Seattle City Council Briefing 4112022

Today is Monday, April 11th, and this is a Seattle City Council briefing.

Will it come to order?

The time is now two o'clock.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council President Juarez?

Here.

6 present.

Thank you.

So we will move to approval of the minutes.

There's no objection.

The minutes of April 4, 2022 will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objections, the minutes are indeed adopted.

move on to the President's Report.

On today's agenda, we will be signing one proclamation recognizing the month of April as the Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

We will then hear a 30-minute summary report for the state legislative session from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, that's our OIR department.

Their presentation, we'll hear reports after their presentation, we'll hear reports from each council member.

And finally, we will have a 20-minute executive session to receive an update on a legal matter from the city attorney's office.

Tomorrow we will have a presentation of the actual sexual assault awareness month proclamation, courtesy of Councilmember Herboldt.

The consent calendar tomorrow will include the minutes, the IRC, and payment of the bills, as well as 19 appointments which have been reviewed and recommended by the respective committees.

As a reminder, we will take one vote on all items on the consent calendar unless any Councilmember requests that an item be removed from the consent agenda.

moving on to signing of letters and proclamations.

Councilmember Lewis, I understand, on behalf of Councilmember Herbold, has a proclamation for signature recognizing the month of April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Councilmember Lewis, do you want to go ahead and present that with us?

Thank you, Council President.

Yes, on behalf of Councilmember Herbold, I do have a proclamation for signature recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Are there any comments on this proclamation which I believe was distributed by Councilmember Herbold's office before we request signatures to be affixed to the proclamation?

Okay, I'm happy to share Councilmember Herbold's statement that she sent along before we proceed to the collecting signatures.

Councilmember Herbold's office has circulated the proclamation we're discussing.

It was drafted with advocates from the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence and the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.

Mayor Harrell is concurring in this proclamation.

The proclamation declares April to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month and notes the negative impact of sexual violence and trauma on adults, youth, and children, including fear, concern for safety, missed work or school, injury, and physical and mental health conditions.

including symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Councilmember Herbold will be at tomorrow's council meeting to present this proclamation to representatives of the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence and Sexual Violence Law Center.

Council colleagues, after that statement from Councilmember Herbold, are there any questions or comments about the proclamation?

And seeing none, I believe I can pass it back to you, Council President, to request signatures.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

So with that, if there are no questions or comments, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like to have their name affixed to the proclamation?

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Six signatures will be affixed to the proclamation.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Moving on, we will now move on to the item of the state legislative session update.

My understanding is we have the interim director, Gail Tarlington, along with Elsa Brown and Quinn Majewski.

Before we get started, I know that we have should put stay for the record that you have provided materials to us.

I believe there were 4 documents in in total.

The 2022 legislative final report.

the final overview of the capital and operating budgets, and the move ahead Washington transportation documents.

And I just wanted to thank you guys because I know that we have OIR at the end of session, kind of do a wrap up with the documents and kind of walk us through it.

But on the 2022 final report, I think that's like 19 or 20 pages.

I'm really glad that you put in there.

And I know, I think you've done it in the past, but thank you for listing the bills starting on page 11 or 12 of the bills that didn't pass.

I always think that's important to see what we keep taking a run at every year, and then if it doesn't pass, seeing what we need to do if indeed we want to take another run at it.

So thank you for that.

So with that, Ms. Charlington, Interim Director Charlington, I will let you go ahead and introduce your folks and go ahead and do your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President Juarez and to all of the members of the council.

We are going to be presenting the wrap-up of the 2022 legislative session, which happened in 60 days, and our State Relations Director Quinn Majewski and State Lobbyist Elsa Brown have put together a summary as well as some really important statistics on everything that happened in that 60 days.

And I think all of you will appreciate the amount of attention to not only the details, but the environment and atmosphere in Olympia this past session.

Our colleagues and our city legislators were doing incredible amounts of work to help our city and our county and our state put the people first.

And we look forward to the presentation.

I'll have our State Relations Director Quinn drive the show, and I'll let Quinn and Elsa address the questions you may have, but thank you all so much for the time you gave us during session and for the participation you had personally in writing letters, giving testimony, following up with information for our Seattle delegation.

Your involvement helped us achieve a lot for our city and thank you so much.

So Quinn, take it away.

Thank you so much, Gail.

So we are going to be primarily going through the 2022 session final report.

The additional documents on the operating capital and move ahead Washington transportation proposal provide a greater granularity of detail that we won't be able to get into in our presentation today.

However, we are happy to answer questions on any of the documents that we have provided.

I'm going to go ahead and start with a overview of the operating budget.

I'll hand it over to Elsa to cover capital, and then I'll come back with transportation.

And we'll hit a few of the policy highlights, and then we'll try to reserve some time for question and answer.

So, kicking off, the operating budget included quite a few significant investments this year.

Just a few of the highlights.

There was $215 million in business assistance provided.

This is broken down into a number of categories for specific industries.

There was $100 million for assistance for the hospitality industry, $25 million for arts and art businesses, $20 million for convention center and public facility districts, and then the remainder is allocated to a variety of small business assistance programs and funding initiatives, as well as a resiliency network.

Uh, there were 2 pots of money for electric vehicle programs.

There's 120Million for incentivizing.

Conversion to electric vehicles, this can include, uh, there was an earlier proposals from the house.

Specifically working on.

vehicles over 10,000 pounds, drayage trucks at the Port of Seattle and other port facilities that was particularly of interest to our Office of Sustainability and Environment.

This incentive funding can be used for that as well as incentivizing other conversions to electric vehicles.

There's also 69 million for electric vehicle community charging infrastructure.

So this is the physical charging infrastructure and those funds can be made through grant programs to a a variety of governments, nonprofits, physical infrastructure.

There's $100 million for utility arrearages.

I know this is an area that has been of particular interest for our two utilities, Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light, because they do have significant arrearages.

There was some language added towards the end of the legislative session that restricts this a little bit.

It can only be applied for customers who have already been using an existing assistance program, whether that is LIHEAP, LIWEAP, or a local ratepayer-sponsored utility program, such as the city's utility discount program.

That does limit a little bit the number of our customers who can participate.

We won't be able to capture the full universe, but it is still assistance that will be helpful for for the city.

There's about just north of seventy five, seventy five point six million for emergency food assistance.

This is primarily for the Washington State Department of Agriculture to provide funding through the the Farmers to Food Boxes program, which is connecting local Washington farmers with low-income folks in communities who are in need of food assistance.

There is also some money of that pot set aside for capacity building for food assistance organizations to increase the throughput and capacity there.

There's 74.1 million for predominantly Ukraine and Afghan refugee assistance.

This will be predominantly administered through the DSA, the State Department of Social and Health Human Services, Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance, in direct assistance to those refugees who are being relocated to Washington state, as well as some pass-through grants to nonprofits who are serving those refugees.

In the area of housing and human services and homelessness, there's $55 million for homeless service provider stipends to address morale and the capacity needs for homeless service providers who are working at providing the services for homeless individuals and unsheltered individuals.

There's $45 million in statewide rental assistance.

This builds on the funds that were allocated during last year in the biennial budget for rental assistance, and the funding will be distributed in a similar manner.

There's an additional amount, $45 million, for grants to local governments and nonprofits to help individuals who are currently living in public rights-of-way transition into permanent housing solutions.

And then finally, in this space, there's $27 million for landlord assistance, sort of the pair for the rental assistance for tenants, to help mitigate losses for landlords related to lost revenue from tenant payments.

Those are just some of the highlights in this space.

The final operating budget document provides a lot more detail.

I'll pause there for any questions, and then I'll hand it over to Elsa to talk about capital.

Are there any questions anyone has of Quinn before we move on?

All right.

All right, Elsa.

Thanks, Quinn.

So this year was a historic investment in the capital budget, following on a previous historic year in 2021. So really large investments this year in the capital budget, particularly in the areas of affordable housing.

and shelter.

So we saw $300 million this year for the rapid acquisition of affordable housing and shelter spaces.

This is something that the city has been competitive for in the past, including $210 for competitive grants to purchase housing and shelter space of a variety of types that the city might see on the market to purchase.

The legislature also invested $114.5 million in the housing trust fund and that sort of follows that traditional housing trust fund formula that we've seen year over year at the Department of Commerce and is something that's been an important part of the city's affordable housing work over time.

Another big area for the legislature this year was around behavioral health.

So both funding for, you know, existing behavioral health facilities, including some within the city of Seattle, but also 72 million for new beds in the form of crisis stabilization.

So that was a big push this year, 10 million are earmarked for a facility in King County.

But of the rest of that that are available for grants, they're not limited geographically.

So this region could also benefit from some of those additional investments in behavioral health.

Another area of focus was on the weatherization plus health program.

This is a program that helps low-income houses update to better energy efficiency and health efficiency.

So I think there's a recognition at the state legislature that sometimes those that have both weatherization problems, you might also have air quality or asthma issues.

And so this is a program that sort of addresses those two features of people's houses in tandem.

There was also funding for homeless youth facilities and funding to help public utilities connect affordable housing projects with utilities.

So that's something that our utilities have been able to make use of in the past and apply to those grants to help get new affordable housing projects connected.

So we are excited to see all those investments and in particular, this huge investment in affordable housing from the legislature, which is really tremendous.

larger than we've seen before.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Are there any questions of Elsa regarding her report before we move on?

Okay.

On the transportation front, the legislature approved the Move Ahead Washington transportation revenue package.

The package will raise approximately just shy of $17 billion over the next 16 years.

The revenue sources and funding allocations haven't changed significantly since the briefing that we did earlier on in the legislative session, except for the export fuel tax proposal was dropped late in legislative session and was replaced by two transfers from the general fund and the public works trust fund.

The overview document that's provided provides a broad summary of both the revenues and spending, so I'm not going to go into too much detail there.

It invests pretty significantly in maintenance and preservation, multimodal transportation and decarbonization, and predominantly through the latter two, several grant programs that SDOT has historically been competitive in and we imagine they would continue to do so.

I'm going to focus specifically on the Seattle projects that included, that received funding in the transportation revenue package.

I do want to note The legislature did something a little bit different this year.

Historically, when they've done these transportation revenue packages, there's been sort of a detailed schedule of the projects and when each project will receive funding over the 16 years.

They didn't do that this time.

They allocated some funding in this biennium, so basically this year and next year, and then the remainder of projects are left to be determined in the future.

So this is something that we'll be working on in coming legislative sessions to make sure that we are securing those funds in the most timely manner that they can be used.

But I do just want to note that for these projects that I'm about to speak to, we don't know exactly when the funding will be coming to the city, just that it will be.

So there's $406 million that will be invested to backfill project shortfalls related to delay costs and other cost increases on the State Route 520 West End project.

There's $50 million for improvements to the North Aurora Corridor, specifically around safety improvements.

There's $25 million for the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor.

specifically predominantly focused on the Ballard and Magnolia bridges, but also several spot improvements, freight spot improvements in that corridor.

In addition to the transportation revenue package, the legislature also approved the, this year, the 2022 spending supplemental transportation budget, and there's a few items in there that are pertinent to the city.

The first, the 2022 supplemental budget included $9 million for WSDOT to reimburse the City for delay costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic on the Alaskan Way surface street reconstruction.

There's also $5 million in additional funding for cleanup of WSDOT rights-of-way, up to $8 million for the biennium.

And then finally, I know a project of interest to Council Member Herbold, as well as others.

There's 600,000 for OPCD to conduct a community-led visioning process and feasibility study for decommissioning SR 99 in the South Park neighborhood.

Can I ask you a quick question?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

You're on a roll there.

I was looking at your move ahead Washington transportation revenue package.

Yeah, I know that we talked about this before, but just help me understand.

So it's $5 million for the cleanup for WashDOT statewide?

Yes.

And they didn't fund an office that was going to be this interagency fund to connect?

Yes, that's correct.

The governor's proposal to create an office that would manage interagency coordination around the rights-of-way was Senate Bill 5662. That bill did not pass, and so there was no funding included for that office.

I think what we saw instead was the increased amounts of funding for the cleanup in the transportation budget, as well as that 45 million for transitioning individuals from the rights of way into affordable and permanent supportive housing, as well as the significant investments in the capital infrastructure to help make that a reality.

So we got funded to help people get into housing and we got 5 million statewide to clean up along I-5 or WSDOT.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

Any other questions on transportation?

Well, looks like you did a great job.

All right, we will cover a handful of policy bills.

We're not gonna go through everything in the report, just in the interest of time and leaving some time for questions.

But we're gonna cover, I'll hand it over to Elsa to cover public safety and gun responsibility.

And then I will talk about some of the transportation policies.

Thanks, Quinn.

This was actually quite a big year for gun responsibility at the legislature.

Some of the policies that were passed this year have been in the works for many years, more than five.

So Senator Lee has sponsored 5078, which bans the manufacture and distribution of high capacity magazines.

This was a big priority for gun responsibility advocates and legislators for a long time and was a huge one this year in the area of gun responsibility.

but not the only one.

We also saw bills around restricting weapons in civic spaces and closing the ghost gun loophole.

So the first bill from Representative Sen was a follow-up to a bill passed in 2021, which banned open carry on the Capitol campus.

This extended sort of that prohibition to local governments, including school boards and city halls, and also election and ballot facilities.

So sort of what the legislature did for their own public meetings, they did for local governments and school boards.

And 1705 from Representative Berry closed the loophole around the manufacture and sale of ghost guns.

So basically treating them the same as other firearms within the state.

So it was quite a large year for gun responsibility in the legislature.

And those three wins were really important to a lot of folks.

following it, including the city.

On public safety, something that I think we've briefed you all on several times before during our weekly sessions was around follow-ups to HB 1310, use of force legislation in the legislature.

There were three bills this year that updated that legislation, 1719, 1735, and 2037. A fourth bill, 5919, did not move forward this year.

We've been tracking all four of those and sharing that information with you all.

The first was on military equipment.

I think the goal of this bill was to provide greater clarity that law enforcement would be able to use less legal methods.

under this use of force legislation.

The second was regarding behavioral health interventions from Representative Johnson.

And this was a big focus for a lot of affordable housing and behavioral health providers this year to clarify that law enforcement would be able to join in helping those providers with folks experiencing behavioral health crisis.

The final bill, I think, was the most controversial of the three or sort of the most significant.

for many advocates, 2037, that defined physical force in law and modified the standard for use of force.

So I think some of you have been following this legislation quite closely, but it modified the state language around Terry stops or when people are fleeing from stops, and as I said, defined physical force in law.

So those three bills were, around sort of the police use of force subject area.

A fourth bill that I would just highlight that Councilmember Herbold and I believe some others have been following is around catalytic converters.

HB 1815. updated a number of areas related to the theft of catalytic converters, including new regulations for scrap metal processors.

But it took a number of other steps, including a creation of a Consumer Protection Act violation, as well as the creation of a workgroup to study further solutions needed to help address the theft of catalytic converters.

That's what I've got for public safety.

The only question I had was The H Bill 2037 House Bill, the use of force and the ones that didn't pass.

Is this the one that started out?

Is this what kind of all of them collapsed into that everyone could agree on, on the use of force?

I do not think that everybody could agree on this one.

I think there was originally sort of an idea that these would all be in one piece of legislation, and that did not turn out to happen.

The other Bill 5919 addressed some of the same subject areas as 2037. It was amended in House Committee to focus on vehicular pursuits, but the House and the Senate did not come to agreement on the bill language, so it did not move forward this year.

That's was the one.

OK, thank you.

Are there any questions on some of this stuff, people?

Don't see any.

Go ahead, Elsa.

Or is it Quinn?

Back to me.

The legislature also adopted some changes to transportation policy that I think are worth highlighting.

Several bills that we were following throughout the legislative session and supporting got wrapped up into the Move Ahead Washington transportation revenue package that passed.

So from a local transportation revenue perspective, the move at Washington package authorized an additional .1% sales tax authority for transportation benefit districts.

That's a councilmanic authority that would be in addition to the .2% voter approved authority that we already have.

The package also fixed a sort of ambiguity in state law that's been of concern to SDOT and others around how many times a TVD can be renewed.

There was some interpretation from law and other cities agreed that A TBD could only be renewed once, and then it would expire automatically.

That has been clarified, so TBDs can now be renewed multiple times.

So we no longer need to worry about that at the end of our current TBD term.

The transportation package also made some changes to automated enforcement authority.

So it extended our current automated enforcement pilot for block the box and transit lanes by two years.

That program is sort of just getting underway at SDOT.

I believe they've launched a handful of cameras last month after some delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So this provides an additional two years for us to sort of collect the data and report back on what we saw through the program without needing to sort of feel the crunch of doing that.

in just a handful of months.

It also created some new authority for automated enforcement.

It authorizes speed cameras in school walk zones, public park speed zones, and hospital speed zones, and allows cities to use one speed camera per 10,000 populations.

So the city of Seattle would be authorized to use approximately 70 speed zone cameras as part of this proposal.

In addition to those sort of policies that were adopted through the revenue package.

There were two other pretty big transportation and transportation labor policy bills that were adopted.

The first, I know of interest to many of you, House Bill 2076, which concerns transportation network companies, did pass.

That bill establishes a statewide regulatory framework for TNCs.

It includes statewide worker classification for TNC drivers, minimum compensation, paid sick leave, and workers' compensation.

It does unfortunately preempt the city with regards to labor standards.

So while we will be seeing a statewide system set up, we will no longer be able to do the enforcement that was housed in OLS.

We did secure some delays to the $0.15 reduction in local fees that will be transferred to L&I to fund the statewide driver's resource center.

So rather than taking effect immediately, those will not take effect until 2023, nor will the preemption of our local authority.

And we were also able to secure the ability to adjust not our local fee, but our local regulatory fees.

Those are the ones that are collected by FAS to license the industry.

Finally, Senate Bill 5528. This was the sort of revised, updated version of House Bill 1304 from last legislative session, which authorizes the Sound Transit Board and a municipality within the Sound Transit service area to establish what's called an Enhanced Service Zone.

In an Enhanced Service Zone, the governing body of the Enhanced Service Zone municipality can put to voters a ballot measure authorizing an additional commercial parking tax and a motor vehicle excise tax of up to 1.5%.

And those funds can be used to fund enhancements to existing light rail systems, construction of new light rail lines or stations, and or future planning.

That bill that was approved, so that is now a authority that the the City of Seattle has in partnership with the Sound Transit Board.

I will pause there for any questions on the transportation side.

Just happiness passed.

I really thank Senator Peterson for that on the sound transit stuff, because he worked with us.

And it's going to be a wonderful tool for the city of Seattle in light of sound transit and the realignment and the issues that we're dealing with right now.

So I'm really this is, I think, a wonderful tool for local government, particularly Seattle.

I don't see any other questions.

All right, though, that concludes the highlights that we wanted to cover obviously there's a lot more detail in these documents so I think we would open it up to any questions that you all have for us, and we can we can work to address those.

Does anyone have any questions that they want to ask of.

I was going to say Gail and friends.

I think, oh, Councillor Mosqueda, I see your camera's on.

Do you have something for us?

Well, I first just want to say thank you.

I know that we've already said that a number of times this year, but in this final presentation, I want to say thank you for all the work you've done this last legislative session and the sessions before that that were also transitioning to, you know, the pandemic year and then in the midst of the pandemic and then doing this really heroic work in the in the beginning months of a new administration really Thankful for all you've been able to accomplish.

And especially when we look at that budget, there's so many important funding streams coming to Seattle into our region that you noted, and some of which I'm hoping also can help offset some of the ways in which Seattle has stepped in and provided additional support in the midst of the pandemic as we see the state legislature building back some of their programs and expanding those because of your great advocacy.

I think it's gonna really help our region and our residents.

So just wanted to say thank you for all of that work.

and the tough negotiations that you did on a number of bills.

All of that work is noticed and seen and greatly appreciated.

So thank you very much to your team, Director Charlatan, and to you as well.

Thank you so much, Council Member, and thank you, Council President, and all of your staff for a really extraordinary effort as a new administration was getting in place, as staff were getting in place.

We had to kick off a legislative session that was seeing historic revenues to the state, historic revenue surplus They had to make a lot of decisions about dealing with the pandemic and And our team here, including our contract lobbyists who are working on the ground virtually in Olympia with us and for all of you to make sure that the priorities of the city were consistently and effectively and very intentionally weighing in on the final decisions that had to be made in a really short period of time.

And so this is the last presentation to the council.

regarding the state activities until Quinn and Elsa start gearing up with your staff and with the city departments to start thinking about 2023. So we will be keeping you involved and aware of all of those discussions and really appreciate how much time you have devoted to staying in touch with us and we hope to be able to return the favor so that everyone is ready for 2023 which will be relatively speaking just around the corner.

Thank you Interim Director Tarlington.

I think the only thing I would probably do a follow-up but just do it with you guys offline is the TNC that passed, you know, and how that preempts what the city has done.

You know, sometimes when Seattle passes laws and then it goes statewide, it's a good thing.

I think a good example is $15 minimum wage and what that did.

And then sometimes we kind of see it go the other way.

So I'm going to be looking to you guys to kind of help me walk through the policy of that gap in between of how we how we settled the state law with the city law.

coming up with the TNCs and some other things that I see coming over the horizon.

And I know you guys worked really hard on that.

And thank you for the policy and the analysis that you gave us online and offline.

That goes to your leadership, Gail, and your experience in the state legislature.

I'm very glad you're there because you know all this stuff forward and backward.

So I look forward to working more with you guys.

Is there any, any of my colleagues have any other questions for our great OIR team?

Okay, well, I think you've done your job then and we'll see you again soon.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

All right, so we are now that we're done with our state legislative update.

Let's go through to our preview of City Council actions.

And Council Member Lewis will start us off.

And let me just go through quickly on the roll call order.

We'll start with Council Member Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, and then myself.

And then when we're done, we will go into executive session.

So with that, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much Council Member Juarez.

I will be giving Council Member Herboldt updates in her absence as well.

I think I'll go ahead and start actually with those.

So the Public Safety and Human Services, so this is Council Member Herboldt's update.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting tomorrow, April 12th.

The items on the agenda include an update on the statement of legislative intent on citywide hiring incentives.

Seattle municipal court probation evolution update, and that's an update for where they've been and what their plans are for going forward in 2022. An update on the statement of legislative intent on the federal task forces and SPD interaction.

And that is slide SPD-018-A-001 for folks who are keeping track of our slides.

And a council bill on pay up that I am co-sponsoring actually with Council Member Herbold, Council Bill 120294. And I'll speak a little bit more to that in my update, and I'm sure Councilmember Herbold will speak to it in committee and at briefing next week.

But this was a proposal unveiled last week.

There was some press availability with Councilmember Herbold, myself, and people from Working Washington and drivers for some of these app-based companies.

And again, I will touch on that in my update.

On Tuesday at 6 p.m., the Consent Decree Monitor and the Community Police Commission are going to host a community engagement meeting on the use of force policies.

The Monitor's preliminary use of force assessment is available at the Monitor's website at seattlepolicemonitor.org.

Additional information is available at the CPC website and Councilmember Herbold's newsletter at herbold.seattle.gov.

The Office of Police Accountability released their 2021 annual report.

That report is now available on their website, and I've seen it shared on social media by a variety of different news outlets.

Finally, the Community Safety and Communications Center's Protocol System, RFP, was published on March 15th and currently is awaiting responses.

Those responses for requests for proposals to bid on that protocol system are due on Thursday, April 14, so this week.

Those are the updates from Councilmember Herbold, and I will now move on to updates.

So we will be having a committee meeting on April 20th, so that's a week from this Wednesday, to provide updates on some of our homelessness budget items from November, as well as some progress on existing homelessness programs and interventions.

I've sent an email to the Regional Homelessness Authority, as well as the office of the mayor, just to get an update on some of the items that the council funded as well as some of the things being discussed in the news and between different agencies like the Just Care program, which currently does not have an identified funding source, but which a number of us on the council would like to continue.

So that is going to be part of what we will discuss at the April 20th meeting just to get an update on where we are with that.

The last time the committee received such an update I believe was in early February, so I think we are due to dive into that again and just kind of see where we are with our partners.

On Clean City updates, so between March 28th and April 4th, Clean City Initiative recovered 1,428 needles, were 399,080 pounds of trash from 24 different trash pickup locations, including in the Chinatown International District and the Magnolia neighborhood.

And that is the update for this last period on clean cities, like getting those updates and seeing what's going on on the ground.

Libraries, more than 2,900 fourth and fifth graders participated in the global reading challenge competition this year through the Seattle Public Library and even more came to author talks and joint book groups in their schools.

The global reading challenge welcomed eight teams into the city finals with 115 people in the virtual audience.

So it's good to know and to hear from our partners at the library that even in these times of limited in-person interaction that programming has been able to continue to move forward.

The Solpol reinstallation, which I referred to during last council briefing, I announced it was scheduled to occur, did occur on Tuesday, April 5th.

That can be watched and reviewed on the Seattle channel and definitely encourage everyone to take a look at that important work.

Finally, I do just want to briefly comment on some of the discussion in the media.

I had a happy occasion to talk to Danny Westnede about some of my thoughts regarding some of our ongoing work around intersections of homelessness and homelessness encampments and areas of concentration of criminal activity.

I appreciate Danny Westnede spotlighting data from city departments on the incredible correlations that make our neighbors experiencing homelessness particularly vulnerable to being victims of crime.

I want to thank Paul Kiefer from Publicola for writing a similar piece with the same data in early March, so early last month, to bring attention to this.

I think it is an important discussion.

One of the only things I might take issue with Danny Wesseney's characterization is I don't think that these are new observations from myself or council members.

I think that in council briefing, I know speaking for myself, these are things that I've been saying at least since August of last year.

So I don't really know how new this is as something that we've been discussing.

I would also say I don't think that The remedy that Paul and Danny reported on, the fact that we don't have similar issues related to crime and disorder in tiny house villages, in Just Care supportive shelters, does further bolster and prove that our neighbors experiencing homelessness, when given a place to live that is dignified and that is humane, are good neighbors.

And in every neighborhood in my district where we have one of these sheltering options, there has been no presentation of public safety issues as a result of having our neighbors who used to be in encampments and are now in a safe, dignified place to live.

I did just want to also highlight that I could share an anecdote about all eight of my colleagues here on the council and their commitment to building and expanding those kinds of interventions.

And, you know, I don't know that enough credit or association is always given to what those efforts have done to move forward critical public safety initiatives in parts of the city.

If it weren't for the efforts of this council, Ballard Commons Park would still be an encampment today.

And the people who used to be living there would not be living with four walls and a door that locks.

They'd be living in a tent.

If it weren't for the interventions of this council, City Hall Park would still be an encampment.

There would still be an encampment on Third Avenue.

There would be an encampment at the Pergola and Piner Square.

There would be an encampment at Bitter Lake.

This council saw those encampments as inhumane places for people to live.

funded interventions and pushed hard to get them stood up and to get them staffed and to get people in them.

And I look forward to continuing this discussion on April 20th.

I was very encouraged to read in the news over the weekend, detailing Mayor Harrell's 100 days in office.

The Harrell team reassert their commitment, which I think is in alignment with this council.

to build 2,000 such places throughout the course of 2022 to offer people a place to go.

And we have seen from last fall to the present day that when we have those placements, we are able to offer people experiencing homelessness in these encampments a desirable place to go and people go.

And that is to the benefit of everyone in the community, to our constituents experiencing homelessness and our constituents who are housed.

So I look forward to continuing that work.

I appreciate the discourse in the media about this connection between how dignified and humane responses to the homelessness crisis make all of us safer and look forward to continuing that work.

And with that, Madam President, I don't have any further comments, so I will open it up to comments from my colleagues or questions on my presentation.

would respectfully ask that comments on Council Member Herbold's presentation be emailed to her.

I don't know if I'm prepared to answer questions about her items, but I'll open that up for a moment.

Council Member Lewis, I do have something to add, and I hope I'm not stealing your thunder on this, but it was in our newsletter in regards to the libraries.

The Seattle Public Library is showing positive results from its decision to eliminate fines for overdue items, if you all remember last year.

We made the decision to eliminate fines, and some people went crazy over that, but guess what?

This change was made possible by the $219 million Seattle Library Levy, which was passed by the voters in August of 2019. The positive results are long overdue, or lost items have decreased significantly by about 38%.

So what we found out is that it was a good thing to do that, and we have more people using the library, And as I said, having overdue books decreased significantly to 38%.

And after the policy change, the number of people with blocked accounts due to overdue items went from 10% to 5%.

So it was a good thing.

Looks like we've done good.

Hope I didn't steal that from you, Councilor Lewis, because I know you chair libraries now.

No Councilmember Juarez, Councilperson Juarez, thank you so much.

I did see that covered in the media and did not include it in my briefing notes and that was an oversight on my part and I appreciate flagging it.

It is a great achievement for the library to have made and good to share that with the public.

Yeah, I think it's good when we sometimes try to do good things and actually worked out well.

Thank you.

Certainly.

Are there any other comments on my updates at briefing?

Seeing no such updates, I will pass it on to Councilmember Morales.

Who is muted?

Yes, indeed.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Let's see, I will start with committee.

Last week my committee voted to recommend one appointment, Sophia Fang, to the Seattle Arts Commission.

We also voted to recommend passage of three landmark preservation ordinances.

So those will be, all of those things will be coming to full council on the 19th.

One of those, so the three landmark preservation ordinances are for La Quinta apartment building, El Monterrey apartment condo building, and the University National Bank.

So those will be before us next week.

This weekend I had the pleasure of joining Mayor Harrell at the Restore Seattle on a walking tour.

Started down in Pioneer Square and started with a really fantastic storefront called Tazweira.

The young entrepreneur who is running that is working with an organization in, I believe she said in Kenya, to support women business owners, entrepreneurs there.

So she's importing products and using some of the design that she's seeing in Africa to create products here that she's selling at her storefront in Pioneer Square.

I encourage everybody to go check it out.

It's a really amazing space.

Last week, my staff and I also had our quarterly strategic planning meeting to make sure we're all on track for this year.

My staff continued to meet with the Brighton Development Group on their work to purchase the Arches apartment building on Rainier.

The idea there is to hold the land in community control and take the apartments off the speculative market and really try to assure that that apartment building that is preserving affordability and perpetuity.

So we will continue to work with them to see what we can do.

On Friday, I rode my bike into work with a group of parents.

Some of them have children at Mercer Middle School.

Some have kids in nearby childcare.

and everybody is concerned about a loss of a safe connection between South Beacon Hill and North Beacon Hill for folks who cannot drive.

So we met with parents, with Safe Routes to Schools advocates, and with somebody from the school district who's really working to make sure that whatever plans the school district has for creating the issue is a bus path, a place for buses, school buses to park that could still allow for parents who are biking to be able to get through safely.

So looking forward to continuing that conversation with them and also working with SDOT to make sure that the two entities are aligning on the safety issues there.

This morning I met with Jazz Ed, which is a music education program that will be opening their new space in the Rainier Valley this summer.

They'll be offering a youth performing arts hub, music education, and some really amazing programming.

Right now they're going out to different parts of the city to make sure that kids have access to these kinds of programs.

They're also partnering with Community Roots, who will provide housing for families at 40 to 80% AMI, and they're doing this through Opportunity Zone funding, so not actually going through Office of Housing, and we look forward to supporting that project.

You may recall last summer, we had a street naming for Clarence Acocks Jr., who was the founder of this program, and really look forward to bringing more music and arts culture to the South End.

This morning I was honored to join Mayor Harrell in welcoming a delegation of government and industry leaders from our French sister city, Nantes, and regional leaders from the Pays de la Loire region.

Much of the conversation this morning centered on building an equitable city.

And from the French side, we heard about their commitment to make their city more sustainable, better connected, and more equitable.

They are also very interested in learning about our race and social justice initiative and about how they can use the tools like an RET to take back to France, which is to Nantes.

They are particularly interested in creating a non-sexist city, and so are looking for tools that they might be able to modify and use for those purposes.

So very exciting.

Tomorrow, I'll lead a group of elected leaders on a tour of District 2. We'll be visiting the Beacon Hill Food Forest, El Centro de la Raza, Rainier Beach, the Rainier Beach Urban Farm, and just the neighborhood to learn share a little bit with them about how neighborhood planning works and what that means for community-centered development.

And during the tour, I hope to continue our discussion about community development and really how we build a city of well-connected, well-resourced, equitable neighborhoods, like the Plaza Roberto Maestas, where neighbors in the area have access to grocery, child care, health care, all while they are in their affordable housing situation.

And then on Thursday, I'll host the second panel in our Seattle Within Reach series.

I'm excited that Deputy Mayors Pierre Manuel Marais and Mahoubertou will join us.

We'll also have Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez Rosa and Miguel Maestas and Estela Ortega from El Centro de la Raza will also be part of that discussion.

And it really will center on equitable community development and social housing.

So looking forward to that discussion.

Colleagues, that is all I have today.

And if there are questions or comments, I'm happy to take those.

I don't see any, so I will hand it over to Council Member Mosqueda.

All right, well, good afternoon, colleagues.

The next Finance and Housing Committee meeting is going to be on April 20th at 930 a.m.

We're going to have the payment of claims resolution and template, which we had discussed in our meeting in late March.

We did not get a chance to get to that in our last committee meeting, so we will have that for discussion and possible vote at our next committee meeting.

We'll also have the Office of Economic Revenue Forecast presentation and a presentation from the City Budget's Office Forecast presentation.

These two items will provide a more complete picture to the revenue forecast for the remainder of this year and for looking at 2020 3 and 2024. I'll provide a quick summary of the economic revenue forecast council for which Council President Juarez and myself sit on along with two representatives from the mayor's office which just met on Friday in just a moment.

The last item that will be on our meeting for next Wednesday April 20th at 9 30 a.m.

is going to be the American Rescue Plan Act spending allocation.

Councilmember Lewis noted that on the 20th as well in his committee meeting, he's going to have a report out on spending items associated with homeless services.

And so I think it'll be a good combination between the.

presentation on that topic and the overall presentation on American Rescue Plan Act dollars and how we're doing with allocating the funding that council and the previous administration had approved.

We really appreciate the weekly, excuse me, the monthly updates that we received from the executive and these are the quarterly reports out.

In our finance committee meetings so that we can keep an eye on how the allocations are going.

We're also going to be asking some questions about not just whether or not funds are encumbered, but where we're at in the process and getting all of those funds out.

Colleagues, tomorrow on our full council meeting, we do have several items from the finance and housing committee meeting from last week.

This includes five new appointments to the housing levy oversight board and six reappointments to the housing levy oversight board.

It includes two new appointments and two reappointments to the sugary sweetened beverage tax community advisory board.

And it also includes a amended piece of legislation for you related to the capital projects watch list.

I want to thank all the colleagues who offered amendments in our committee meeting and were able to get their items incorporated in that project watch list, even if you were not on council, excuse me, if you were not on the committee meeting.

And thank you for your work with us to get that updated before it left committee.

Look forward to having your vote on that tomorrow.

In terms of an update, as I mentioned, I was going to meet with the Wedgwood Community Council meeting.

I did get a chance to have that discussion with community members last Tuesday, and I was really inspired by a lot of their questions and excitement around the comprehensive planning process, inclusive zoning, the desire to create more affordable housing and density, and really a lot of the interests that they expressed, especially for the legislation that we discussed earlier today in this briefing, but also in previous Council briefings with the OIR team related to Representative Bateman, Senator Saldana, and Governor Inslee's legislation on greater density across the state.

So I want to thank the Wedgwood Community Council for their forward thinking on those items, and I look forward to continuing to work with them and our city as a whole as we continue to look at ways to create a more inclusive, affordable, walkable, dense, and inclusive city for all.

On Friday last week, I had the chance to meet with the Economic Revenue Forecast Council.

I now have the pleasure of serving with Council President Juarez on that council and had the honor of being appointed as chair of that council.

Again, this is a council that's been established by our previous Seattle City Council, was signed into law by the mayor's office.

This Revenue Forecast Council is the opportunity for us as a council, along with the executive and members of the public, to get in real time Joint updates on what the revenue forecast looks like instead of having that information Just be digest within the city's budget office This is a opportunity for us to use a revenue forecast council process similar to King County similar to the state of that has the LEAP program and Independent Revenue Forecast Office as well.

And we had a great conversation on Friday last week and accepted the revenue forecast that the Office of Economic Revenue Forecast Office presented to the Council.

We will also have a summary of that discussion in our committee meeting as I noted coming up next Wednesday on April 20th.

But I'll give you the highlights from that and please do tune in to Seattle Channel who is broadcasting those council meetings live so everybody gets the information in real time and has it recorded for the good of the public as well.

The good news is that the overall forecast increased.

Our overall revenue forecast has increased to the tune of $32.5 million available in new general fund dollars for the year 2022. And there's also been an increase of $57.3 million in non-general fund.

Of course, that includes things like REIT and JumpStart.

The non-general fund dollars, as we know, is dollars that are specifically allocated for specific purposes.

So I'm distinguishing between the $32.5 million for general fund, which is also great news, and in addition to that, $57.3 million for non-general fund.

I also want to note that this picture is not yet complete because there's a number of revenue sources that still remain within the city's budget office and the CBO will be coming to our committee meeting next week, as I noted, to provide an overall forecast for the rest of the revenue streams.

We will be able to get that information on April 20th again to see the fuller picture of what all of the revenue streams mean for the forecasting, not just for 2022 and what is available for us in terms of meeting the need of our community this year.

but how we prepare for 2023 and 2024. I'll also note and lift up part of the forecast news, which is much of the forecasting is still volatile given the international uncertainty and increased expenses that includes the ongoing wars plural across the globe and also increased expenses such as things like interest rates.

The city still faces a revenue gap.

I'm not going to call it a shortfall, but a gap in long term needs and short-term revenue sources to fill those needs, much of which we've been able to also help address not just with Jump Start, but also with the American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

But the news does show us that investments in our community, including investments through Jump Start Seattle's progressive revenue tax, is helping to not only keep the trains running, but provide core services, core government services, keep people employed, invest directly in workers and the most vulnerable, and also into our smallest businesses, which has helped to generate greater economic activity.

I will also note that the inclusion of Jump Start Seattle in the revenue forecast this year allowed for us to see that there is a projected increase of close to $44 million over the November projections for 2022 Jump Start revenue, bringing the total for Jump Start revenue to $277 million.

As folks were reporting out on Jump Start revenue and saying, you know, there's a lot to be figured out in terms of how we return to work, ends up settling down for some of the industries that are seeing some of the largest increases in economic activity, specifically in information technology.

There's a lot to sort of see how in a hopefully one day post COVID world, how this all settles out.

As was noted in the presentation, even the pessimistic forecast for Jumpstart makes me very optimistic.

So I wanted to repeat that.

Because it is at this point two hundred and seventy seven million dollars just for 2022 alone We're gonna have some more updates for April 20th at our meeting to look at the fuller revenue picture again And I want to thank members of the newly created Economic Revenue Forecast Council And the Economic Revenue Forecast Office and I think as well CDO for their upcoming presentation on the 20th And lastly, Madam President, just a quick update from FAS.

I want to thank them for their ongoing work with logistics and emergency management.

They have now distributed over 265,000 masks throughout Seattle.

In terms of FAS's risk management department, they saw another uptick in the number of claims last week, including a significant number of pothole claims, some related to the December storm and some from more recent.

dates and encounters, and the adjusters continue to work hard to adjust these claims fairly and expeditiously.

Regarding facility operations and Waterway 20, there is work going on currently with Herrera, a consulting group, to submit a draft of the Phase 2 environmental assessment plan by April 20th.

FAS is working on stormwater management plan to submit a letter to request extending the Waterway 20 permit to DNR in March.

This extension is for 16 months.

And lastly, the Class 1 rating.

FAS's fleet management assisted the Seattle Fire Department in becoming the first fire department in the state of Washington to receive the most exemplary protection class rating.

That's a Class 1 by the Washington Survey and Ratings Bureau.

Congratulations to them.

And that is my update, colleagues.

Madam President, seeing no questions or comments.

I was going to hand it off to Councilmember Nelson.

I don't see Councilmember Nelson.

So next in line would be Councilmember Peterson.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Councilmember Esqueda.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

On tomorrow afternoon's full City Council agenda, there are three items from our Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities.

final approval of the term permit for the East Howell Street Plaza, final approval of the alley vacation at 2nd Avenue and University Street downtown, and a minor technical amendment to reconcile the Seattle Public Utilities drinking water rate classifications for Burien.

The committee unanimously recommended all three items.

If you're not fortunate enough to serve on that committee and you have any questions about the legislation, please feel free to reach out to our city council central staff before tomorrow afternoon's vote.

Our next committee on transportation and Seattle public utilities is scheduled for Tuesday, April 19 at 930 a.m.

That meeting will focus on an update on the transportation investments made so far to implement the ambitious move Seattle property tax levy approved by voters in 2015. Next week's committee will also include a summary from city departments of their initial comments on Sound Transit's draft environmental impact statement for the forthcoming light rail lines and stations of the West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions.

As you may recall, we received an extensive presentation from Sound Transit at our February 15th committee meeting, and so this is a chance to hear more from our city government departments, which will be coordinated by the executive's designated representative, Marshall Foster.

Representatives from Sound Transit staff will also be at the committee again to speak to some of the key themes from the community comments they've been receiving thus far on that draft EIS.

all council members are invited to this committee meeting on Tuesday, April 19 at 930 AM.

And of course, Seattle's Marshall Foster and his team will be available at any time to each of you individually.

And of course, we're ably represented on the Sound Transit Board by Council President Torres and Mayor Bruce Harrell.

Speaking of transportation, the mayor's office announced their formation of an experienced and diverse search committee for a new permanent director of the Seattle Department of Transportation.

I agree with the mayor's sentiments from their Friday afternoon press release, which said Seattle deserves a transportation system that is safe, reliable, and equitable, and our SDOT director is instrumental in implementing that vision.

their press release continued, we have an opportunity to appoint a champion for innovative thinking and back to basics fixes, a collaborator who builds bridges and repairs them.

As stated in the executive's press release, Kristen Simpson will continue as the interim director until a new director is nominated and approved.

Ultimately, the candidate selected by the mayor will go through a confirmation process at the City Council pursuant to Resolution 31868. Thanks again to Council Member Mosqueda for her leadership in crafting that 2019 resolution for approving appointments.

District 4, I want to thank Estad and the Harrell administration for their responsiveness in dedicating a construction hub coordinator for the entire University District in the heart of Council District 4. This request originated with the Business Improvement Area's non-profit manager, the U District Partnership.

and I'm glad my office was able to advocate for this increased attention and coordination within this urban center that has been undergoing substantial redevelopment.

As you all may know, construction hub coordinators are based in the Seattle Department of Transportation, and they work with private developers, public agencies, and utility partners to minimize disruptions caused by construction so that people can access destinations and move past work zones safely and efficiently.

I do want to address public safety.

A survey of 700 Seattle registered voters conducted by EMC research in March of this year noted that 73% quote, say they feel less safe in their own neighborhood than they did two years ago.

end quote.

We received from the Seattle Police Department's Chief Operating Officer their weekly report on shootings and shots fired.

I want to thank our Public Safety Chair, Councilmember Herbold, for ensuring that we continue to receive these and other important reports on crime trends in Seattle.

These current trends are alarming.

Quoting from SPD's report, year-to-date homicide events are up 78%, year-to-date shootings and shots fired events are up 91%, with 187 events compared to 98 events last year.

and shootings are up 164% comparing the same two year-to-date first quarter periods of time, 2022 and 2021. This increasing trend citywide for shootings is consistent with the increasing trend we see on SPD's online crime dashboard.

for both violent crime and property crime.

My office has also heard an uptick in public safety concerns from residents and small businesses in North Seattle, particularly in Wallingford, Roosevelt, and the U District neighborhoods.

And I want my constituents to know that I hear them.

We also know that certain crimes tend to increase during the hotter summer months.

Summer is coming, and we'd like to see a plan.

The strategic plan that we saw at our committee two weeks ago was very high level and aspirational, but could benefit from implementation specifics.

I know public safety is a shared priority with the Harrell administration.

So if there's not time at public safety committee meeting tomorrow, I believe we'll be hearing from Seattle Police Department again at the committee meetings on April 26 and May 10. Some questions I have are, when should the council expect to receive a more detailed and holistic public safety plan that addresses the SPD staffing shortage?

not only by increasing recruitment incentives and retention programs, such as officer wellness, but also by deploying alternatives to traditional police emergency responses.

Alternatives could include existing nonprofits, such as community passageways, as well as new ideas, such as the Denver STAR program.

How is SPD coordinating with human services, parks, the Seattle Department of Transportation, and nonprofit organizations to deploy their combined resources and personnel to prevent or interrupt unsafe activities in spots where criminal activity has been concentrated recently, as well as where we typically see it arise during the summer months?

at parks, beaches, greenways, and on arterials, where we have seen not only dangerous shots fired, but also street racing, fire hazards, and vandalism.

I'm heartened by the Harrell administration making public safety a priority.

I also support Council Member Nelson's resolution focused on the city government priority of public safety, which was officially introduced today, and which calls for lifting of a city budget proviso to fund staffing incentives.

I look forward to hearing more at our committees about the executive's detailed plans to prevent crime throughout Seattle, including details on appropriate staffing as well as alternative emergency responses.

Thank you.

That concludes my report.

Happy to answer any questions.

All right.

We can turn it over to Councilmember Sawant.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, and good afternoon, everyone.

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

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee will be this Friday, April 15th at 9.30 a.m.

At that committee meeting, we will hear a briefing on and vote on a bill from Councilmember Strauss aligning the payment plans for renters behind on rent to the schedule established by state law last year.

To be clear, the state law should apply regardless, but aligning the city timeline will maybe help to avoid confusion.

The committee will also hear from and vote on the appointments of new members of the Seattle Renters Commission.

I want to send my congratulations to all of the workers at the Staten Island Amazon Warehouse and the Amazon Labor Union who successfully organized a union in an absolutely historic victory against this behemoth of a corporation.

This is the first successful unionization drive at an Amazon warehouse nationwide.

The union, ALU, Amazon Labor Union, spent $120,000 overall raised through GoFundMe.

Amazon's executives, on the other hand, spent more than $4.3 million just on anti-union consultants nationwide last year and yet lost.

It was a real grassroots organizing drive that can provide a lot of good lessons for workers across the country.

The union's bylaws state that no union leader, no executive board member of the union will be paid more than the workers they represent.

This is really, this is incredible.

I don't know of very many unions who have such constitutional requirements in their union, and it is extremely important as part of an accountability structure.

The organizing drive also has done an excellent job highlighting that the corporation's executives are not only not on the side of the workers but that they are vehemently opposed to the union.

and that they will employ every tactic on the books in order to undermine the union drive.

In fact, Amazon has filed charges against the union that are based on complete falsehoods.

But importantly, the organizing drive also highlighted concrete demands that the workers need to fight around.

These are demands that will make, if the workers win, will make a real difference in their lives.

Of course, now the challenge is for The union to win to unionize more workplaces and coming up next is the union election at LBJ five, which is, you know, literally across the street from JFK eight which has unionized so also on a sort of Amazon sorting house on.

Staten Island.

And in addition to unionizing warehouse after warehouse, certainly the more difficult task of winning the first contract.

And my office and my organization, Socialist Alternatives, send all our solidarity in that ongoing struggle.

This past weekend, my office and I personally joined Starbucks workers at Marysville in Washington At their picket line, they have energetically and courageously struck work for three consecutive days and have now filed for their union election.

And they have also highlighted many concrete demands, including a living wage with adjustments for inflation.

and they join many other, you know, hundreds of stores nationwide, Starbucks stores that have filed for union election.

And hopefully we'll be joining the 16 stores that have won their union election votes already.

That is my report.

Do council members have any questions before I turn it over to Council President Warris?

Seeing no questions, Council President Warris, it's all yours.

Oh, thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Okay, so I'm a little disheveled here.

I will be brief.

There are no items of the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

In regards to Sound Transit, there was a meeting on the Rider Experience and Operations Committee.

where board members voted to establish a permanent FAIR ambassador program based on the results of the pilot program that we started in August of 2021. The FAIR ambassador program will work directly with riders who have received penalties for non-payment affairs, ending the prior practice of referring directly to the court system.

I serve on that REO committee.

On Friday, April 8th, it's last Friday, I attended the Sound Transit CEO Selection Committee.

We met.

Sound Transit retained the services of CPSHR, their executive recruiting consulting group, to assist us, the Sound Transit group, in our CEO selection.

There are seven members on the Sound Transit CEO Selection Committee.

The seven members are the committee chair Kent Keel, the vice chair is King County Executive Dow Constantine, board member Nancy Bacchus, who is the mayor of Auburn, Bruce Danmeyer from Pierce County Executive, myself, Ed Prince, who is a member of the Renton Council, and Dave Summers, the Homish County Executive.

Those are the seven members, including myself, who are on the Sound Transit Executive CEO Selection Committee.

And we will meet again, I believe, on April 21 for about four hours to continue our selection process of the new CEO.

Next, last week, my staff attended a panel organized by the Holler Lake Community Center Club to discuss the new 150-bed behavioral health teaching facility on the UW Medical Center's Northwest Campus up in D5.

The University of Washington Medicine is anticipating a phased opening starting date in June 2024. As I shared with my colleagues before, again this is the longest sentence in the world that's typed out here, but basically the University of Washington with Northwest Hospital, we've been talking about them opening up this bed, this facility.

with being able to have 150 people there for the behavioral health teaching facility.

So this quite frankly is a big deal up in D5.

So we're excited working with University of Washington and Northwest Hospital and a big thank you to Sally Clark, former Seattle City Council, who's been working with us and keeping us apprised of the situation since they started discussions two years ago.

Staff attended the North Precinct Advisory Council, the NPAC meeting where Deputy City Attorney Scott Lindsey presented the new city attorney's priorities.

Staff also participated in a sound transit tour highlighting possible station placements for West Seattle and the Ballard Link extension for the CID, Soto, Duwamish, and West Seattle segments.

And I'll keep you guys informed on that as we move forward.

Staff also toured the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center, meeting with Chairwoman Cecile Hansen.

Thank you, Duwamish, for inviting our office for an opportunity to come down and tour the Longhouse.

And finally, staff attended the Economic Revenue and Forecast Council on my behalf regarding the most recent April forecast.

Thank you, Councilor Mosqueda, for your leadership on the Forecast Council.

Upcoming this week, I will connect with Elise Conte, a good friend of ours to D5 in the City of Seattle.

She is the Vice President for Development for Simon Properties, and we're going to discuss the Northgate Station Development, formerly known as Northgate Mall.

We understand through SDCI that permits have been submitted for a new hotel and two mixed-use buildings, a nine-story building with 230 units of housing and an eight-story building with 280 units of housing and a 14 live-work units at street level.

So that's a combination of well over 500 units that will be part of the footprint up in the former Northgate Mall.

And I believe there's still more development to come.

With that, are there any questions from my colleagues?

Okay.

Not seeing any, we will now move to executive session.

So I'm going to go ahead and make the statement to put us into executive session.

As presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending, potential, or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorney's office 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 sessions.

I expect that the time of the executive session to end by.

Madam Clerk, what time would it be if we did it for 20 minutes?

3.45.

Okay, so we will go till 345. And if it needs to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.

So with that, we Madam Clerk, do we just stay on the line?

Correct.

Yes.

Okay.