serve a notice, so it would be a three-day notice.

And that tenant basically, once they get that, have about three days to pay that rent.

If they don't pay that rent within the three days, for the most part, that's going to be it.

There's not really many opportunities to be able to cure that issue.

even a partial payment after those three days is not going to actually solve that problem.

So...

Edmund, I just want to make really clear why.

Because the landlord is not under any legal obligation to accept a partial payment during the three days, nor are they under a legal obligation to accept a full payment after the three days.

Right.

Yeah, and so I...

So state law basically says after the three days are up, they don't have to accept any amount at that point.

Usually once those three days are up, though, they'll usually serve a summons and complaint.

That basically starts the court process.

And the one thing that really makes you understand is although we counted 1,218 residential tenant filings last year in the city of Seattle, we are fairly confident that that underestimates the amount because most summonses and complaints are not actually filed with the court.

So we think that this is just a chip of the problem.

We don't actually see the full scope of it.

And they're not filed with the court because when people receive them, they leave rather than going through the court process.

That could be one thing.

We really don't know what the outcomes are ultimately on those cases, but that would be my guess.

And now to give you some scope of it, our data showed that my program represented 299 tenants in actually filed cases, but we served out of the city Seattle about 800 tenants who had some kind of eviction related crisis.

So that means we're seeing about even, not even half of the actual cases that are coming through, and those are ones that maybe the tenant either vacated or maybe we were able to resolve them beforehand.

But the short of it is that this is a very quick process.

It can be done as quickly as in three weeks, and we do see that on a regular basis.

So as we're getting to the end of September, most of the cases I'm seeing now are just about September's rent.

I'm going to go into the who and the where of it.

So who gets evicted in Seattle?

Starting with women.

Women are more likely to be evicted over small amounts of money.

So of those single-tenant household cases where a tenant owed just $100 or less, 81% of them were women.

In addition, 58% of those women were women of color.

And this is disproportionate to their representation in Seattle.

They represent about 34% of women in Seattle.

And then a surprise to us was that we expected that more women than men would be in these evictions cases, given national studies and, you know, particular barriers to women in Seattle.

And we actually found that they were a smaller portion of tenants, likely because they have already moved out of the city.

So I want to show you these graphs.

So you can see on the far right of the right graph that in Seattle, 7.2% of single female households are renters.

And nationally, it's about 19%.

And so it's also lowering than our neighboring cities.

So of course, this is of concern and interest for the Women's Commission.

In addition, people of color represented the majority of tenants who went into these proceedings.

52% were people of color.

Of these, 31% were black, and they experienced eviction at a rate of 4.5 times what we would expect based on their demographics in Seattle.

And as you can see on the slide, people of color were also more likely to be evicted for smaller amounts of money.

And this- Sorry, can you, meaning the dollar amounts that they were short were less than for people that are white, or?

Yes, so this shows that the black is for rents of less than $1,000 and $500 owed, so relatively small amounts.

We found that a greater portion of those were people of color than white.

And it's important to point out that it's the dollars, you're looking at dollars in the case of eviction, so clearly there is a racial component to it that if you are a person of color, renter of color, then you're more likely to be evicted for lower amounts than for white people.

My conclusion is that accurate based on what you've learned.

Yes, that's what we found in the 2017 cases, yes.

And this is a really, I think, stark example of sort of layered disproportionality.

How many are people of color more likely to be evicted at a at a rate that is much four and a half times their population as it relates to disproportionality.

But then the layer on top of that is the fact that there's more of those folks being evicted, but there's more of them also being evicted for less.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so this next slide also shows, it just breaks it down a bit more.

So again, this is all of the 2017 cases that researchers examined and you can see the differences there.

So the orange is Seattle population and the blue is tenants and evictions cases.

So where are tenants evicted from?

In short, everywhere.

So every neighborhood in Seattle experienced evictions in 2017. Of those, we looked at it by zip code.

So 98122, which is the central district, Madrona and Summit First Hill was the highest, as well as 98104, which is the international district and Pioneer Square, south downtown.

We also looked at it by council district and found that over half of all eviction filings, so that's 58%, were from three districts, council district 7, 3, and 5. We also noted, as national research has noted, a link between eviction filings and what you might call gentrification processes.

And so this may suggest that the eviction process is a form of displacement and playing a function within it.

And not just a form of displacement, but the eviction process itself, I think, this shows is, and the paucity of laws that we have to ameliorate it, actually interferes with the city's ability to affirmatively promote fair housing.

which is a big problem.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we also looked at the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection records and found that 5% of the cases were from a building in which at least one landlord-tenant violation had been found in the previous 90 days before the eviction.

And could you quickly give us a couple of examples of what kind of violations you're talking about?

So they varied.

The biggest was housing code violations.

There was also just cause violations, violations for increasing rent on substandard units and other things like that.

One landlord that stood out, it's CNA, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, because it's like you're reading it.

CNA and HUA Limited Partnerships.

Every building that they had evicted someone from, except for one, had a housing code violation within, I think, the previous year of the eviction.

And then the one that didn't have a housing code violation, the tenant raised substandard housing as a defense to the eviction and had pictures of like, you know, the ceiling caving in.

And so that really stood out a lot to me.

Is that, does that raise a question of whether or not people are, that at the foundation of the eviction is a retaliatory action?

I mean, I think it's hard to say definitively, right?

Because we looked at the building, so not necessarily the unit, because we didn't have that for every complaint.

But I think that it definitely raises some concerns that retaliation is...

part of, is a retaliatory eviction is a risk that tenants face when raising concerns about their living conditions.

So the code violation that you're talking about wasn't necessarily identified by a tenant complaint is what you're saying?

So that, the violations from the city, it could have been a tenant complaint, it could have been just through the regular inspections that the city does.

Thanks.

I'll hand it over to Jamila.

So I'm going to go into the why tenants are evicted.

So one tenant in the survey who was in a domestic violence situation said, because of this financial instability, I tried to reconcile with my husband at the end of June.

He ended up using the remaining amount of my funds.

After talking with the former property manager, the property management company would not work with me at all to create a payment plan, and if I did not pay in full, I would be evicted.

As such, I prepared to move forward with my husband.

So from our research, we found the reasons for eviction to be non-payment of rent, lease violations, mutual terminations, non-rent charges, no-cause terminations, and 11 other cases, including demolition or development of property, firing of a property manager, or a landlord deciding to live alone.

Can you remind me what mutual termination is?

Yeah, so typically a mutual termination means that the eviction wouldn't go on a record, and the landlord and tenant decide to mutually let the person leave and get out of their lease.

In this case, we found that some folks didn't understand what they were signing when they signed a mutual termination agreement, so they would stay when they really needed to leave, and so that's why this is listed here under eviction.

So these mutual terminations are typically entered into as an agreement prior to the filing of an eviction case.

And so what you're saying is these are examples of folks who stayed beyond that mutual termination.

So this is not looking at the question of whether or not people are being treated fairly in a mutual termination agreement, which is something that Mr. Witter and I have talked about in the past is the way that some of, in particular, some of our nonprofit housing providers use mutual termination agreements.

And sometimes people don't know what they're signing, they don't know their rights, and they don't know that they could be entitled to stay.

Sometimes those termination, mutual termination agreements are also over very frivolous things.

But those types would not be captured here because they are often agreed upon prior to the eviction process.

Correct.

Thank you.

So we found that a staggering 52.3% of non-payment rent cases were for a month or less in rent.

A landlord's attorney in New York, when asked how often he has evicted a tenant for a month or less in outstanding rent, said, quote, that would be harassment.

So how, that's one of the things I'm trying to understand, the difference between our laws and other states' laws.

I mean, on the one hand, because you can begin an eviction process and ended quite swiftly.

As soon as someone's late on any rent, I get that why a bunch of them would be that because of a landlord that's strictly following that and wanted to aggressively move, but just do that.

Do other states have laws that say you can be late on rent, you can't start eviction for a while?

Yeah.

Historically, the way an eviction process has worked, both in England, even if you go to Australia, even if you go throughout the US, and there's a lot of states do this in a little bit different ways.

But essentially, it's two questions.

You have one question is about the lease.

So under law, did the tenant breach the lease by not paying rent, by another violation of some sort?

And then there's the second question is, OK, if the tenant did violate the lease agreement, what's the appropriate remedy?

And that's more of a question about where the judge decides, OK, well, this person owes $100.

Sure, the landlord should get maybe a judgment or have the right to collect those $100 by levying on the bank account, by garnishing that person's wages.

But then there's that second question is, is the right remedy in this situation to evict and take away that person's housing over $100?

And other states really do distinguish those two questions.

I mean, Ohio is a good example of that where judge will do that analysis, will say, okay, you know, tenant, you owe the rent, but let's look at it in full circumstances.

Who is the landlord?

Is this a small-time landlord who maybe has to struggle with the mortgage, who really needs this income to be able to pay it?

And then, or is this a big developer who maybe doesn't, isn't struggling in the same way and maybe should have that cost of doing business there?

And then we look at the tenant.

What's the tenant's circumstances?

Is this somebody who has a disability?

Is this somebody who has children?

Is this some, what will happen to this person ultimately?

I'll say when I was out in New York, the difference was, if the tenant could show some due diligence in being able to pay it, then they would be able to keep their housing.

And it really was for the fact is, tenants didn't typically get evicted for non-payment of rent.

They were usually given time when they, you know, I would come into a case, we would be in the Bronx or Brooklyn, and I'd say, look, this is what we can, I wouldn't even necessarily even have to say that how we're going to pay it, but usually the landlord would just say, okay, I'll give you six weeks.

And that was pretty typical in part for the courts when we were doing that.

And so, again, it's sort of like because there's two questions are there.

The one thing that I found in Washington and especially in my conversations with judges is they feel like, If the tenant breaches the lease, even if they're a dollar short, they have to issue that remedy of eviction no matter what.

And that's where I think we have to decouple those two questions.

And that doesn't only impact the outcome of eviction cases, it also impacts the behavior, I think, of landlords, right?

If landlords know that that two-part question is not going to be asked in our courts, it makes it, I think, more likely that landlords are going to feel that it's okay to evict their tenants for not owing very much rent because there is not a very high likelihood that they'll lose in courts here in Washington State.

Yeah, and I think it does create some really aggressive practices in the landlord side.

The reality was, I never saw cases for a month's rent in New York, ever.

I can't even recall a single instance, which is what prompted sort of this inquiry, going back to some of my old adversaries, but also colleagues, and just asking them, you know, do you bring these cases?

I don't remember seeing them.

And that sort of sparked the reaction.

And so in other states, New York, because it sounds like you have a lot of experience, you mentioned Ohio, the landlord still, would ultimately get paid if, you know, well, six weeks, so they, it's not that they're like, they have, you know, so I guess it's a cash flow issue, and that's where you mentioned a judge might use discretion and say, hey, you know, this landlord is actually struggling to make his mortgage payment or her mortgage payment, and so.

versus like, hey, this is a cash flow issue for the tenant, and there's a path out of it.

Landlord, can you absorb some of the cash flow timing?

You're still going to get paid in full, maybe with other fees too, I don't know, but.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I would have a case where it would be like a single household where they were sharing a room, and then the judge would say, look, I'm not going to give this tenant much time.

This tenant's got a very short amount of time to be able to come up.

But then I'd have these mega developers or ones who own several buildings throughout the city, and the judge would just say, look, I'm going to give this person time.

You can handle, you can wait.

This is not a pressing issue at this point.

Can you also just on a related note talk about what is the law like in a state like New York State, for example, in contrast with Washington State in terms of partial payment?

Because, I mean, you can have an all or nothing conversation, but I think in, I mean, I don't know what the statistical evidence exactly is, but the reality is for most people, you might have part of it, but you might have had a difficult month, you might have an unexpected expense, Maybe your car broke down and you need your car for going to work and you had to spend on that and then you didn't have enough for rent, but you may have some of it.

You may have half of it or even most of it, but not exactly the right amount.

So you can talk also about...

Yeah, and it's a similar inquiry.

It's just the one that we were talking about.

I mean, that tenant's ability to pay something today was basically that good faith measure.

Like, I can pay this and I can keep paying.

And that was something the judge would consider as well.

So, I mean, a partial payment wasn't nothing.

And here it kind of is nothing in a lot of ways.

to say you weren't paying the full amount so therefore you're out.

Whereas in a lot of other states it's, well, you can pay something, what's the plan for the next part and how can we do that?

Sorry to press upon this but are there laws on the books in other states where it actually spells out that if your tenant cannot pay the full rent but can pay some portion of it that you should, this should not even be a legal matter that you should, you know, or there's some point at which it becomes a legal matter.

Maybe you have outstanding rent from several months or something like that.

Yeah, I'm not aware of a specific one that addresses that particular issue because ultimately what it comes down to is this is just something that was deemed to be inherent in the judge's ability to sort of weigh all circumstances by the partial.

So that's sort of more, it comes out of the judiciary was the one who sort of created this.

I mean, it certainly could be something that could be legislative created too.

And one of the ways that New York did it is they basically said, judge, you can always, for good cause, stay or vacate the warrant, which is the writ of restitution.

So you can always, for good cause, stop the eviction if you want, if you think there's good cause.

So just this year, court records show that a tenant was served a three-day notice to pay or vacate for $15.67.

Three quarters of all cases for rent owed were for amounts below $2,500.

And the average rent owed was a little over $1,200.

So based on the median rent owed, it would have cost the city less than a million dollars to pay all of the rent owed in those cases in which 2,500 or less was allegedly outstanding.

By contrast, over 70 million is currently spent on the homeless response budget in Seattle.

As it relates to the property owners that are using these really I think aggressive is a good adjective, practices as it relates to eviction.

Have we done any analysis of how much rental housing those most aggressive landlords operate?

Like I'd be, you know, the property owner who evicted somebody for $15, I'd be interested to know how many tenants that particular property owner has control of their housing.

their future.

So one of the challenges we ran into with some of the data was that, so sometimes the property management company is the one who files the eviction, and so we don't know who necessarily owns that property.

And then when we looked at the King County Assessor's Office to try and figure out who owned the address, about half of the addresses didn't even come up.

So it just was a little cumbersome to try to figure that out.

But I will say, generally speaking, we saw individual pro se landlords, we saw big property management companies, and we also saw non-profit housing providers evicting people for very small amounts of money.

So I don't think it was a unique thing.

Thank you.

So another issue tenants deal with when facing an eviction and was mentioned earlier was that this process happens really quickly.

And you can see here that it most likely begins on the 4th through the 6th of the month when the majority of three-day pay or vacate notices are served.

So this makes it hard for tenants to catch up before the process starts.

And so three days, three business days, three calendar days?

Three calendar days.

And so if you're out of town taking care of your sick relative or it's just posted on the door.

Yeah, and actually I believe even when we compared one of the medical examiner records, one of the suicides that was listed was somebody who in his response to the court said, I was out of town and I didn't realize that the check got misplaced.

And he was pleading for leniency because he was out of town at the time when it got posted, didn't realize the check went through.

And he was somebody who could, I think it was a suicide before the eviction actually happened, but he said he could pay the money, he could pay the next month.

Yeah, it's three calendar days, and there's really no excuse, whether you're out of town, whether you even fell on a holiday weekend.

And that tenant, I think he had tried to give the back rent and the next month's rent to the property manager, at least according to the letter, and the date of his death was about six days after that letter was received by the attorney.

So adding to the rent owed and how quickly this process happens are court costs.

As the report notes, the consistent imposition of legal fees against tenants disincentivizes landlords from settling actions for low amounts of rent and creates a cycle of debt for the tenant.

And as this slide states, attorney's fees were charged to tenants in 90.6% of cases with a median charge of $416.19.

And court costs were charged in 92.2% of cases with a median charge of $358.98.

And shockingly, legal costs sometimes exceeded the rent owed.

As you'll see in one particular case, a landlord spent $3,400 to collect $137 owed.

So the attorneys fees are talking about are the landlord can pass on their attorney fees and Is that correct?

And then the court costs, these are like filing fees.

And so those are costs that the court system imposes on the landlord that the landlord then turns around and passes on.

Do we control those court costs or government?

I mean, the superior court does.

And why would a landlord spend $3,400 to collect $1,100 worth of rent.

Just, I mean, just from a purely a business perspective, I don't even understand that logically.

I mean, I think that might be a better question for a landlord, but I think the other piece of it is, you know, all of these costs get put on a tenant, but what ends up happening is that tenant becomes homeless, and then through programs like Rapid Rehousing, in order to get that debt off of their credit report, you know, the city, county, you know, nonprofit agency will just pay all of that debt off so that that doesn't come up on someone's tenant screening.

So really, it's the taxpayers.

Those are eligible costs for our rent assistance programs, which are, as you say, paid for by our taxpayers.

Those are eligible costs for those programs to pay off.

Well a lot of times the way that a lot of these programs work is some of these costs are eligible after the person's already on the street.

So we interviewed housing case managers and there were people who talked about how in the eviction prevention side of things people would be limited from paying late fees and other things like that and or there would be really small amounts that they could pay.

And that prevented, just in our experience, that prevents a lot of tenants from actually being able to get all of the money to the landlord to prevent the eviction.

So the tenant becomes evicted, and then other programs come in afterwards to try and get that person housed, and then they just write one check to- Less rent assistance programs, but more like rapid rehousing?

Yeah.

Okay.

That's incredible.

that the public is paying for these practices in some instances.

And I think the other thing to note about this $3,400 is that that case was a default judgment, and so it's arguable that the landlord attorney really just hasn't, you know, a lot of times I'm, I used to work in a law office, they have templates for these sort of things, and I can't imagine it being that, difficult to do a default case.

And, I mean, one part of me feels a little like that landlord got hosed, but, you know, on the other hand, I think that just shows how there's really no oversight to any of these things.

All right, so why are tenants falling behind on rent?

We found that temporary unemployment, medical emergencies, and a death in the family often contributed to tenants falling behind on their rent.

And in the event of emergency, a lot of people aren't able to come up with the money they need, as a Federal Reserve report found that 40% of Americans could not come up with the $400 in the event of an emergency.

As an example, in a letter responding to an eviction, one tenant wrote, I had a significant medical issue that put me in the hospital for two weeks at Harborview Medical Center.

The property management company is aware of this medical event and the existing medical conditions.

My stay in the hospital has impacted me personally and financially and caused me significant hardship on many levels.

During my stay at the hospital, my brother has been in communication with the property management company in an effort to keep them up to speed on any developments.

Given my very long-term tenancy at the property and the management company's knowledge of my hospital stay and ongoing medical issues, I was surprised at how rapidly they moved to eviction and legal proceedings.

In the last five years, the median income in the King County area has increased dramatically, rising from $86,700 to $103,400.

And because rent in low-income housing tax credit buildings is tied to average monthly income, units that are supposed to be affordable are becoming less and less so for working folks.

And while rent increases have been drastic, there have not been concurrent increases in federal supplemental security income levels.

So in 2016, rent levels increased so rapidly that a one-bedroom apartment within a low-income housing tax credit property is no longer affordable for a tenant receiving SSI.

And you'll see on page 50 in the report that the multifamily tax exemption, a Seattle-based housing subsidy, based on average monthly income as well, has seen similar increases.

Increases that have put what are supposed to be affordable units above federal supplemental security income levels, making them no longer affordable.

So on that graph, the green is the federal SSI.

And that's like about how much people make.

So they make a little over $700.

And then all buildings that have the low income tax credit, which is the bulk of affordable housing in the city of Seattle, rent has drastically increased.

Because a lot of times these are private developers who will charge the max amount of rent that they legally are allowed to.

And it's the same with the MFTE, although No one could afford an MFTE on SSI.

And so the point of this slide is to underscore, the previous slide was about rents increasing generally.

This slide is intended to highlight how rent is also increasing in housing that is intended to be low income or affordable at least.

Yes.

Yeah.

Pass it to you.

Okay.

Cool, so what are the outcomes of these cases?

So we found that the majority of tenants, 75% of tenants actually vacated once the eviction was filed.

There were some cases that we were unable to determine whether or not they stayed or they vacated because the court record just was not clear on that.

And then, a small amount of tenants remained housed, and then there were also five tenants who passed away during the eviction process.

So, yeah, and once you get an eviction file, the NC doesn't look very good.

And then in almost half of these cases, it was a default judgment.

So the tenant didn't appear.

And I think that in our experience, it really seems like many people don't know that they can try to fight the eviction.

They don't know about the legal resources available and other things like that.

And when I think about the investment that the city has done in things like minimum wage education, they spent, over three million, or y'all spent over $3 million educating folks about the minimum wage increase, but last year there was only $600,000 set aside for tenant outreach and education.

So I think it's, the lack of education on tenant issues I think is a huge reason why we have so many people who defaulted.

Of the folks that are defaulting, are they primarily people who are not represented, or do you see a lot of folks who are represented also defaulting?

Well, these are presumably mostly people who I'm not seeing at all, who either are vacating before they come to me.

And I do get a lot of people who are coming to me after they've been defaulted, and we do try to stop those evictions.

So, you know, a share of it, I don't have the exact number, how many of those cases we're doing, but it's, you know, I would say it's a pretty regular occurrence.

Every other day we get a case like that.

So of the 47.8 cases that default, most of them are unrepresented?

Vast majority.

I think it would be single digits as far as the number of folks who had an attorney.

That's really, I think, an important data point about how critical it is that tenants are aware of the resources that are out there, not just legal resources, but financial resources, as well as just having an understanding of the process.

Council Member Swan.

Thank you, Chair Bould.

This is a very important point of information that the overwhelming number of cases that are, I'm about to talk about that, defaulting.

I was wondering from your legal experience in other states, isn't it true that how empowered tenants feel or how informed tenants feel in terms of going to court to defend themselves, even in cases where there may be, especially in cases where they know that they might actually win, that's some basic legal knowledge and representation.

Isn't it true that when the laws are so towards landlords, it actually makes it more likely the tenant will not be inclined to fight.

And do you see this proven in other cities, states like New York, where tenants are more likely to fight?

That's what, I mean, anecdotally, I can tell you, I have a lot of friends living in New York, and they, I can name several of them who have personally been in landlord-tenant disputes and won their cases in court.

but I don't hear the corresponding evidence here.

And I'd like to hear the answer, but I just wanted to share some very, very, very good news.

The King County Superior Court has just ruled on the move-in fee legislation this morning, and we have won.

The move-in fee legislation has been upheld by Gordon.

Congratulations.

That's good news.

So the answer to your question, absolutely.

I mean, I counsel people in the same exact program.

I did write to counsel program in the Bronx.

I would meet with tenants who are coming in, who are having hopeless situations, who are falling behind on their rents due to emergencies.

And I could give them positive news.

I can't do that most of the time here.

I have to be realistic when I counsel a person.

I can't sugarcoat it.

I can't tell them they can reach for the stars when I know that's not going to happen.

And so I have to tell them oftentimes, look, we can go in the court, but I don't think this is going to work out in your favor.

And this is going to be hard on you.

And the thing that we need to start thinking about, what's the next step?

And so I am constantly dealing with tenants who are discouraged, who are telling me, look, I hear you, but you're telling me that there's nothing I can do.

I might as well just give up.

And I spend probably more time probably doing what is the equivalent of social work with tenants than I am doing legal work.

And I don't mind that, but I think it's something that's really a critical difference is I'm dealing with a lot of tenants who are going through extreme trauma, and they feel like there's no one that they can turn to, no system, no institution that's going to be there to reach out to them and be able to help them.

So we looked at the impact that legal counsel had on the outcomes of eviction.

And it was clear that if you had an attorney, you were more likely to stay housed than if you didn't.

And just one thing I want to highlight is that if you look at this graph, so we had 1,218 cases.

There were 350 cases that were contested in some way, shape, or form.

And out of those 350, 320 tenants had attorneys.

So basically, if you showed up, it looked like you were going to get some legal help.

And then out of that, the Housing Justice Project represented 299 of those tenants.

I think the thing that is really surprising to me is that the Housing Justice Project, who I think they, if I remember this correctly, had 870 clients in the city of Seattle.

do not get any funding from the City of Seattle.

Kirkland funds H.J.P. Tequila funds H.J.P. Multiple cities outside of the City of Seattle fund the Housing Justice Project.

They only have three staff attorneys for the entire county and then have, you know, a really dedicated base of volunteers.

But I think that...

I mean, I think it's pretty sad, honestly.

So just like we talked about a judge having the discretion to weigh other factors in an eviction for nonpayment case impacts not only the outcome of eviction cases, but it impacts the practices of landlords and their decision-making about whether or not to file eviction cases.

Representation also has that same impact.

Not only are tenants more likely to win their cases if they're represented, but landlords are less likely to file those cases and work with their tenants when those tenants are represented.

Do we have, you know, I have been a proponent of a legal right to counsel.

Here in Seattle, we have a pilot project that we're funding through King County Public Defenders around the collateral consequences attorneys, where people are being prosecuted for a case in King County Court.

If the public defenders identify another civil case, that they are now being given legal assistance in that civil case.

And in many instances, these are eviction cases.

effort in trying to sort of test the water, not just generally as it relates to more holistic legal representation, but specifically the value of providing legal counsel to tenants in these cases.

Do we have even a back-of-the-envelope calculation of what it would cost to provide legal representation to 1,200 people a year?

I would probably say, and this might even be an overestimate, that it would be at most $1,000 per case, I think.

But even given, I think there's a couple factors.

One is, this is only a fraction of the number of cases that actually are eviction cases, because this is only the filing ones.

That said, I would probably say ballpark between $500,000 to $600,000 a year, ultimately, to be able to provide for, I think, the bulk of representation.

Thank you.

And so the next slide, we talk about how if you had counsel, you were better off.

And so the orange is the folks with counsel, and then the blue are people who did not have counsel.

So the folks who didn't have counsel, only 14% of them remained housed versus 23% of tenants with counsel staying housed.

But I think it's important to note that having legal representation is not the only answer, because when you look at the Bronx, 86% of tenants who had legal representation remained housed versus the little less than a quarter in Seattle.

And so it's not just about giving tenants lawyers, it's also about giving those lawyers laws to work with, right?

So, what happens to tenants after they're evicted?

So we, in addition to looking at all the public data I had mentioned earlier, we did surveys of tenants who were being evicted or facing eviction, as well as in-person interviews.

And the vast majority of people that had been evicted, over 85% of them had been had been made homeless afterwards.

And a lot of them, so this person, I interviewed her and she was in her 30s and she was working full time at a cafe in Columbia City.

And basically, after being evicted in December, she had spent, and I think I talked to her in either June or July, I can't remember off the top of my head, she had spent that entire time bouncing between different places, crashing on people's couches and things like that.

But it's A, that's very traumatic, it doesn't give you a lot of stability, and it was also impacting her job.

And, you know, because, like, she sometimes would show up late because she was having to stay in Shoreline or things like that.

And she was constantly just getting in worse situations.

So eviction also impacted the health of tenants as well as their children.

So 36.7% of survey respondents experienced stress.

One thing that stood out to me was that 5% of people talked about developing a heart condition that they thought was connected to the eviction and their housing situation.

And then as well as with the kids, you know, 85% of the evicted respondents were school-aged children, so their kid had to move schools.

And national studies have showed that if you move schools, you were less likely to graduate, and you were more likely to face legal problems.

I mean, there's the ramifications of housing instability as a child really impact the rest of your life.

And then, you know, 87% of these kids had school performance that suffered a lot because of the eviction.

And another thing, and this was something that was really hard to look at, but there were six tenants who died either during the process or soon thereafter.

Four of them had died by suicide.

And one situation that stood out to me, and I think it's important to say, I don't know the backgrounds of these tenants or things like that.

I just have what public data is showing me.

But there was one tenant who had been evicted, and he died by suicide about a month and a half afterwards.

And he was on the list of the medical examiner's homeless, died without housing list.

And that was just...

I don't know, I just can't imagine, you know, at the end of, like, getting to the point of one, making that choice, and then also just, I just can't imagine how lonely that is.

And so I think that this is a really big issue.

And one thing that someone had pointed out to me who was on, involved with suicide research said that, For every suicide that happens, there's an estimate that there's at least 25 attempts, you know, generally speaking.

And so, it just, I can't help but wonder how many people in that list that we have attempted suicide.

And the King County Medical Examiner also, first wanna thank the King County Medical Examiner for the work they do on really delving into the causes of death.

They do wonderful work around the folks who are unhoused in our city and the work that they do to highlight those folks who die in the streets every year.

But they also identified an additional nine people who had died in 2017 who had had an eviction within the last three years.

And one other on that, and it's not just the city of Seattle, too, I think that's important to note.

So one of the individuals that had been on the list of homeless at death, she had been evicted in Kent and she was actually It was a no-cause eviction.

So the landlord had given her a 20-day notice to leave.

There was no reason, right?

Because outside of Seattle, you don't have just cause.

And she was evicted.

And about a little over a year later, she died of hypertension.

And she was in her 50s.

And it's like...

I don't know.

That's just...

It's really wrong.

So then, yeah, as I mentioned earlier, the vast majority of tenants became homeless after the eviction, and almost half of evicted respondents had to leave the city entirely.

So that's...

Oh, sorry, can you go back to the previous slide?

Sure.

So only 12.5% of evicted respondents found another rental.

And was there more information on how how much of a period they had to go through of instability before they found another rental?

No, we didn't get that deep.

That's a good question though to ask.

I mean, this is important, but also presumably they went through some hardship before.

I mean, I would just say, I mean, so based on tenants that I talked to in person, it was months, if not years of instability.

We have 37.5% were completely unsheltered after their eviction, 25% were living in a shelter or transitional housing after their eviction, and 25% were staying with family or friends after their eviction.

This is 2017 data, correct?

Yes.

What is the period of time that you checked in with these folks after their eviction?

So we had surveyed people from, I think, was it May, I think it was either April or May, I can't, the spring to the summer, and people had, they were folks who were coming into HJP for something or things like that.

So a lot of the tenants who had been evicted, we didn't track the exact year that they had been evicted, but, A lot of them, it was within the previous several months.

Are these people who were evicted in 2017, these people who you're surveying?

The vast majority of them, but there were some that were not.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

And, sorry, go ahead.

No, no, no.

Please, Council Member.

A different question, and I don't know if you already mentioned this and I missed this, but do we have data on among the number of evictions that you studied, how many of them were households with children, like school-going children?

So we couldn't find that through the court records.

And I can't remember the percentage off the top of my head, but in the survey, I'd have to look at, I can find out how many people we surveyed had kids.

I know that when I was looking at HJP's client data from last year, there was a small amount of households that had kids, but when you look at outside of the city of Seattle, the vast majority of them had kids.

And I think this kind of goes to the fact that...

The cost of housing in Seattle and lots of families being pushed out, yeah.

So, looking at 2017, a lot of families just don't actually live in Seattle, so, you know.

So now, I guess...

So I'm going to talk about some of the policy recommendations.

I'm not going to spend too much time since I think we're, I know we're already fairly busy here.

So we grouped our policy recommendations based on the data and we did three categories.

And the first one was just making it possible to help tenants pay rent.

As we saw in the data, overall the issue is financial that we're seeing.

So that most people are having temporary setbacks, they're falling behind, and they're having an inability to be able to catch up.

And I don't think that's going to be surprising to either landlords or tenants or anybody who's involved in this area.

So one of the things that we found that was hard to get around, though, is tenants did not have the ability to get into a payment plan with their landlord.

They also had a very small amount of time.

And under Washington law, that's three days to be able to catch up on the rent.

The majority of states offer more time on that initial notice.

They offer more than three days.

The Model Residential Landlord Tenant Act, of which Washington's was based, recommends 14 days.

Yeah, Rhode Island is another example where the landlord actually can't even serve that notice until the rent's 15 days late.

So there's always that built-in time, and that's actually just, I think, a little bit more modern given how most people are paid on a bi-weekly schedule, typically.

The other thing is we don't have much in the way of the organized, coordinated system to help tenants who are falling behind.

As somebody who practices in this area on a regular basis, I am completely bewildered by our rental assistance programs that we have, both at the county and the city level, which is we have over two dozen programs.

I don't know which one I'm supposed to call on any given day.

I don't know which one they're serving on any given day.

And they all have different grant programs.

They have different grant requirements.

And it's just a, it's very hard to navigate, especially when you're on that sort of short timeline.

And what we need to be able to do, I think, is get that sort of coordinated spot.

We need to be able to coordinate that from, you know, especially from my view, where I'm dealing with tenants who are on the brink of eviction in the court process, where I know we could stop a lot of these evictions if we can sort of sweep in and we had like a nice, sort of directed way of actually doing that.

A quick question on that.

So two dozen programs that are providing rent assistance, do we have an estimate of the number of dollars annually those two dozen programs represent?

I don't have it off the top of my head.

I'm sure that's something that we could get.

It's a knowable thing.

I think King County put, and I could be wrong on this, they have the housing stability project, and last year I think they put $800,000 into it.

And then Best Starts for Kids is another set of funds.

And then the city also has some funds.

It's just all over the place.

And do we have an idea of over the course of the year, and again I know that these aren't all of the eviction cases, they're only the filed eviction cases, but have we done an estimate of the total number of dollars owed that represents?

Yeah, so when we just took, when we looked at the three quarters of, so three quarters of cases were under $2,500.

Once you got over that, you got these very strange aberrations where there'd be like $40,000, but it'd really be a family dispute, which we think is not exactly the issue that we're trying to pinpoint.

When we just took those three quarters of cases in which $2,500 or less was owed, it was under a million dollars or so.

Under a million.

Yeah, compared to, I think, about the 70 million, over 70 million, I believe, that Seattle spends currently on homelessness issues.

And increasing subsidies to help tenants pay past due rent is always going to be helpful, but to me, it seems like the larger problem is the lack of coordination among the subsidies that do exist.

It seems like with what we have in the rent assistance system right now, we could be helping a lot more people than we are helping if, you know, things like, There was somebody representing those systems in the court, for instance.

Another thing I think that might be mentioned in this report is having on eviction notices where tenants can go to get that information.

But again, as you say, in order for any of that to work, those systems have to be coordinated and be working together.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I found that models where you do have that sort of in-court access to both legal and social services, those are the ones that are going to work the most effectively to be able to capture those tenants who otherwise we could prevent from falling behind.

And then secondly, so we grouped in second category is just improving the landlord-tenant relationship.

And a lot of this information came from our surveys about access to affordability.

So one of the common responses that we were getting in a lot of our surveys is that a lot of tenants said they were trying to add a supplemental income or a secondary income to their household by having a roommate, a partner, or somebody else, but they were running into a lot of obstacles with their landlord by really high or stringent screening requirements or just flat out no from or denials from the landlord and allowing the person to actually have a roommate.

There are other states that do have laws that do permit at least the tenant to have their immediate family plus an additional occupant.

Especially if you have a three-bedroom apartment.

I've recently had a case where this came in, where a tenant came in, she was in a household, there were three bedrooms in it, two of the tenants moved out, and then she kept asking the landlord, can I have these new people move in?

And the landlord just was being very difficult to deal with, was saying, no, I don't want this person, I don't want this person.

And originally this person entered into a three-bedroom contract, assuming there would be two other occupants, but they were fine and they weren't gonna be able to pay the rent because their landlord was putting all these barriers to be able to have that extra roommate.

And yeah.

And related to what you just said, but also in general, I was wondering, and I know Sochi addresses somewhat by saying that it was not something unique to big landlords.

You see this across the board and actually even nonprofit providers as well.

Unfortunately, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But is there anything that indicates that it's more prevalent among bigger property management corporations where they have very little incentive to have any sort of interpersonal relationship even with the tenants.

I mean, I don't want to imagine, I don't want to invent something that doesn't exist in the data you see, but I'm just asking that question.

I didn't, there's nothing in the data that we saw, I mean, at least as far as we examined it, that actually suggested that there was a difference.

I will say just from our clinic, it's a cross the board issue.

We see it both in non-profits, we've seen it in bigger developers, we see it in small-time landlords.

This is a problem of just sort of these really strict requirements of who can be and not there.

And sometimes it seems to even just change with the manager.

You'll have one manager who's very open, allowing to have people, allowing tenants to have guests, to have new roommates, and then they get a new manager, and it's also, regime change and is draconian measures left and right.

So it really I think is across the board just in my experience it seems like this is an ongoing issue across all types of landlords or real estate properties.

And some other things, one of the things is we did notice there was a number of, and this is a common issue at IC2 with the Just Cause Ordinance.

Just Cause Ordinance has a loophole in which once the lease expires, the landlord doesn't have to renew it.

And I'm not sure if that was an issue in the initial drafting at the time.

It was not.

It was enforced for many, many years as a right that was given to tenants at the end of their lease term as well.

It's very unfortunate that it's changed over probably the last 10 years or so.

Yeah, and I don't want to put Xochitl in the spot, but I mean, she just had the case in point example in her own rental agreement, where it was a month-to-month tenancy, and then the landlord immediately just said, oh, sign a new lease.

And then, I'll just give actually one example that we even had recently.

It was a 20, I think it was a 40-year tenancy, where it was month-to-month, and then a new management came over, gave the woman a three-month lease agreement, and then as it was expiring, management said, no, we're not going to renew it.

I mean, it's patently absurd that this law is being enforced this way, because why would tenants have more rights if they're on a month-to-month agreement, which is another type of fixed term.

It's just a fixed term for a single month.

Then why would you give tenants who are on a longer fixed-term lease less rights than the tenants who are on a month-to-month lease?

It does not make any sense.

And I'll just say from the having to deal with this recently is like, you know, we were on a month-to-month it's We're all young women who don't make that much money and we had to and I knew that the landlord could not force me to sign a termed lease but then I also knew that Like, what would the logical reaction be?

A drastic increase in rent.

And so, it was like a really difficult thing of having to weigh, okay, we're going to do something that I know I don't really have to do, but I don't, I can't afford a huge increase in rent.

And so, we're all just mentally preparing that our landlord's going to end the lease at the end of the term.

And then finally, we had one set of, so you go to the next slide.

Just finally, just about, some of this is judicial issues that we're finding in the court process, so among those issues were, There was, you know, given the high number of defaults, we do think that a lot more outreach is necessary so that tenants are better informed and that if those notices could be changed so that they actually include some of these resource information.

And I know Thurston County is currently trying to do that via a court rule.

And there are some other states that do have sort of prescribed materials that sort of indicate you can go to this place and go to this place and, you know, you can defend this.

Other issues that we did find that were coming up, although a small percentage of the cases were solely for non-rent charges, a large share of them did include some kind of non-rent charge.

And I just saw a case the other day where there was a notice fee, so the amount of money it cost for the landlord to post just a single notice was $75 on the pursuant to the lease agreement, which is just an unnecessary charge and frankly, I think, arbitrary.

I think I'll leave it at that.

I think because a lot of these were already covered, but if there's any questions or anything else.

Thank you.

I appreciate you wrapping up.

I'm going to have to adjourn the meeting soon.

I do want to make note of a statement out of the mayor's office yesterday in response to the press conference that you all had.

And the statement is that evictions destabilize lives, uproot families, and can push our most vulnerable into homelessness.

The city of Seattle is committed to doing everything possible to increase affordability, stability, and economic security for our residents.

And so that gives me great hope that we are gonna be working with the mayor's office and the executive departments on identifying solutions to these problems, as well as working with the tenant advocacy community, landlords, and most importantly, people with lived experiences having to go through the trauma of being evicted.

So thank you.

Council Member Swann.

Just to add to that, you know, thank you for all the work you all have done on the report itself, but also just the ongoing work with tenants and regular people who are facing these issues.

Yeah, I really look forward to bringing these policy recommendations into fruition, you know, very soon without any inordinate delays in the Renter's Rights Committee in coordination with other council offices.

And once again, congratulations on the move-in fee.

I mean, you know, every victory helps in the next one, next struggle, so we have to celebrate when we get them.

Absolutely.

Great.

Well, thank you.

More soon on how we can respond to the findings of your report and your recommendations.

So I really appreciate it.

All right.

With that, we are adjourned.