Seattle City Council Briefing 9/13/21

everyone.

Welcome back from our summer recess and also from last week, which we did not convene as a full council due to the observance of Rosh Hashanah.

So welcome back, everyone, to Council Briefing.

The September 13th, 2021 Council Briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9.31am.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Mosqueda.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

If there is no objection, the minutes of August 16th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

I will dispense with the president's report for this morning.

I know we have a lot to report out on, and we also have two executive sessions today.

I do expect that the executive sessions will be short in nature, but nonetheless, do want to make enough time for us to get through that in an expeditious way.

So let's go ahead and begin our next discussion on the preview of today's City Council Actions, Council, and Regional Committees.

Again, the order of the report out today will be consistent with the roll call rotation for this week, which is Councilmember Peterson, followed by Solant, Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion with my own report.

So I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our City's Transportation and Utilities Committee has 11 items on this afternoon's full City Council agenda.

All 11 items were recommended unanimously by our committee, and I have not heard of any proposed amendments, so thank you.

We have five reappointments to the various transportation boards, bike, transit, and freight.

Because these are reappointments of qualified individuals already serving on these boards, my comments at full council will be very brief.

For councilmembers not on the committee, if you have any questions about these reappointments after reviewing their appointment packets, feel free to reach out to my office.

or to Calvin Chow on our City Council Central staff.

Our committee also approved Council Bill 120138 to provide limited condemnation and acquisition authority in case it's needed to secure portions of property necessary to implement a quiet zone that will support freight operations at the Port of Seattle's Terminal 5 facility.

We also vote on Council 120159 to authorize our Seattle Department of Transportation to accept various grants totaling $40 million.

This includes federal, state, and regional grants for the West Seattle Bridge, $38 million, a PTSRC grant for 15th Avenue South, $700,000, and a pedestrian safety grant for Aurora Avenue North.

The 1.5 million state grant for Aurora is vital.

That state highway, as we know, has been a dangerous area that we must address for the city to meet its Vision Zero transportation safety goals.

We'll also vote on three utility rate ordinances for Seattle Public Utilities to implement the strategic business plan and rate path already endorsed by the customer review panel and then by this city council on May 10th via Resolution 32000. As you may recall, we had good news with average SPU rates coming in lower than what was promised during the previous strategic plan.

This was made possible thanks to ideas proposed and implemented by previous SPU committee chair, Council Member Herbold, as well as the laser focus of our general manager, Momihira, and her team on keeping rates low.

The University of Washington has asked us to approve their updated transportation management plan for major events in and around Husky Stadium, including how the university intends to encourage the use of transit during big sporting events.

The committee added language to Resolution 32016 to encourage increased use of transit to reduce traffic congestion and to improve the environment, and also to ensure the university covers the full costs of their impacts, including traffic management.

I appreciate the flexibility from the University of Washington in their crafting and implementation of this plan, as well as the generous and insightful input we received from impacted communities.

Again, the committee unanimously adopted that.

Our Transportation Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 in the morning.

And so our next committee meeting is this Wednesday, September 15. We are publishing our agenda online this morning.

Here's a preview of the eight items.

We previously had a briefing and discussion on August 18 for an innovative new program that will encourage the development of additional clean and renewable energy.

This Wednesday, we'll plan to vote it out of committee.

It's called the Renewable Plus Program, carefully crafted by Seattle City Light.

There's a central staff memo that will be attached to our agenda.

To honor a commitment made earlier this year by Seattle City Light, we will consider Council 120170 to authorize City Light to administer a proactive Skagit Habitat Enhancement Program that will further improve habitats in the Skagit River watershed for endangered species and salmon recovery, all while consulting with tribes and other agencies.

We will also consider Council Bill 120161 to update water regulations specifically to clarify when and how to use estimates for reading water meters which are owned by Seattle Public Utilities.

We'll consider Council Bill 120175 authorizing additional stormwater management partnerships as allowed by state law.

We will consider approving a tunnel permit for the University of Washington downtown at 6th Avenue north of University Street.

and we'll vote on a resolution from our Seattle Department of Transportation that conveys an honorary designation of Lenny Wilkins Way onto Thomas Street between First Avenue North and Second Avenue North in order to celebrate the basketball legend.

We will hear an update on the transportation management technology from Aciclica.

Even though SDOT has decided to phase out and replace that traffic information technology later this year, I had promised we would hear more about it in our committee, especially after the problems surfaced with the technology's parent company.

So we'll have a briefing on Aciclica.

And lastly, we'll hear surveillance impact reports on two technologies used by our fire department.

hazardous material cameras and emergency scene cameras.

These are not expected to be controversial and approving them will complete batch 4A of the legacy or retroactive technologies we have been reviewing and approving during the past year.

This past weekend was the 20th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th.

This is our first public meeting since that anniversary.

I just wanted to take a moment to remember the thousands of innocent people who were killed and to thank all the first responders who risked and gave their lives in this attack on September 11th, 2001. Thank you.

I wanted to thank the officers of Seattle's North Precinct who apprehended a suspect who was apparently driving under the influence and whose speeding vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian near the Wallingford neighborhood.

The detectives at SPD will investigate this hit and run, drunk driving homicide case as best they can.

I want to talk about the staffing shortage at SPD.

want to acknowledge the op-ed published in the Seattle Times this morning which raises concerns about how the attrition of police officers is negatively impacting the operations of our city's Harbor Patrol.

To address the high levels of attrition throughout the department, including the loss of detectives, this past Friday, my office and our Council Central staff circulated an amendment to Council Bill 120112, the Mid-Year Budget Supplemental, which passed the Finance Committee on August 17th.

I'm not a member of the Finance Committee, and Central staff and I needed the past week after our recess to craft this amendment and get it approved by the Law Department.

There are two options.

Option A would keep $3 million within SPD's budget for recruitment and retention, whereas option B is a more modest version that would take an unallocated $1.1 million and dedicate it for recruitment and retention.

Using the funds for recruitment and retention would require brief authorizing legislation, which also circulated Friday.

I was not able to get that authorizing legislation onto the introduction referral calendar.

So per our council rules, my other opportunity is to ask the majority of you to add it to the introduction referral calendar when we approve that this afternoon.

For the authorizing legislation, your vote's not to support or oppose it, but merely to put it on the IRC for consideration later.

I also want to talk about the amendments to the budget bill.

At a high level, this would simply allocate funds to recruit and retain SBD personnel because we've lost 300 officers and detectives over the past 18 months.

And while we've hired 100 for a net loss of 200, the 200 figure is still very high.

Moreover, newly hired officers need substantial time for training.

And so it's more effective and efficient simply to retain the city government frontline workers we already have.

The modest amounts of my budget amendment would go beyond mere words to demonstrate that we recognize the staffing crisis caused by the tidal wave of attrition and that we want our remaining officers and detectives to stay in Seattle.

So rather than delaying until the end of November to vote on this for next year's budget, we can take swift action this week to reduce the amount of time Seattle residents wait for an officer after calling 911. I know there's likely to be disagreement about this approach, but I wanted to get these proposals onto the table so at least we have the opportunity to discuss and decide these.

Just a couple of other items here.

There was an important yet critical op-ed published in the Seattle Times last Friday, raising environmental concerns about the future of the Duwamish River cleanup.

I want to thank community leaders Paulina Lopez, James Rasmussen and B.J.

Cummings for raising this issue.

The ongoing decades-long cleanup of the river includes the county, the port, the city, the EPA and many others.

I understand Seattle Public Utilities has been in communication with the writers of the op-ed.

SPU leadership has reaffirmed that they value this input.

They're committed to working in partnership with the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition to reach our common goal of righting this historical wrong by healing the Duwamish waterway and sustaining its health for future generations.

SPU staff have assured me that EPA's anticipated proposal for the East Waterway cleanup, which is just that portion of the river east of Harbor Island, will clean the East Waterway to the highest level that is currently technically and scientifically feasible and sustainable.

That's the same level that is technically feasible for other portions of the Duwamish River.

I've asked SPU staff to continue their open line of communication with the DRCC and to come to our committee December 1st to provide an update on the Duwamish River cleanup, which again involves multiple parties, but SPU can give us an overview.

We can ask them questions about what's going on at that point.

On a lighter note, this past weekend, I attended the first performances of the Summer Outdoor Music Series in the U District.

Everyone's welcome to attend the Summer Outdoor Music Series every Wednesday evening in September, starting at 6.30 p.m.

It's in the heart of the U District on the Ave, just below 43rd Street, which is where one of the new light rail stations will be opening in only 19 days.

And that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right.

I am not hearing any questions.

I don't see any hands raised, so we'll keep going down the line.

Thanks again so much for the report.

Really appreciate it.

Next up is Council Member Szilagyi, followed by Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

frozen.

Councilmember Strauss, are you ready to go now while we get councilmembers to walk back?

Yes.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Oh, there she is.

Are you back?

Yes.

Sorry.

I don't know why I got kicked out of Zoom.

But we're going to have Council Member Strauss pitch it for you.

But since you're back, if you're ready to go, we'll go ahead and hand it over to you.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next two meetings of the committee are scheduled for next week, September 21st and September 23rd.

Those committee meetings will give the committee members the opportunity to vote on the renters' rights legislation that my office has drafted in response to the crisis of skyrocketing rent.

According to apartmentlist.com, a landlord website, rents in Seattle have risen more than 25% this year alone, which means thousands more will inevitably become homeless while tens of thousands of other working class Seattleites will remain housed but very precariously and only at the cost of falling deeper and deeper into debt to the rapacious for-profit rental housing market.

25% rent increases are unconscionable in any period but especially in the midst of these crises and clearly Seattle needs rent control which is why my office alongside renters rights organizations has prepared rent control legislation that I've mentioned in past briefings that if passed will go into effect the moment state legislators and the unjust 40-year ban on any regulation of rent.

And if this city council does pass rent control, the Democrats in Olympia will no longer be able to ignore their rent control ban.

And the support for rent control is enormous.

In fact, my office and my organization, Socialist Alternative, and many renters' rights advocates have been talking about rent control for well over three years now, and I've never seen the support for rent control as high as it is right now.

While rent control is what we ultimately need, my office has also prepared two other bills to mitigate the damage done to renters by skyrocketing rents until rent control goes into effect.

We have the bill recommended by the City of Seattle Renters Commission to require six months notice for rent increases allowing tenants the time they need to rearrange their lives to find other housing if a rent increase is so much that they cannot afford it and are forced to move because of that rent increase, not because of other reasons.

We also have the bill requiring landlords to pay relocation assistance if an outrageously large rent increase forces renters to move, which is on today's introduction and referral calendar.

Both of these bills have been discussed at length in the committee for the past several months, and I know committee members have engaged in that discussion and are asked very important questions and I appreciate that and I appreciate city council central staff especially Asha Venkatraman and Ali Panucci for being there in providing responses.

And so I think we've had a lot of discussion on both the bills and my office intends to bring them for a vote in the committee next week.

Ideally we will vote them out of committee at the September 21st committee meeting However, if committee members are not prepared to vote on the 21st, we will vote at the subsequent meeting on the 23rd instead.

But either way, we will vote on those bills out of committee before the budget begins on the 27th.

As I had also mentioned in the past, there is another bill that my office is developing with the help of city council center staff as part of the sustainability and renters rights committee work to support the stop the money pipeline movement to end investments in the fossil fuel industry and to instead support the Green New Deal.

This bill will give the Green New Deal oversight board the power, the newly formed oversight board, which is very important.

And this committee has just gone through many of the appointments for this board.

This bill would give that board the power to rate financial institutions and insurance companies that the city is considering contracting with based on whether those companies are investing in or insuring fossil fuel infrastructure projects and will require the City of Seattle's Finance and Administrative Services Department to consider those rankings when selecting what companies the City of Seattle should do business with.

Finally, council members will have seen an amendment that my staff just sent to you all to the supplemental budget that my office intends to move at today's city council meeting to cut $2.41 million from the Seattle Police Department and add those $2.41 million to the Supporting Safe Communities Fund in the Human Services Department.

Last November, the City Council placed provisos on $7.5 million in the police budget for this year in response to the demands from the Justice for George Floyd movement to reduce the already bloated budget in repressive militarized policing and to instead put those funds in building and supporting communities.

It was frankly the least that the political establishment could have done given the power of the movement and the fact that these were the funds that the police did not even need.

in order to fund their own staffing plans.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, now that the movement in the streets has waned, the bulk of the city councilors, the political establishment is rapidly moving to walk back all those commitments made at the movement's height last year.

This supplemental budget removes the provisos, essentially freeing up an additional $7.5 million in the police budget and only transferring part of those funds to other departments.

$2.41 million is the balance, the remainder.

So this budget amendment from my office is in response to the request from the activists with the decriminalized Seattle to transfer the police salary savings into community funds as council members committed to do last November.

And I hope council members will support this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Salant.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, I think we're gonna go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Strauss, and then after Council Member Strauss will be Council Member Herbold.

Good morning, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Great to see you again.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's introduction referral calendar or on the full Council's agenda.

Our next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is on Wednesday, September 22nd, starting at 9.30 a.m.

We will also be having a special committee meeting on Friday, September 24th.

starting at 2 p.m.

For the first committee meeting on September 22nd, there are five items on the agenda, a briefing and public hearing on Council Bill 120154 and Council Bill 120155, which both make annual amendments to the comprehensive plan, including Council Member Mosqueda's and my proposal to change the name from single-family to neighborhood residential zones.

No policy changes there, an important name change to reflect the current environment of our vibrant neighborhoods and city that we live in.

We'll also have a briefing and public hearing on council bill 120149 which expands the maximum size limit of certain uses in industrial general two zones.

We'll also have a briefing and public hearing on legislation to adopt a regional transferable transferable development rights, TDR, from places in Pierce and Snohomish County to here in Seattle, ensuring that we can preserve farm and forest land throughout the region and develop here in Seattle.

We'll also have a public hearing and vote on Council Bill 120153, which adopts provisions for small lots in Belltown to allow for modular construction.

Uh, we'll be holding a special meeting on Friday, September 24th, starting at 2 PM.

Uh, which we will vote on many of the items, uh, discussed on September 22nd.

I like to have two meetings before votes.

and so that we can consider them in two meetings and pass them out before budget starts.

So as a review of my and my team's work during last week in council recess, my staff attended the Association of Washington City's legislative priorities meeting that voted on our state legislative priorities, including the transportation package and basic infrastructure infrastructure.

Unfortunately, it was the Association of Washington City's decided to schedule this meeting on Jewish New Year on Rosh Hashanah, so I was unable to attend myself.

Hopefully that won't happen again in the future.

My staff and team also attended the Finney Ridge and Green Lake Neighborhood Council meetings to discuss West Green Lake Way North, Green Lake Water Quality, Homelessness, and Neighborhood Residential Zone name changes.

I also, during Council recess, hosted a Homelessness Services and Outreach Provider Coordination meeting to better coordinate homelessness response here in District 6. Lastly, I was able to meet with the Ballard Alliance last Thursday, where we talked about Market Street businesses, homelessness, and the Street Cafe program.

This coming week, I will be receiving a briefing, an extended briefing, from Seattle City Light about the Skagit relicensing project.

I'll be checking in with Budget Director Ben Noble.

And on Wednesday, I'll be attending the Regional Transportation Committee.

As many people know, more service is coming back online in early October.

Whether or not intentional, it will be syncing up with the Sound Transit expansion.

And so, for many people who have previously relied on express routes that were canceled, those will be coming back in early October.

I'll report more next week.

And then Thursday, I'll be observing Yom Kippur.

And Friday, we'll be talking to residents during office hours.

Here in District 6, the update on West Spring Lakeway North, as many residents know, SDOT has committed to reopening the street to two-way vehicular traffic, along with having a two-way pathway for bikes and walking.

This work took a little bit more design.

been anticipated and so I have received commitments that this will happen in October.

October is a month of 31 days and so I'm pushing to have that October 1st and I will be updating the residents and colleagues more as I receive more information.

I'm just glad that SDOT has been able to agree to and plan and design and construct two-way vehicular traffic with two-way bike and walking along there.

During council recess, there was also a large RV fire set at the Leary Triangle on August 18th.

Seattle Fire Department reports that the fire was intentionally set, and luckily there were no injuries.

A deep gratitude and thank you to Seattle Fire Department, Public Utilities, and Parks and Rec for quickly meeting with me after that for their response and cleanup.

There has been increased violence and people living unsheltered in District 6, specifically Ballard Commons, Woodland Park, Fremont Industrial Zone, and this increase has occurred in the last 60 days or so.

As I continue to monitor our district, what I've noticed is that we received more people moved into our community after the Lake City encampment was removed.

and then I-90 encampments were removed.

I did not see as many people come when the City Hall Park encampment was removed and so two things going on here.

One is that when we remove encampments without bringing people inside it means that they go somewhere else and in this case That's why we're seeing an increase of people and violence in District six right now.

And it also demonstrates why the just care model works when we're able to bring people into stabilize, rather than push them to a different part of town.

We're both able to.

use our public spaces as designed and ensure that the problem is not getting worse.

We desperately need Just Care like models to engage with people living in District 6, in the Ballard Commons, at Woodland Park, and in the Fremont Industrial Zone.

So I continue to work with service providers and stakeholders to see what success we can bring to this area.

Last week during my district six resident meetings, I met with folks from Loyal Heights, East Ballard, Downtown Ballard, and Finney.

We discussed West Green Lake Way North and homelessness separately, two different meetings.

And it was one person, one resident's first ever meeting with their elected representative.

And I always love when people are able to directly engage with their elected leaders.

Again, I host these meetings every week and you can sign up on my website.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

That is my report.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss for that report.

Are there any comments or questions for Councilmember Strauss?

All right, I'm not seeing any hands raised.

Thanks again for your report.

Next up is Councilmember Herbold followed by Councilmember Juarez.

Good morning, Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning.

Glad to be with everybody today after the break.

I hope everybody's feeling recharged and ready for budget.

So items on full council agenda today, there are no items from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on the full council agenda today, but there is an amendment that I am going to be proposing to legislation that has already gone through Council Member Mosqueda's finance and budget committee.

It is a technical amendment.

It basically moved the appropriation authority within the police department budget summary levels to effectuate the spending of the salary savings that are described in the legislation that the council or the committee voted on.

within another amendment, within the amendment for that, I'm sorry, the amendment heat we acted on in committee.

and the amendment last week funds a number of different priorities, both within the Seattle Police Department and outside of it.

And again, this Amendment 1 is just a technical amendment.

And then in addition to that, Councilmember Mosqueda and I have another joint amendment shifts $700,000 of general fund appropriation authority for the proposed triage scheme from the Community Safety and Communication Center to Finance General and imposes a proviso restricting the expenditure of the funds until the executive provides a report to counsel detailing how and when the executive will do the response.

for the triage team response protocol is also funded with this legislation and must come, the response protocol must be acquired, purchased, and trained, and used to train dispatchers prior to the implementation of the funding associated with developing, hiring, implementing the triage team.

So, There is potentially another amendment that I've been working with central staff on that may be ready in time for full council today.

Just wanted this opportunity to flag it in case we are able to pull together.

I think folks are aware that a shift of officers to a different a different shift structure for 10-hour shifts has been long desired by the Seattle Police Department.

It was identified as a priority in the 20, I believe it was in 2018, hiring retention report that the police department pulled together.

I have been told in the past that in order to move to that shift structure of 410s, it might necessitate an additional police shift.

uh...

in that potentially would have costs and i'm in this particular uh...

budget legislation might be uh...

away for us to you signal that we are interested in showing support by making funding available with the understanding that uh...

uh...

change in shifts to four tens would absolutely uh...

necessitate necessitate bargaining uh...

with with the union But I just want to flag this, that this might be something that we're coming forward with today.

Because I do think it's important to act on the recommendations coming out of that several years old now.

hiring and retention study with the understanding that our ability to act is very limited because this as I mentioned, does require bargaining.

And we haven't had the opportunity to bargain since those recommendations would be made.

But I do think that earmarking these dollars, pending bargaining, pending a bargaining outcome would send a really important and useful signal about our support for this effort.

moving on.

I do have committee today tomorrow at 930. That's the public safety and human services committee.

The items that we will have on the agenda tomorrow include a presentation from the city attorney's office.

They will be producing the racial equity toolkit for our shared interest in expanding the pre-filing diversion program to adults 25 and older.

As background, Council requested this as a legislative intent adopted with the 2020 budget, sponsored by Council President Lorena Gonzalez, and the CAO will be joining us to provide those recommendations associated with that work.

Further, legislation sponsored by council members will be heard in committee tomorrow and this is legislation related to the Seattle Police Department prohibiting training exchanges and partnerships with certain governments.

I will likely have an amendment to this bill to make sure that the ordinance is enforceable by making it possible for the city to verify status of certain governments.

The current definitions do not make it possible for the definitions to be verified.

which then in turn will make the legislation unenforceable by SPD.

We'll also be hearing a presentation from the Human Services Department lead and reach in response to another statement of legislative intent.

This is Legislative Intent 6A1.

which examines the expected level of priority referrals to pre-arrest diversion services and cost estimates of those accepting referrals over the next several years.

And then finally, we're going to have a briefing on the pay-up minimum compensation proposal for For contract workers, a discussion of the draft, unintroduced legislation.

Again, this is really just a check-in on where we're at on the stakeholder conversations that we've been having for several months now on different components of this legislation and an opportunity to sort of discuss where we're at, given I think we've probably had 10 meetings over the last several months.

And there's more to be done.

I want to shift now away from the committee updates to just give some highlights from some of the departments in my committee portfolio from HSD.

I want to highlight the summer food service program ended on August 2nd.

There were more than 81,000 meals distributed to youth across the city at 35 different meal sites this summer.

Partners include not only the Human Services Department, but also Parks and Rec.

Seattle Public Schools, the United Way of King County, and Seattle Housing Authority and Mercy Housing.

Really appreciative of the work and nutrition provided by this program.

on September 12th at 2 p.m.

Age-Friendly Seattle will be celebrating, oh, it was yesterday.

Yesterday was Grandparents Day.

Happy Grandparents, everybody.

In the program that was focused on the love, culture, and history of grandparents, included HSD's Age-Friendly Program, and the Mayor's Council on African American Elders, AARP, the Northwest African American Museum, New Black Arts West Theater, the Evergreen State College, and really appreciate the uplifting of the hard work that many grandparents do raising children.

I want to also thank the Human Services Department for finding immediate funding to support an effort by Community Passageways to address gun violence this summer.

Community Passageways, under the leadership of Coach Dom, has moved quickly and creatively to propose a month of intensive programming for a group of young people most impacted and most likely to be involved in gun violence.

This work is based on Advanced Peace, a gun violence reduction program that has consistently shown results in other jurisdictions.

It literally interrupts cycles of violence by bringing young people most impacted out of communities and into spaces where they can be safe.

The goal of the effort is not just to decrease gun violence in South King County, but to also ensure that young people experiencing the most harm will increase their opportunities, knowledge, and tools that offer them a different path forward and hope for their future.

I want to just really thank the Human Services Department and Deputy Mayor Washington a couple weeks ago when we were still in deliberations on the second quarter supplemental.

I had suggested that we might want to look at funding for this effort via that supplemental bill, but was glad to learn that that was not necessary because Deputy Mayor Washington and the Human Services Department I know Council President Gonzales will have more to say about this in her presentation.

the first responders nationally and in New York City that put themselves in harm's way that day, the upwards of 400 first responders that lost their lives, and many, many more who struggle today with the health impacts associated with their heroic response 20 years ago.

I want to also thank Councilmember Peterson for scheduling a briefing in his committee coming up in December with Seattle Public Utilities about the Duwamish waterway cleanup.

I've been in touch with advocates for the Duwamish water cleanup for months since the EPA recommendation came out.

I did send a comment letter.

to the EPA back in April expressing my real concern with the recommendation and requesting that they delay their decision because of my belief that additional research and community outreach was necessary.

At that point, only one round table had taken place with the community and we were, again, in the thick of COVID response.

and the community really wanted another opportunity to engage with the EPA.

The Duwamish River Coalition has formed a technical advisory group consisting of 10 community, environmental, and tribal organizations for this issue.

And I'm really hoping that we can find some way in the committee discussion, sponsored by Councilmember Peterson in his committee, to find some way to include the stakeholders, the community stakeholders, who have significant long-term expertise on this issue.

A quick update on what I feel is really big news about a housing project, although housing is, of course, squarely in Councilmember Mosqueda's committee.

This is something that I worked on back in 2016. Across every census division in the United States, Seattle has the least developed services for LGBTQ older adults, seniors, and their families, unlike most large cities.

We are running behind on developing housing for LGBTQ seniors and have none.

Thanks to the work of Capitol Hill Housing and groups like Generations with Pride, Allyship, and Gay City, that's about to change.

Pride Place Senior Housing is about to break ground.

And just to, again, center that fantastic news in some background on the city's involvement, the city council's involvement specifically.

Back in 2016, the council placed legislation that put the 2017 housing levy on the November 2016 ballot.

In that legislation, we, the council, amended the housing levy to say that we felt that increased housing options for LGBT seniors needed to be a priority of that levy.

That legislation required that the Office of Housing consider prioritizing specific subpopulations who are underserved or have limited access to culturally appropriate housing, and we named LGBT seniors as a priority.

I'm not sure if it is the right time, Council President, to look at collecting signatures on the proclamation that was circulated last week.

I think that's the last item in my notes for this morning, but I'm happy to do that now or later, depending on what your preference is.

I do not have notes in my script about collecting signatures for a proclamation.

Is this something you intend to present at full Council?

Is it does not something requiring a presentation?

OK, great.

Can I will ask that the clerk send me language related to that proclamation and and I'll go ahead and circle back to the proclamation.

Signature gathering before we adjourn today.

Don't don't let me forget to do it though.

So if I if I if I appear to be moving on.

Remind me that signatures need to be collected and then in the meantime, are there any questions about the proclamation?

All right, I'm not hearing any questions about about the proclamation.

And it's possible that the clerks move so fast, they might have just flopped this into my script already.

Nope, I'm not seeing it yet.

But we'll circle back to it.

Is that the end of your report, Councilmember Herbold?

Okay, great.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

I'm not hearing any, so we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Council Member Juarez is next, and then after Council Member Juarez will be Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Thank you very much.

Let's see here.

Welcome back, everybody.

I have four matters to speak to this morning, and I will be brief, starting with the committee, Public Assets and Native Communities.

There are no items from the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on today's agenda or afternoon agenda.

Last Friday, September 10th, we held a special committee meeting to accommodate Monday's holiday.

At this meeting, we considered four pieces of legislation.

We had two reappointments to the Seattle Indian Service Commission.

These appointments will come before council on September 20th for Ms. Iris Friday and Ms. Colleen Echo Hawk.

We reviewed one piece of legislation.

that passed that would designate portions of the right-of-way of Alaskan Way, Elliott Way, Railroad Way, and Union Street as park boulevards along the central waterfront.

As you know, we've been building on the waterfront since the passage of all the legislation that's been going on for about 12 years.

This legislation will come before council on Monday, September 20th.

The fourth item was a presentation and public hearing of the proposed operations agreement between the City of Seattle and the Woodland Park Zoo Society.

The current agreement will expire in February 2022. The public process has begun to review the current proposal approved by both parties.

Amendments to the agreement are due November 30th.

The Parks Department and the Woodland Park Zoo Society will review amendments as they both must agree to any changes made to the current proposal.

And as you all know, run that through legal as well.

The committee is scheduled to vote on this item on December 7th, followed by a full council vote on December 13th.

If you have any questions, please reach out to our office or to Brian Goodnight and central staff.

Number two, parks.

Between September 1st and September 7th, the parks department shower program has served over 285 users at six community centers.

Career labs, the parks department virtual 40 hour career readiness youth boot camp has wrapped up with 142 young people completing the program.

10 young people have already reached out to staff about landing the job after the program's competition.

Completion, I'm sorry, read that word wrong.

Clean Cities Crew, they continue to keep working on our city and trying to keep it clean from August 23rd to August 27th.

Crew members cleaned up 66,000 pounds of trash and 650 needles from about 33 encampment locations.

They are currently focused on two parks for deep cleaning, that's Golden Gardens and Lincoln Park.

Just this year, the park's operation of the Clean City Initiative has cleaned up approximately 2.8 million pounds of trash and over 67,000 needles throughout the city.

Third, Seattle Public Library.

The library continues with its Road to Reopening Plan and expansion of hours.

Thanks to the city's Seattle Rescue Plan funding, last Wednesday, the library expanded open doors, open hours, I'm sorry, at several branches with many now open seven days a week.

The Montlake branch reopened on September 8th, and the library is reporting a steady climb in patrons as the community returns.

This week, the library plans to reopen the Wallingford branch on September 13th, and the Madrona-Sally-Goldmark branch on September 15th.

A brief summary from last week.

Let's see.

I had a great time joining Mayor Jenny Durkan and the Department of Early Learning and Education Director, Duane Chappell, and Mana Agare at the Refugee Women's Alliance in Lake City, the Early Learning Center, to celebrate the first week of the preschool.

We were also accompanied by the teachers and the staff and the parents.

And as you know, the Riwa includes the Tony Lee House.

And Riwa, as you all know, was started in 1985. I also attended an event to celebrate the opening of the Kraken Iceplex at Northgate.

And that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any questions for Council Member Juarez?

Hearing none, Council Member Lewis, you're up next.

Thank you, Madam President.

Not too much to report this morning.

There are no items on this afternoon's agenda, prime sponsored by myself or coming from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I do have a technical amendment to Council Bill 120112, which would move that has been put into the bill for investments in permanent supportive housing, support funds for the chief Seattle club from the human services department to OPCD, department of planning community development.

The reason for that decision is there's an existing contract in OPCD for the Chief Seattle Club, and it would be more efficient to simply take the money that we want to give to Chief Seattle Club and put it through that existing contract rather than have HSD create and enter into some new separate contract.

So it is simply a technical amendment to change the delivery mechanism based on existing arrangements the city has with this particular nonprofit.

Happy to answer any questions if there are any questions about that.

But that is the only amendment that I am sponsoring this afternoon.

During last week, I was really Happy to be joined by a number of community stakeholders to hold a symposium on psychedelics.

As the council is well aware, we've been discussing with our friends at Decriminalize Nature over the past several months possible public policy actions related to the legal future of psychedelic substances and how that intersects with city, state, and county policies.

On this panel, we heard from a number of specialists in the medical community at the University of Washington, as well as from people with lived experience who have had life changing a life-changing interaction with some of these substances in terms of personal challenges in their lives.

We heard from national policy experts discussing how efforts in other cities and states have been building to fundamentally change how governments interact with policies around psychedelics.

And highly recommend that anyone interested in the topic go and watch the symposium.

It has been recorded and is being shared on my council website and appreciate the opportunity to learn more about this and really avail ourselves of a lot of very knowledgeable people in our community and at the University of Washington in particular, who talked about the medical science behind this and some of its potential.

So really appreciated that opportunity.

On Friday, I participated in a meeting with officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD.

I cannot stress enough the change in policy attitude and engagement from officials at HUD under the new administration and under the leadership of Secretary Fudge.

It was a really great conversation that also included representatives from a number of civic organizations and providers in the city of Seattle, as well as the CEO of the Regional Homelessness Authority, Mark Jones.

We had a great discussion about federal resources that have come online and some federal resources yet to come.

to increase the ability of local jurisdictions to leverage federal support to build more housing.

And that this fundamental investment that has been lacking for the last four years under the previous administration is seeing renewed focus, attention, and support from officials at HUD and really appreciate CEO Dones on setting up this meeting and appreciate their partnership in putting in this connection with our friends at HUD to amplify our local actions on expanding housing, particularly permanent supportive housing.

I will be at the Queen Anne Farmers Market this Thursday in the afternoon.

I look forward to seeing community members there for pop-up office hours.

Just as a reminder, people can sign up anytime for virtual office hours on my website, and always look forward to making myself available for those kinds of opportunities.

With that, Madam President, I don't have any additional updates.

Great, thank you so much Council Member Lewis.

Are there any questions for Council Member Lewis on that report?

All right, hearing none, we'll keep on going down the line.

We do have the language now for Council Member Herbold's proclamation.

So if you all don't mind, I'll take a quick little break here before I call on Council Member Morales to call the roll on that proclamation.

I already asked folks if they have any questions.

Did not hear any, so I'll just move right to the roll call.

So will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation honoring the efforts of those who responded to domestic violence.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Herbold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Those are the signatures.

So we'll go ahead and keep going down the line here.

Next up is Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

I hope everybody got a break.

I got to see friends and family in Texas, so that was very hot and nice.

At the last, there are no agenda items on today's full council agenda from the Community Economic Development Committee.

We did have a meeting on September 8th where we held a public hearing on the creation of a new business improvement area on 15th Avenue East.

Proponents of the BIA did submit petitions from 73% of businesses in the area.

And there were no petition refusals, but we did hear during the hearing from a few businesses, particularly business tenants, not property owners, who raised some concerns.

So we will be discussing BIA again in the next committee on September 21st.

And at that time, I do plan to bring an amendment to include a focus on representation from tenants to be included on the board, especially those with triple net leases.

And again, that second hearing will be on September 21st.

Um, let's see, moving on.

I was interested to learn that the mayor has decided to appoint a 2nd interim director, different interim director to the office of arts and culture.

My understanding is that no 1 on the arts commission or within the arts community was consulted or.

included in that discussion.

And I will say, I certainly understand that it is the mayor's prerogative to make such an appointment.

But I have been contacted by many community members who are very frustrated by the lack of inclusion in the process.

And I say that just because as we work towards recovery and dealing with the funding that is coming, trying to put that money out the door, it's gonna be really important that we maintain the very good relationships we have with the arts community and the arts sector, and make sure that those folks are, that we are including those who are most directly impacted by the work of the Office of Arts and Culture.

So I hope that that will continue in the future.

There's been a lot of really important community building done.

As you know, we just recently passed the Cultural Space PDA.

And there is a lot of work associated with that that needs to be implemented still.

And that all happened because of the relationships with communities.

So I want to make sure that those relationships are well-maintained.

Last week, I met with the Beacon Hill Council to discuss and hear from neighbors about anti-displacement and anti-gentrification strategies they have as we look ahead to updating the city's comprehensive plan.

I also met with staff from the East African Community Services to learn about plans they have to ensure that there's mitigation strategies in the East African community, particularly in the South End, and to learn about youth empowerment work that they're doing.

Additionally, I was briefed by Seattle Public Utilities on a non-hazardous waste discharge into the sewer from a local waste disposal business that caused some troubling odors in the area for neighbors in Georgetown.

Everything's back to normal.

The situation has led me to question how we can better communicate with the county on these sorts of issues.

The county actually issues the permits and is responsible for enforcement.

So we want to make sure that we are able to better keep track of businesses and people who violate our environmental protection laws and what penalties we can deliver those who have violated these protections.

As I said, everything has been restored and there wasn't any imminent danger, but it is still important for us to be in closer communication with the county when things like this happen.

This week I'll be back at the Columbia City Farmers Market for office hours from 3 to 6 on Wednesday.

I will not be holding virtual office hours on Thursday because I will be out in observance of Yom Kippur.

This Friday, I'll be joined by the mayor on a tour of the Mount Baker neighborhood.

The community members from the neighborhood are hosting a tour.

I've been talking about issues in the neighborhood for a long time now.

They're looking for safety improvements and for improvements in the lives of neighbors who are living unhoused in the immediate area around the Mount Baker Link light rail station.

This is the third or fourth tour that I've been on in the past year with these neighbors.

Previously we went out with homelessness service providers and with several nearby neighbors.

We've also looped in State Senator Rebecca Saldana and King County Council Member Irma Azahalai and the team from Office of Housing.

So in our ongoing conversations with the Office of Housing out particularly at Mount Baker, We were able to amplify the community's wish to turn a vacant parking lot on the former UW laundry site.

used for some drug-related activity, turning that into a parking lot for people who are living and working at the art space building nearby.

And we've also worked with neighbors and with Sound Transit to get some commitments for better lighting under the station platform and have made requests of the agency to allow for activation of the unused station area.

We haven't got very far on that particular request yet, but that continues to be a priority and I think is going to be a really important shift for Sound Transit to consider, particularly as we know other stations might be going out with an elevated elevated form over the over street level.

And honestly, who of us who rides a light rail wouldn't love to be able to get a coffee before we get on the train?

So I look forward to the tour with the mayor that will be this Friday, and I hope to see even more progress come from those conversations.

Colleagues, that is all that I have for this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

I do see that Council Member Lewis has his hand raised, so I'll go ahead and call on him.

Thank you, Madam President.

I just wanted to clarify, Council Member Morales, The particular use of the vacant parking lot at Mount Baker that you guys are proffering, I'm just curious and interested if you could just speak a little bit more to that.

Yeah, so the residents who live in work in the units.

Park far away and particularly at night, particularly because some of them work late at night and because of the kind of activity that is happening around there.

That building itself doesn't have any designated parking and so they are hoping to be able to park a little closer to their door.

So it is a temporary parking, not the entire lot.

I think the conversation we're having is to reserve maybe 10 spots so that folks have a place that is closer when they are getting home.

Thank you for clarifying that.

I really appreciate the innovation in making that request.

I had some preliminary discussions about a lot of potential interim uses to assist with mitigating the homelessness crisis several months ago uh...

the mayoral administration just given that it's a colossal amount of space truly not being utilized while you know within a quarter mile of that site we have dozens of people experiencing homelessness uh...

just making a a slight departure i don't wanna hold up briefings so i won't go too far into this but uh...

you know when i was down I went down on Memorial Day weekend to San Francisco and saw that they had a mitigation plan where there were sanctioned encampment sites on surplus properties where there were services, there were hygiene stations, people could pitch a tent on a pallet and it was secure, there was privacy, it was fenced in.

There were services there, harm reduction based services.

And I'm not endorsing necessarily sanctioned camping sites.

I'm not saying that's good.

I don't necessarily want those.

I guess what I am saying is not taking advantage of less desirable alternatives because we don't want to condone something that isn't as great as, you know, that might have some kind of problem with it is inherently endorsing a strategy where We continue to tolerate and expect our neighbors to tolerate housed and unhoused.

a primarily unsanctioned encampment system of shelter, which is functionally what it is, whether we say it or not.

And I do just think we need a little bit of pragmatism in scrambling to make this system more manageable.

And that involves using sites in creative ways like what you've just proposed, a site that is currently being used for nothing that is huge, that we should have some kind of adaptability and pragmatism about using.

because otherwise we're just saying go camp in a non-sanctioned location and we're just going to ignore it and act like as a result that that's better than the potential uncertainties of some of these other mitigation strategies.

So anyway, I just wanted to lift that up.

I appreciate that innovation.

I stand ready to assist in any way I can to make it a reality.

So thank you, Council Member Morales.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Okay, thank you so much.

Any other comments or questions on that report, including that conversation?

I'm not seeing any other hands raised, so we'll keep going down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Mosqueda, and then I will conclude this portion before we head into executive session.

Councilmember Mosqueda, good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

I will pick up on that last conversation just briefly because that was the end of my comments.

I want to underscore the importance of what Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Morales have brought to the table yet again.

I think this council has repeatedly not only talked about the importance of funding and investing in multiple housing strategies, but we have actually passed legislation in partnership with the mayor.

It's been signed into law.

And as we think about new and creative, more long-term and sustainable solutions to getting folks both into shelters and into housing, we do not have the luxury.

We do not have the time.

We need to act now to implement the language that we have already put into law.

that creates tiny houses, that creates RV safe flats, that creates these immediate shelter options as we work to build additional housing and shelter models that we know are important.

This was underscored for me as well.

I wanted to call out that last week Council Member Herbold and I had the chance to visit with business owners and human service providers through LEAD and REACH who work with folks who are living unsheltered right now in Georgetown.

We had the chance to meet with Maria Jose from Mose Auto, with Bob Bolvik with Cascade Columbia Distribution, with my old friend Betsy Antonio from the Seattle Iron and Metals Corporation, along with lead and outreach providers.

There was five of them there that day.

And our friend Victoria Mena, who is a friend of the small business owners who have been trying to call attention to the need for folks especially in this Georgetown industrial area to be able to access tiny houses and RVs.

We heard directly from small business owners that day that they want the city to move forward with the 2021 funds that have been allocated so that more people have the ability to get inside, whether it's tiny houses, whether it's pallet shelters, whether it's the tiny homes model from The group that works to refurbish the old trailers that used to go on trucks, that model, Bolt's model, if you visited, it is a great model as well.

We have put funding forward for these short-term solutions as we build longer-term solutions.

and from the Experienced Housing Coalition who wants there to be a tiny homes, small homes model to all of the work that we know Pallet and Lehigh and others have done.

There's multiple strategies that could be used with this short-term funding, capital funding that has come through the American Rescue Plan Act dollars that has also been filtered through us, to us by the state legislature.

And we have put it into our Seattle Rescue Plan Act bill and has been signed into law.

Let's act now to deploy the dollars that we have.

We cannot reject dollars on the table when we need beds and services right now.

And then let's do all of these strategies that have just been lifted up by the Chair of Homelessness Services and the Chair of Economic Resilience.

I'll give you that new title.

Equitable Development Initiative.

I did want to thank the small business owners for their time and the outreach workers for their time as well.

We had the chance to talk about how important it is for that outreach to be done going door to door at those RVs.

They often see more than one person living in the RVs, so the question about whether or not People would take potentially tiny houses for those who are doubled up or triple or quadrupled up in a RV.

The answer was yes.

And Council Member Herbold did some incredible work with us as we work to create a safe lot to make sure that folks who had an RV had a place for storage if they were willing to accept shelter, knowing that their RV would not get towed.

It was important for us to put forward both the RV safe lot and the storage funding so that a creative alternative or solutions could be met.

that funding is in effect.

We have those dollars out there.

We just need it spent now.

I've also spent the last two to three weeks over the break talking to multiple business owners and business representatives because I think we all agree whether you're a human service provider, whether you're somebody who's experiencing homelessness, whether you are a small business, we cannot be rejecting funding that's already been allocated and those need to be deployed.

So I started at the end of my presentation.

I just wanted to follow up on that discussion and let you know that we had that tour and conversation in the Georgetown area and I really appreciate their time and we'll continue to make sure that the purple bags are being deployed and that additional outreach via Reach and Lead continues to go out there, but we have to have places for folks to go and we funded that so let's get it implemented.

Starting at the top of my script.

Colleagues, we have items on our agenda from the Housing and Finance Committee for today's full council meeting.

This includes Council Bill 120165, the authorization of a new lease for the Port of Seattle Land to continue to expand the use of tiny house villages located in Interbay, the reappointment of Frank Alvarado, Barbara Navarro-Splass, and Drew Porter for the Community Roots Housing.

We also have the Council Bill 120111, which is the Mid-Year Grant Acceptance Legislation, and we have Council Bill 120118, We will be looking to expand the use of the grocery worker hazard pay.

related to the mid-year supplemental budget we had.

I want to thank you for the robust discussion about this supplemental.

Right before we were about to pass out the supplemental in mid-August, we did get word from the mayor's office that there was an underspend of $15 million from SPD.

I'm very excited that this afternoon we will be moving forward on the much discussed and anticipated Garfield super block drawing from the REIT funds to support this community-driven project.

that are making this project be able to move forward as the Garfield Superblock Community Organizers have been calling for.

I'm also excited about the $200,000 that I am including for building additional tiny house villages.

Many of you haven't yet visited, or excuse me, many of you have already visited Sound Foundations Northwest, which is a great example of where we have these tiny house villages built, but it relies on a lot of donations and a lot of volunteer time, so we're looking forward to supporting them with the capital and dollars for materials.

I'm excited as well about the funding that we included in an earlier committee meeting to make sure that there is another mental health provider for our Seattle Fire Department.

As you'll recall, we already allocated one FTE that was intended to provide services for behavioral health and mental health services for our Seattle Fire Department personnel who have been on the front lines during COVID.

And with this funding, we are also making sure that there is a mental health provider located within the Seattle Fire Department, as well as within the trust, the members, frontline members trust, so that there's really easy access and we're breaking down all of the barriers.

I'm also excited about the amendment that's included that Councilmember Herbold alluded to, that we have built together and that the Finance and Housing Committee passed with some additional amendments to it.

The policy goals of the amendment that Councilmember Herbold and I worked on were to allocate the SPD underspend.

to public safety investments, some of which have been requested by the executive, and also to maintain the council's important investments and commitment to scaling up alternative responses through different programs, such as in the Human Service Department.

We included $3 million per the request of community to go to the Human Service Department to expand our public safety grants through HSD, to expand those from 18 months to a full two years to create true stability and the ability for those community partners to really scale up to capacity.

I think this package in front of us that we passed out of committee represented an important balance in that area.

If we do things like add triage one, then there also must be the ability to make sure that community safety contracts are in place to ensure that there is a landing zone for social workers and case managers to bring people to so that people have services and housing and additional mental and behavioral health services instead of just having a triage entity call and then have fire and police called ultimately.

That is why I'm also excited about this amendment that Council Member Herbold also mentioned, Amendment Number 4. This was built after having more discussions with key stakeholders, including firefighters from IAFF 27, Local 27, is supportive of creating a triage response team, but also wants to make sure, like we do, that there is a place for individuals to go when a triage unit responds.

We want to make sure that there is a landing zone.

We know too many times that folks are being called, fire and police are being called, and for lack of capacity to bring these people to more holistic services like housing and community health services, behavioral and social health services, they end up going into Harborview or sometimes getting moved along without any additional support, and that doesn't help anything.

So we wanted to make sure that in response to the direct on-the-ground requests from firefighters who really want to make sure that the protocol is in place before we stand up triage, one, that we have a thoughtful and complete response and at a minimum identify confirmed providers so that and mental health and case managers, professionals will be able to provide shelters and medical assistance and the staffing and equipment is fully thought through.

So really appreciate the work of Council Member Herbold and members of Local 27. And I hope to answer any questions you may have about amendment number four before this afternoon.

And thank you in advance for your support.

On the introduction referral calendar, Council President, we do have the SPD grant acceptance ordinance.

This is on today's introduction and referral, but I want to remind folks that this bill itself accepts grants, many of which are reimbursed for SPD work that has already been done.

Typically, this is included in the quarter four grant acceptance ordinance annually, but this year, because we're not doing a quarter four supplemental in an effort to try to make sure that our council and no future council is in a position to pass a robust calendar year bill and then have to re-engage in a quarter four just weeks later, We are bringing this forward now.

I want to note for folks that while the grants themselves are fairly routine in terms of what the grants the city has accepted in the past and the previous work already authorized to be done, we are continuing to daylight the work of SPD as we expect council members and community members may have questions.

We wanted to make sure that the department was available to answer those questions as they come up.

So this will be on the introduction and referral calendar for today for consideration on Friday.

I also, Council President, wanted to make sure that you and our colleagues were aware that we did just learn about a piece of legislation that was transmitted late last week from OPCD.

We did have a briefing in our committee on this last Friday.

This relates to the Mercer Mega Block sale for community reinvestments.

This is the strategic fund proviso lift legislation.

We had been looking forward to making sure that we followed up on last Friday's presentation with this Friday's committee meeting to lift those provisos to make sure that $30 million from these strategic investment funds were able to get allocated to community.

The legislation was transmitted late on Friday, so we are We are looking forward colleagues with your acceptance to be able to walk this item on to our introduction and referral calendar for today to allow for hopefully the consideration of this on Friday and to allow for that to be considered this month.

real estate protected information that we don't want to be discussing necessarily as a whole with this legislation in the public.

We don't want to intervene in any transactions that may be out there.

So we will have an executive session and then we would be able to consider it before the end of the month before we get into budget.

But because this is our last Housing and Finance Committee meeting on Friday, we wanted to make sure to get it introduced in time.

And with that, Council President, I will just note that we have our next Finance and Housing Committee meeting on Friday, the 17th at 930 again.

We'll have the Office of Labor Standards, RSGI presentation.

Hopefully, the Strategic Investment Fund provides a lift legislation and an update on the revenue forecast.

We do want to make sure that everybody knows there is opportunity to participate in these meetings, especially the revenue forecast.

If you're not a member of finance and housing, of course, feel free to let us know that you'd like to join and we will make sure to acknowledge you and get you all the materials as well.

And as a reminder, the mayor's proposed budget does come down later this month on September 27th.

We will have the city department presentation review each of the sections beginning that same week so we will receive the proposed budget on Monday the 27th and then Wednesday Thursday Friday that week starting on September 29th we will have public hearings scheduled in the morning and the afternoon starting at 930 going to 1 and then starting at 2 and ending by 5. A full calendar is available for you and we will make sure to send out the times for each of the departments that will be presenting for us later this month very soon.

I'm, again, hoping that we will have a proposed balancing package ready by November 12th that will give all of us and the public ample time to review and provide feedback to the proposed budget from council, and then we can pass our council's final budget by November 22nd.

Lots of work to come.

Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, Council Member Esqueda.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right.

I don't see any hands raised and I'm not hearing any additional questions.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda, for your report.

I will go ahead and give my report.

It's a little longer than usual, but we've been gone for a while, so bear with me here.

There are three items on this afternoon's introduction and referral calendar that will be referred to my Governance and Education Committee, which I will discuss in just a moment.

Each of those items, aside from The introduction referral calendar items, there's nothing more on this afternoon's City Council agenda from the Governance and Education Committee.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 14th, 2021, the Governance and Education Committee will convene at 2 o'clock p.m.

via Zoom.

The items for discussion at tomorrow's committee meeting include Council Bill 120172, which is the third quarter 2021 employment ordinance.

This is routine legislation related to City of Seattle employment.

It is designed to return 13 positions to the civil service system and amends classification titles to reflect the transfer of positions from the Seattle Police Department to Community Safety and Communications Center.

Again, this is routine legislation that's consistent with policy choices that have been made in the past by the City Council.

This just effectuates those prior policy choices.

The second agenda item is the reappointment of David Jones as our city auditor.

Mr. Jones will be with us in committee.

We have previously circulated his reappointment materials and he will be available to answer any questions during tomorrow's committee meeting.

The full council will consider his reappointment on Monday, September 20th.

For those of you that are not on the committee, please do not hesitate to reach out to my office if you have any concerns or questions about this proposed reappointment.

Lastly, we will have a briefing and discussion on the city auditor's 2020 annual report and 2021 work plan update during that committee hearing.

Last Thursday, September 9th, the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board received a presentation on the preliminary results of the new regional transportation plan being developed with a planning horizon through 2050. The transportation policy board was also briefed on PSRC's work to develop a regional equity strategy and the board met in small groups to discuss how to incorporate equity in the regional transportation plan.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results of those small work groups and how we can continue to influence the regional equity strategy to build a truly equitable regional transportation plan between now and 2050. Last week, I was honored to attend and speak at the groundbreaking of the LGBTQ senior housing on Capitol Hill with GenPride and Community Roots Housing.

In 2016, the council supported my budget request on behalf of GenPride to fund a $150,000 research project to better define the housing gaps and needs of our LGBTQ seniors.

This research led to the Rainbow Report, which was authored by Dr. Karen Fredrickson-Golson, and that report formed the foundation necessary for Pride Place, the city's first, but hopefully not last, affordable housing and senior center for the LGBT senior community to break ground on Capitol Hill this last Friday.

And of course, it is thanks to the voters of Seattle who overwhelmingly approved the housing levy that this $50 million project has gone from a dream to reality for this portion of our community.

And in 18 months, I hope that we will all be together celebrating the grand opening of this community building housing project in the core and heart of Capitol Hill.

A huge thank you to our Office of Housing, King County, the State of Washington, Sound Transit, the full City Council, past and present, and all of the advocates who helped with the research, advocacy, and project planning efforts and financing for our city's first affordable housing development for the LGBTQ elders in our community, both current and future.

really quickly on issues of gun violence.

As mentioned by Council Member Herbold, her office, my office, and the Human Services Department, together with Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, have been working closely with Dominique Davis of Community Passageways on a critical initiative to de-escalate some of the gun violence we have seen unfold within our city in recent weeks and months.

In years past, the city has taken steps to address the ongoing crisis of gun violence from passing legislation that required the safe storage of guns to the expansion of investments with a county to get guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals and reduce the use of guns in incidents of domestic violence.

The city has also used revenue from the sale of ammunition to fund research in partnership with Harborview to prevent gun violence from from occurring in the first place.

And voters affirmed the enactment of extreme risk protection order protections in 2016, making the state of Washington only the fourth state to enact an extreme risk protection law.

This law, of course, gives police the legal authority to secure someone's guns, requires a surrender of concealed pistol licenses, and respondents' names are added to the national no-sell list to ensure they won't pass a background check to purchase a firearm from a gun dealer for the same one-year period.

As policymakers, I believe it's important that we move away from a punitive approach of addressing gun violence to one that is based in restorative healing.

And the effort being led by Coach Dom is a program that aims to do something different.

So, of course, rather than looking at gun violence through a law and order mindset that fuels and perpetuates biases and prejudice against black and brown people, as well as our unhoused neighbors, we can use this as an opportunity to look at how to build back community and to make sure that community can look at the root causes of gun violence and figuring out strategies to address those root causes to permanently prevent gun violence from occurring within our community.

So this of course means a real level of investment in communities that are victims of gun violence and showing these communities that they are valued and a welcome part of our city.

We can, I believe, increase community wellness by showing neighborhoods they are cared for and invested in and that the people who live there matter to us.

So the young men who are participating in this 30 Days of Peace effort have an opportunity to go from surviving to thriving, and that means access to quality jobs, being able to maneuver around our city with accessible, affordable transit, access to affordable housing to address housing instability issues, and a quality education, of course.

And I think that when we invest in all of these strategies, we will begin to produce true community safety.

And so I'm really humbled to have had an opportunity to work with Coach Dom, with Council Member Herbold, with Human Services Department and others to allow HSD to have the flexibility and the nimbleness they need to be able to fund this really important 30 Days of Peace effort.

So in closing, I just want to acknowledge and appreciate the work of Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington and folks over at HSD in, again, identifying funds to make this investment on a new and innovative solution to interrupting the cycle of violence.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results and seeing how else we can continue to support these really important efforts.

This Wednesday, shifting gears a little bit, this Wednesday, September 15th, 2021 marks the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month.

I was honored to be able to send a quick message to the students over at Hamilton International Middle School in Wallingford to kick off the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month, which again starts this Wednesday.

So as a proud Latina, I want to wish everyone a very happy Hispanic Heritage Month and hope you will all join me in celebrating and acknowledging the contributions of the many Latinx folks who live in our very own city and region.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that today is the official first day of our new Central Staff Director, Esther Handy.

Director Handy has a strong track record as a team builder who has coalesced policymakers, stakeholders, and community-based organizations around major policy efforts.

The decision to hire Ms. Handy as a permanent central staff director was a result of a very robust recruitment and hiring process that incorporated the input of many legislative departments, staff, council members, and other stakeholders, including within the executive branch.

Ms. Handy is returning to the city and the legislative department where she worked from 2010 to 2015. Many of you may know her from her time as a legislative aide and chief of staff to former Councilmember Mike O'Brien.

She was also the deputy director of Progress Alliance.

And her most recent role was serving as the interim executive director of Puget Sound SAGE.

Director Handy will continue to ensure that our central staff is the highly functioning independent division we've all come to rely on and respect as individual elected officials.

And I want to also just take a quick moment to acknowledge the important contributions of Deputy Director Dan Eder, He of course served as our interim director for the last year under incredibly challenging circumstances stemming from COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.

And not one, but two vacancies on the small, but mighty central staff division.

And Dan, along with our policy and budget manager, Ally Panucci, and all of the legislative analysts have gone above and beyond.

to serve the city council and the people of Seattle over the last year.

And we are very grateful for the contributions and leadership of Dan and the entire central staff team in the last 12 to 18 months.

So I hope you will join me in welcoming our new central staff director, Esther Handy, to the legislative department team.

And I hope you will also join me in thanking Deputy Director Eder for his critical leadership and dedication to the city of Seattle.

That is the end of my report.

I am happy to take any questions or hear any further comments before we move over to executive session.

Council Member Esqueda, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Not a comment on your report.

Thank you so much for the information.

I did just want to correct one thing in my report.

Apologies to OPCD.

They did send the legislation that I am asking for walk-on and referral on Wednesday afternoon.

And I want to apologize to them and also to you all.

It was after our noon deadline, but still hoping that we can walk it on today and consider it on Friday.

But I just want to make sure that they knew that we had received it on Wednesday afternoon and apologies for all of the back and forth on this.

So looking forward to getting that into the INR.

Great, thank you, Council Member Skeda.

I will work with the clerk's office to make sure that we have the script and the language necessary in order to allow for that to occur this afternoon.

Okay.

Anything else for the good of the order before I move us into executive session?

Anything else we need to address in open session?

I'm not seeing any hands raised or anyone coming off of video, so I'm going to go ahead and move us into executive session as presiding officer.

I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive sessions.

The purpose of the executive sessions are to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive sessions are an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open session.

I expect the time of the executive session one and executive session two to end by 12 o'clock p.m.

if the executive sessions are to be extended beyond 12 o'clock p.m.

I will return to open session and announce the extension and the expected duration.