Seattle City Council Briefing 2/10/2025

Good afternoon.

Today is February 10th, 2025. The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.03.

I am Sarah Nelson, president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Brink.

Present.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Sokka.

Here.

Council Member Solomon.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

I am present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of February 3rd, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

We have one presentation today, our weekly update from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations state legislative team, and one letter for signature and an executive council meeting on the introduction and referral calendar, the weekly bill payment ordinance, and eight appointments, including one to the Housing Levy Oversight Committee, three to the Seattle Human Rights Commission, three to the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority and Governing Council, and one to the Museum Development Authority Governing Council.

And tomorrow's consent agenda, consent calendar, includes only one weekly bill payments ordinance.

And then there are two pieces of legislation under committee reports, and they are Council Bill 120937, which we had a public hearing on before Council this last week, and which would create a new sales and use deferral for the sales and use tax deferral for the conversion of underutilized commercial property to housing.

And then Council Bill 120916 from the Public Safety Committee relating to SPD crowd management policies and the use of less lethal tools in crowd management settings.

Moving on to today's presentation.

All right.

First of all, we'll go ahead and introduce, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, and then you can begin the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Nelson and council members.

I'm Meena Hashemi, the director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined virtually by my colleagues on our state relations team, Samir Jenejo and Anna Johnson, who you'll hear from momentarily.

We are now in week five of the 2025 legislative session, with only two more weeks until the February 21 policy committee cutoff.

Legislators have been busy introducing, hearing, and passing broadly consequential bills out of committee and sending them to the Rules Committee for further consideration in the coming weeks.

Last Tuesday, Governor Ferguson signed Executive Order 2505, directing the Washington State Department of Revenue to establish and lead a data center work group aimed at evaluating the impact of data centers on Washington's economy, tax revenue, energy use, and the environment.

The group will recommend policies and actions for addressing energy use and impacts on the economy and job markets.

As you likely know, data centers are computing infrastructure that support Washington's digital economy, but they also consume significant amounts of electricity, which can put strain on our local power grids and can require increased energy generation, storage, and transmission.

As you know, Seattle has a number of priorities that are working their way through the process.

Some are in committee, some are in rules, and some have been already passed on to the other chamber.

So with that, I will turn it over to Ana and Samir to give you an update on Seattle's priorities since we briefed you last week and to highlight some select bills that we are monitoring because of their potential impacts to the city and our residents.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council.

Before we jump in, I just wanted to give you a brief run of show of what we plan to present today.

It's going to be very similar to last week's council briefing, where at the beginning, we're going to start by highlighting our Seattle priorities and the updates related to those priorities, any new bills that we've added to our tracker on behalf of our legislative agenda.

And then the second half of the presentation will go through a recap of last week, what action happened, where we signed in, and where we testified.

And then at the very end, we'll give you a brief forecast of where some of our priorities are for this week that we're in now.

So starting with our Seattle priority update, I'll just say at the outset here, any of the bills that are on these slides, you can assume that we have shown up on the record in support of the bill, either by testifying or by signing in on behalf of the city of Seattle at large.

Many of these bills here in the public safety section should look familiar from last week.

We also added House Bill 1816 from Representative Scott.

This bill allows for civilian staffed crisis response teams for cities of our population size or larger.

And I think that's the only ad for the public safety and I'll let Smear talk about some of the other bills and the other subsections in the second slide.

Go ahead, Smear.

Where did he go?

Technical difficulties here, one second.

Thanks for your patience.

Sorry, I don't know if you guys can hear me, but I cannot hear anything.

I'm going to try to come back in.

No problem.

I'll see if I can pull up the slides, hang with us.

Can you see them in the chamber?

There's nothing on the screen right now.

Okay, one second.

Ana, I'll see if I can share here in chambers.

Thank you.

oh perfect okay well samir gets his sound um back on i'll i'll continue our presentation um here on behalf of the team um so in the sections here on this slide the only new ads we have are under economic development and small business house bill um third or 1733 this bill increases the reimbursement cap for moving and relocation expenses for businesses impacted by agency displacements.

So this bill essentially impacts any state projects or sound transit projects.

So this bill is really related to sound transit three expansion and will be really helpful for businesses that are impacted as the construction for that moves forward.

And then under housing and homelessness, the last bill here, House Bill 1774 from Representative Phi, is a bill that allows the leasing of unused wash dot land or highway land to entities, either cities or nonprofits, that they would be able to lease that to us or the nonprofits at a lower cost at below market value in order for a public benefit.

So this allows us to activate wash dot surplus land, um, for benefits to our city and our residents.

And go ahead.

Next slide.

Great.

Okay.

So for this final slide here, there was only a couple ads for the child care section of our legislative agenda.

So Senate Bill 5279 and House Bill 1648 are bills that we're now tracking and supporting that help with child care provider qualifications.

So expanding the workforce of folks that can work in our child care workforce and hopefully increase the amount of slots and availability for families throughout the state.

Okay, now we'll move on to a week for recap, and I'm going to check and see if Samir if you are sound is coming through.

So budget and revenue, we'll start with that.

And again, these are bills that just had action in the last week.

So Senate Bill 5547 had a hearing this past week, and this bill increases cannabis revenue proportions for local governments in the city signed in pro.

For climate and environment bills, starting with Senate Bill 5474, this bill directs the State Department of Agriculture to set up an organic agriculture action plan.

This bill really aligns with our Seattle food action plan and increasing sustainable food access.

um for our residents and then house bill 1607 from representative stonier this bill is creating a bottle return system or a beverage container return system in order to reduce waste from beverage containers in the waste stream and you get uh 10 10 cents back every time you return the bottle if this was set up statewide and for both those bills the city signed in pro

Senate Bill 5554 and the House Bill 1576 both relate to historic landmark designation and imposing some requirements on when cities can create a historic landmark designation.

It changes how old a building has to be to 40 years and also requires the owner of a building to provide permission for a building to be deemed a historic landmark.

It does exempt landmark preservation neighborhoods.

So if a certain neighborhood has been designated as a historic neighborhood, then it would exempt any buildings in those areas from the requirements of this bill.

And that bill, both those bills had hearings this past week.

Other housing and homelessness bills, House Bill 1217, we've talked about before, is the rent stabilization bill.

That bill had a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee, which was for the next step, and then it's scheduled to move out of that committee this week.

House Bill 1299 is a House bill.

There's also a Senate bill.

This is a House companion related to minimum parking requirements.

It requires cities to or disallow cities to have parking requirements on a whole host of both housing and also commercial projects.

Senate bill 5497 relates to compliance with siting and permitting requirements for permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, and emergency housing.

The city is monitoring that bill for any impacts on our current permitting policies.

And House Bill 1516, which studies insurance coverage options for affordable homeownership units, the city signed in Pro, that bill also relates to condominium liability coverage.

Many of these projects have high insurance costs because of the liability coverage that comes with building condos.

And so the city signed in support of that study.

Moving on to labor and commerce, Senate Bill 5600 sponsored by Senator Alvarado.

This regulates TNCs during large-scale events, and what it does is creates some, sets the fair rates and ties the fair rates to driver pay during large-scale events, so it relates to surge pricing, and also allows cities to impose geofences for pick-up and drop-off areas during large-scale events as well, the city signed in pro.

House Bill 1622, it allows bargaining over matters related to the use of artificial intelligence, monitoring that for any impacts on the city and the city workforce and city departments.

There was lots of action in the public safety and criminal justice space last week.

So starting with Senate Bill 5453 from Senator Slatter, this bill directs the state office of public defense to administer training programs for public defense support staff and will help maintain a pool of paralegals to support public defense contracts throughout the state.

Senate Bill 5367 from Senator Orwell.

This bill is extending a grant program that already exists that is called the Law Enforcement Community Grant Program.

It had a sunset and it's eliminating the sunset so that grant program can move forward.

SENATE BILL 5362 FROM SENATOR DINGRA.

THIS BILL IS RELATED TO BACKFILLING THE FUNDING FOR CRIME VICTIM SERVICES.

SO MANY OF YOU MAY BE AWARE OF THE DECREASE IN FUNDING FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME ACT OR VOCA FUNDING.

THIS BILL WOULD HELP SET UP A CONTINUAL FUNDING STREAM FOR THOSE PROGRAMS THAT THE STATE FUNDS AS WELL AS LOCAL MUNICIPALITIES.

House Bill 1113 from Representative Farvar, this bill creates a misdemeanor diversion program and dismissal option.

The city has concerns on this bill and is communicating with the sponsor around those.

Senate Bill 5584 from Senator Dhingra expands the state's Office of Independent Investigations for Police Use of Deadly Force, also an Office of Independent Prosecution for those cases of investigated uses of deadly force.

It's a concurrent prosecution office that will be housed within the executive branch, and it will expand an existing office to include the prosecution arm as well.

House Bill 1592 from Representative Peterson.

This bill is making strides to help public defense funding that both counties and cities can receive from the state.

It increases the amount of funding that both entities can receive in order to reimburse the covered costs for public defense services for those who can't pay.

House Bill 1265 is related to commercial sexual exploitation.

This bill is renaming the crime of patronizing a prostitute to commercial sexual exploitation and increasing the criminal charge from a misdemeanor to a Class C felony, as well as increasing the fees associated with the offense.

And then in the social programs and education space, last week House Bill 1214 from Representative Ty had a hearing.

This bill expands the working families tax credit to folks 18 or older.

So currently this tax credit is available if you're 24 or older.

It's available for low and middle income families within the city or within the state, and so it's just lowering the age threshold.

And then House Bill 1657 is the Washington 13 free guarantee program.

This is essentially creating a Seattle Promise-like program statewide where the state would provide up to 45 credits of tuition-free technical and community college for eligible students.

And transportation senate bill 5417 had a hearing last week which authorizes the use of automated vehicle noise enforcement cameras and vehicle racing enforcement zones.

The city testified pro and Councilmember Sokka testified this past week on that bill.

Later this week, this is a few bills to watch, but there's certainly a lot more happening by all of this highlight.

The just actually today said about 5595 and his House Companion related to shared streets, which is a city of priority will have a hearing in both the House and Senate Transportation Committees.

Also tomorrow, the property tax.

revenue growth bill, which helps local governments with their revenue, has a hearing later this week.

And then also House Bill 1816 related to our care department, civilian staff crisis response teams also has a hearing later this week.

And we'll tell you more about those as the session goes on.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for this presentation.

I want to recognize that Council Member Saka has joined us in person here in chambers.

Are there any questions from my colleagues?

Council Member Rink, go ahead.

Thank you so much, Council President, and thank you all again for the work that you're doing in Olympia and for presenting to us on this work.

Just curious if you could provide an update.

I understand nothing's been introduced at this stage as it relates to progressive revenue, but curious what some of those discussions may be happening in Olympia and when we might expect to see a proposal along those lines.

Yeah, as you said, there hasn't been many bills introduced on that topic yet, but I think we can expect to see more discussion closer to the end of this month, which is when a revenue forecast, a new state revenue forecast will be given to the state and they'll know kind of what they're working with as it relates to the state budget.

But as of now, I think folks are telling us that all options are on the table.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Director Hashemi and Ana and Samir for being here today.

Always appreciate the recaps.

I did want to say, colleagues, that I requested a meeting with Director Hashemi last week on Friday to talk about federal funding and specifically how do we stay abreast of all the changes that keep changing from minute to minute.

And so had a really great conversation with the director and her staffer and mayor about the federal government.

They are really monitoring very closely which I did not know until I had the conversation.

I knew you were monitoring.

I just didn't know all the specifics.

So really appreciate that conversation.

All this to say that we were talking about how do we best stay abreast collectively as counsel and Director Hashemi really appreciated your willingness to bring up an idea about meeting with all our legislative assistants in our offices having a weekly meeting to stay abreast and connected on all the federal changes as they're happening as you know them to be happening as best as you can.

And so I wanted to tell you all colleagues about our conversation and so Director will be reaching out to your offices to get a point of contact for those meetings if you're interested.

And hopefully that will start soon.

And I just want to thank you in advance because we did also discuss the fact that, you know, her team's working on the state work that you just heard about.

That's also very rapid, fast and furious, and I thought it was a but now I might be outdated by now.

What the actual latest figure is for the Olympia bills, but all that to say you are all doing so much work and really appreciate your willingness to host a weekly call to keep us abreast of what's happening at the federal level as well.

So thank you.

I wanted to say publicly and I also wanted to tell my colleagues about that conversation and your willingness to put these weekly meetings together for our teams.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We are happy to do that, and we will be in touch this week about that scheduling.

Our team has really appreciated meeting with Councilmembers regularly on the legislative session, and that's helpful for us, and we know it's helpful for you, too, so we're happy to replicate that a bit for the federal program as well.

Thank you.

I'll just say thank you very much for that willingness because things happen so fast, and then they're retracted, et cetera, so it's good to have...

recent updates or whatever, or to be more aware of what our team in D.C.

is hearing.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you to the Office of Intergovernmental Relations team for all your hard work.

I say Olympia has weekdays, not because it's Monday through Friday, but because a week's worth of work gets done in a day.

So thank you for all your hard work there.

Just making actually a plug for next week, our Association of Washington City's Action Days in Olympia, Strong Cities Make a Strong State.

Am I right, team?

And so this is our opportunity to get to lobby on behalf of the agenda that we passed in January.

We can lobby many times throughout the session, and this is a moment where all 281 cities and towns come together to lobby together.

So I know that a number of folks, Councilmember Saka, Councilmember Kettle, Councilmember Rink, Councilmember Rivera, will all be down there, and I'm looking forward to it.

And just wanted to say thanks to the OIR team for getting some meetings scheduled ahead of time.

Thank you, Council President.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Director Hashimi and team.

I appreciate it.

And to include a call earlier today, thank you so much for that opportunity.

And thank you for adding House Bill 1816. I was aware of that.

We didn't talk about that this morning, Anna and Samir, but I was aware of that one.

I should have mentioned it.

Did the city, I don't have the briefing.

Did the city weigh in on that one?

House Bill 1816?

Yes.

Yes, I see Anna came off mute, but yes, go ahead, Anna.

Yeah, House Bill 1816 has a hearing tomorrow, so we will be weighing in.

I believe Chief Barton will be testifying on behalf of the city in support.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

And separately, and we mentioned that this morning, House Bill 1483 and Senate Bill 5423, the right to repair, which is very important in the electronics world, computer world.

But there are some concerns in certain quarters regarding on the security side and life safety.

You know, there may be some unique pieces to that that I'll look to follow up on.

Separately, House Bill 1536, which is not on the list, but the unlawful possession of firearm by a juvenile.

That's another one that has some concern, bipartisan concern, and it really relates to the number of times that that can happen, and the bill's looking to reduce it.

One could argue you don't need five times, you know, Anyway, so that's a bill of interest.

Thank you for the updates on the public defense.

Public defense piece is really important for a criminal justice system, so thank you for those updates related to that.

I think that's more of an issue for counties outside of King County, but even for us, I think that is an area of concern generally.

For House Bill 1113, it noted has concerns.

Can you speak to those like a little bit more to House Bill 1113?

Certainly, and I think we could also follow up on offline because there's a lot of nuance, I think, that I probably will get lost if I try to just speak high level about it.

But certainly we're concerned about just the mechanics of how the diversion program would operate and essentially making sure that all parties are agreeing that the diversion is the right option for the defendant.

Mechanics around how do you monitor compliance with the diversion program?

and ensure that folks are getting access to the resources they need in order to have their cases dismissed.

So some of kind of more of a mechanics of how the Depurgeon Project program works.

And we can certainly follow up with more specifics as the bill moves through the process, because I do expect it to change a little bit as it moves.

Thank you.

Definitely of interest to that.

Again, that wasn't one that we talked about.

But as it turns out, we're having PDA and their lead program tomorrow on the Public Safety Committee.

So speaking of diversion, you know, we are actually tackling it.

So whatever the state's doing, you know, we need to be in sync because if they're not, then that creates some challenges.

So thank you.

And we'll follow up.

Council President.

On that bill, can you explain more what it would do?

Because I think that it's, to my mind, it's not simply replicating the lead program that is in Seattle because in Seattle, right.

So how would that work?

Yeah, it's a little bit different from essentially our diversion, let's say, for drug possession or public use, where you can have diversion at the arrest level.

This is a court diversion program.

pre-trial diversion program.

And essentially, it authorizes the court to dismiss a defendant's misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor charge if the defendant is substantially complied with court-ordered conditions.

And there's also a number of exempted crimes that are not eligible for this diversion program.

There's different kind of steps and procedures to take if the court is going to enter or agree to a diversion program for the defendant.

And it's I can certainly follow up with some more specifics if you're interested.

That would be good.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any other hands.

I have some specific questions about some of the bills that you mentioned that you're monitoring or that I wasn't aware of.

Interesting to see what looks to me, and please confirm, let me know if I'm wrong, but House Bill 1607, the way that that was described, it sounds basically like a traditional bottle bill.

Is that correct?

so people would get a deposit and so are there, is that, so where would the bottles be taken?

Can people drop off the bottles at grocery stores?

Do you know a little bit about how the whole system would work or is there a depot or is it some place at the transfer station or can you explain a little more?

Yeah, I certainly can follow up.

I don't have the specifics in front of me, but it is if folks are familiar with, for example, California or Oregon, they do have these bottle return system programs.

And so the purpose of this bill is to make it easy for people to return those bottles and beverage containers.

So I assume like places like a grocery store, something close proximity to folks.

So it isn't a barrier to return the materials in order to get their 10 cent refund.

But I can certainly follow up with more specifics if it's outlined in the bill.

Okay, thank you.

I would love to hear more about that.

And let's see, the other bill I had a question on is, Samir, I couldn't quite hear what you said about Senate Bill 5554 or House Bill 1576 on page 8 concerning historic landmark designation that you're monitoring.

Could you repeat what you said, please?

yeah it impacts um when cities can uh designate a building as a historic landmark um in in ways that it limits uh so the owner it requires owner consent um for us and then also changes the year uh i believe it's made the buildings now have to be at least 40 years old

Okay, thank you.

The building owner consent part was what I was wondering if that's what you said.

I know that there has been some suggestion.

I think that Portland, that's the way it is in Portland.

I could be wrong, but in any case, there was discussion a couple of years ago on that.

So I was just wondering about that.

Okay, are there any other questions?

Those are, we've hit all mine.

And I think, I don't remember if I asked you this today, but what is the, what's happening with the authorizing a pilot program or a statewide program to, well, to allow for municipalities to use or to send DUI tests to private labs?

Can you please give me an update on that?

Yeah, thanks for that question.

That bill has been scheduled for an executive session this afternoon, or as we are meeting right now.

So we'll monitor to make sure it continues to move in the process.

Last I checked it and see there was any amendments, but that could have changed in the last couple hours.

But we will certainly give you an update next week if there's any major developments.

Okay, thank you very much.

All right, seeing no other questions, I want to say thank you very much for all your hard work down there and for taking time to keep us abreast of things going on.

And you know which council members are interested in which bills.

So thank you very much for letting us know when we have to sign in pro or con or make a comment.

Thank you.

Thank you, council president.

Thank you, council members.

Okay.

So moving on to item four, uh, council member Saka has a letter for signature today to the Washington state house and Senate transportation committees in support of house bill 1423 and Senate bill 5417 authorizing the use of automated vehicle noise enforcement cameras in vehicle racing.

camera enforcement zones.

Councilmember Saka, you are welcome to lead the discussion on this letter.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And so House Bill 1423 and its companion bill in the Senate, Senate Bill 5417, are critical pieces of legislation that grant, that specifically grant and would empower municipalities, including Seattle, with another tool to combat Criminal behavior, excessive noise caused by cars.

And the history is replete in our city with egregious examples of this from the Hellcat, fiasco to others, you know, these are loud gas combustion engines.

I haven't heard of one EV that has excessive noise, Council Member Shrouse, but regardless, it is a problem throughout our city and cities, including Seattle, need another tool.

And I think there are some non-trivial, substantial policy issues that we as a city would need to have to figure out and resolve if we chose to adopt this in the city, including how we can best protect privacy, making sure that we have smart deployment of these among other things.

But bottom line, we can't even get to that analysis.

if the state doesn't grant us permission.

And so that's exactly what this bill would do.

As I mentioned last week, I had the pleasure of testifying in favor of at the state Senate committee last week in favor of the Senate version of this bill.

And there was some confusion around, you know, whether that was my position or the city's position.

And I wanted to make crystal clear.

I am not alone, that this is the city's position.

And so I organized this letter.

The mayor has graciously signed it.

Colleagues, and I ask for your support as well.

Again, signing in support of this letter, It would say, essentially say, we as a city need the ability to consider what deployment, possible deployment could or would look like.

Today, we don't have that ability.

So we need the state to act.

This is what action looks like.

I'll also note that because we, fairly timely, we received a report from SPD just last Thursday, I believe, Wednesday or Thursday, on pursuant to an existing city ordinance.

on point that said, in all of last year, SPD was able to issue one and only one car, excessive car noise citation.

And it's not because it's not an enforcement priority, it's not because it's not an important issue, it's not because it's an issue that's not impacting and plaguing our communities from a road safety perspective and a public safety perspective, it's because it's officer staffing.

And so this will provide us another tool that we could choose to use.

So colleagues, my district, I mentioned Elki Beach, but other council districts are afflicted with this, the same thing.

The problem isn't just confined to one geographic area or one neighborhood.

It's a smart bill, and I ask for your support for this letter.

And again, your support in favor of this letter is not saying that we have resolved every single potential policy implication in the city of Seattle and what that would look like, just saying, it opens up the door for us to have those conversations, because today we can't.

So I ask for your support.

I welcome any questions or comments as well.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Councilmember Strauss?

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka, for bringing this forward.

I'll share a story that I know I've shared with you in private and colleagues.

You may or may not know I do a 70-mile kayak race once a year through the night without stopping.

I give you that background because I was crossing this last year from Vashon Island to Bainbridge Island between 11.30 p.m.

and 1.30 a.m.

It's a 24-hour race nonstop through the night.

And we were crossing from Vashon to Bainbridge, and it was about 1.30 in the morning, and you could hear cars revving at Alki from the other side of the Puget Sound.

And so I just share with you that anecdotal story to demonstrate how important this work is.

So happy to sign on, Council Member Saka.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Councilmember Rink.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Councilmember Saka, for pulling together this letter on this bill.

I had an opportunity to speak with the sponsor and really learn the thoughtful way that she went about preparing this bill, and I will be signing in support of this letter today for those reasons, particularly because I think it really does set a good example of how we can use some of our tech to be able to bolster more safety, but then also finding that line to not create unnecessarily just dangerous measures related to data.

And so it sets really clear confines around the security of said data from making sure recordings are only three seconds to also creating some parameters around where information would be deleted to also making sure that it's reviewed by another person and authorizes civilians to do the review.

And so for that reason, I will be signing in support of this today and thank you again for your work in pulling together this letter.

Council member Rivera.

I think Bob was first.

Ms. Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

Yes, Council Member Rink.

Diddle your comments.

The technology pieces are important.

As you know, we had three technology bills last year, but in addition to those three, we also had a bill on street racing, and I view this as a compliment to that.

You know, the most famous is the Belltown Hellcat, but there's others that have been impacting Belltown, Uptown, Lower Queen Anne area, and in additional areas of D7, much like in D1, and I suspect in other districts around the city.

So thank you, and I appreciate it because this is another thing that helps constrict the, dare I say it, the permissive environment that we have in our city.

And it's good governance, too.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka, for your leadership in bringing this forward.

I, too, will be supporting this.

It's no secret that we've had street racing on Sandpoint Way in front of Magnuson Park that has caused a lot of distress.

And also, folks, I have heard folks from the east side that can hear from Kirkland that can hear across Lake Washington.

the street racing that's happening on Sandpoint Way.

I've actually had emails to that effect.

So, you know, like I said, thank you for bringing this forward.

And more tools in our toolbox are better than less.

And if we, to your point, are able to get Olympia to pass these bills, then we can get to the pieces here on how we would craft a bill.

And then, of course, taking into account the privacy concerns and all the other things.

But I think folks in my district, particularly around Sandpoint, would be very appreciative to have the ability to do this, particularly while we don't have enough police officers who we can actually deploy to cut down on this illegal activity.

Thank you.

Councilmember Salomon, go ahead.

Thank you, Madam President.

I'm very familiar with the concerns that the neighbors on Alki have around noise because of the vehicles.

I've been in those meetings with people, but I would also say that My district, District 2, particularly in the Raynor McClellan area, have also had to endure vehicle racing and loud vehicle noises and such.

And I will be signing on in support of this.

Thank you for bringing it forward.

as I will be signing on as well.

And Council Member Rivera, you said what I was gonna say, which is having more tools is better than less tools.

And so this is yet another one.

And I have to say that for anybody out there who's listening, this will go through the same surveillance process surveillance impact report process.

And so this is the beginning.

This provides the option to pursue this legislation.

It does not set us on that path one way or another.

So it is, again, it's creating more options and more flexibility.

And I have to say in my one-on-one meeting with with the director this morning, I was asking a lot of questions.

What about noise level?

Will the same decibel levels apply to motorcycles versus cars, et cetera?

These are the kinds of questions that we will have the opportunity to explore if and when we ever choose to avail ourselves of this technology if it is approved at the state level.

So just wanted to make sure that everybody out there is aware of that.

Would you like to have the closing word?

Thank you, Madam Council President, colleagues.

I appreciate your support on this letter.

It benefits all of us and our constituents, and it benefits the city, and you're right.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, for sharing that anecdote publicly, and that definitely helped inspire my thinking on this together with, I've heard the same thing, although I haven't heard directly from your constituents, because they probably share their feedback directly with you, but I heard from the mayor's office that, the cities of Kirkland and other cities across Lake Washington regularly and consistently get 911 calls about loud and excessive car noises in Seattle, and they're coming from your district, Magnuson Park there.

So yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So in any event, colleagues, thank you.

Again, I ask for your support.

All right, with that, if there are no other comments or questions, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signatures affixed to the letter in support of House Bill 1423 and Senate Bill 5417.

Council Member Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Moore?

Aye.

Councilmember Rink?

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Sokka?

Aye.

Councilmember Solomon?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Nine signatures will be affixed to the letter.

Plus the mayors.

That makes ten, right?

All right.

Thank you very much.

Okay, it's now time for the weekly blue sky, what's been going on with our individual committees.

So the roll call begins with Council Member Kettle.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

For this week, We have our Public Safety Committee meeting, which will be tomorrow morning.

And this meeting will feature the Seattle Municipal Court, led by President Judge Crawford Willis and Mr. Sattler from the court.

In addition, we're going to have the PDA represented in their lead, co-lead programs.

So Lisa Dugard will be the main presenter for that.

Um, and then obviously as well tomorrow from public safety perspective, we have the less lethal weapons crowd management bill at council meeting, uh, tomorrow afternoon for this week.

Uh, today I had a Seattle city light, uh, capital project tour, um, which was really informative and something I think all my colleagues should get at least some, at least maybe a district version of.

Um, I think it's really insightful to understand the challenges that we face in terms of and this is really tied into the comprehensive plan as well in terms of how we're growing.

We need to grow smart.

And we need to be smart in terms of maintenance as well.

And that's a concern of mine because maintenance is not always the top of mind.

And if you delay maintenance, it's always a bad thing.

Secondly, for Wednesday, I'll be meeting with the Canadian Council General, Weichel.

Looking forward to that.

And also have a meeting with Plymouth Housing.

Thursday, PSRC, Puget Sound Regional Council, transportation meeting, and I'll leave everything else to my capable colleague, Councilmember Saka.

And then I also have a meeting of Magnolia regarding the Com Plan.

D7 Magnolia, Council Member Strauss.

So it's very D7 specific, sorry.

Just to be clear.

And then Friday meeting with Ms. Oliver and the Hope Factory.

I don't want to say anything more because my previous visits to the Hope Factory have been canceled for one reason or another and I don't want to jinx anything.

Next week we have the Magnolia Community Council meeting, the general meeting, and there's some other items for next week, but I also wanted to mention last week we had our District 7 Neighborhood Council.

It was a very good meeting that was focused on the comprehensive plan, and I really appreciate all the groups from District 7 that came out and spoke to the comprehensive plan.

It's really important to get those perspectives from throughout the district.

And it's kind of interesting because, again, we have three regional centers, and so it's a different dynamic in District 7. And it was also good to get the input, say, from Queen Anne and Magnolia as well.

And a nice meeting with Meta.

But the last thing I wanted to say, I was at the presser for the opening for the Bell Street project, connecting the waterfront into Belltown.

And the Bell Street project, which is part of the Market to Mohai route, will be a fantastic upgrade for the area and basically welcoming the city to the waterfront and vice versa, to the sea.

And I really appreciate the work.

The mayor has done on that, along with Ms. Brady from the waterfront side and others, particularly Parks, Mr. Schaffer and others.

So I really appreciate that.

And it also happens to be striding right next to Portal Park.

And again, I'd like to thank Parks and the mayor's team for their support as we take the beginning steps of what we're now calling Portal Park, which no doubt will be renamed at some point.

That is it.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Are there any questions?

Okay.

Let's move along.

Council Member Moore, you're up.

Thank you very much.

I'll keep it pretty short today.

So our next meeting in the Housing and Human Services Committee is this Wednesday.

On the agenda, we plan to have commission appointments for a possible vote and a presentation from the Office of Civil Rights Commission's introducing themselves and their work to the committee.

last week and then also for the council tomorrow we'll be bringing a number of amendments to the less lethal weapon legislation and happy to discuss those with any of my colleagues if you have any particular questions that remain Let's see, last week I met with the KCORHA Seattle caucus.

We had a really good discussion about how do we measure what we're doing.

And we will be having a retreat in a month or so.

And I'm feeling positive that we're beginning to sort of get down to the brass tacks of conversations about how do we measure define the work and measure the work.

And also, we're still working on getting the bylaws resolved.

I'm looking forward to having those in place relatively shortly.

I did last week also have the opportunity to testify on the commercial sexual exploitation legislation.

I wanted to extend my thanks to OIR for helping arrange that and would encourage my colleagues to follow that and be in support of it.

It is important to change the terminology and also to enhance the penalties so we can again target the demand, which is what's leading to this inordinate supply and misery that we're seeing up in Aurora and other parts of our city.

And it doesn't apply just to street-based work.

It also would apply to massage parlors and other places where a lot of this is hidden and people are at much greater risk.

And then the last thing I would say is unfortunately this morning in district, I did attend another tree cutting where the tree was girdled and removed despite the ability to actually preserve the tree.

There were a number of architects who talked about the ability to design around the tree and preserve the tree.

And that route was not chosen.

This is in a neighborhood where there are a lot of apartments, lower income individuals, where lack of trees and nature is truly felt.

And so, again, it just reminds us of the need to talk about this in the comp plan and to figure out a way that we can incentivize developers to preserve trees when it's possible to do so.

So anyway, continuing those discussions.

And if there are any other issues, I will turn it over to Council Member Lee.

Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other questions on that.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Starting first with the Sustainability City Light and Arts and Culture Committee.

Thank you to everyone who attended last Friday.

I think we had our shortest meeting so far, and hopefully the shortest meeting of the year.

We were a grand total of 12 minutes, and thank you again for everyone for popping in to make sure that we got that appointment through, and I know that appointment will be going before full council tomorrow.

for full confirmation.

As it relates to regional committees, the Regional Policy Committee is meeting this week.

I am unable to attend, so looking to any of the alternates, we'll be eager to hear about how the briefing related to, I believe it's horse racing countywide goes.

And last week we were busy out in community.

just actually this morning had an opportunity to tour with Pike Place Market Foundation.

Really an incredible tour.

In many ways, we think of Pike Place as a tourist destination, and it was just such a good reminder the way in which Pike Place also serves as a hub for small businesses, but also a broader social service ecosystem, and being able to see firsthand the senior center, food bank, and the other health and behavioral health providers.

It's just a really amazing space.

Also had an opportunity last week to meet with the Community Police Commission to talk about the legislation that we're gonna be taking up tomorrow before full council as it relates to less lethal weapons.

And then took some time to meet with our partners at Disability Rights Washington to talk about the comprehensive plan and really exploring ways where we can support accessibility and universal design through the comprehensive plan and yet land use policy.

Took an opportunity to do a neighborhood walk also in Queen Anne, and then met with Suru for Solidarity.

This is a coalition made up of Japanese American World War II camp survivors, descendants, and their allies working to support our local immigrant and refugee community and work against detention practices.

A really powerful group doing critical work for our community as advocates.

We also convened our first labor round table where we had a number of unions joined, a number of unions representing frontline workers joined to talk to us about some of the most urgent concerns facing our union partners right now.

In short, we had a discussion about affordable housing, but also would voice that there is a high-level concern about the impact of these changes to our policies in immigration, as well as the changes happening at the NLRB and what this means for the future of organizing in the United States.

and to that end we also had some opportunities to meet with some of our regional partners in philanthropy our team met with the paul allen family foundation director of arts youth and communities their work intersects directly with arts and culture which of course is pertinent to the work of the committee that i chair but also their work ties directly to downtown activation youth leadership development, and civic engagement, which is a perfect nexus considering we'll be taking up the Families Education Preschool Promise Levy renewal this year.

Additionally, I had a great opportunity to meet with the Seattle Foundation's CEO, Alicia Washington, as well as their Chief Impact Officer, Lindsey Goes Behind.

Seattle Foundation's new strategic plan is all about housing, transit, and childcare, all of which are priorities for our office.

And lastly, just to circle back to the comp plan public hearing, I know it was a late night for a lot of us and certainly want to voice my appreciation to everyone who came out to give public comment.

Of course, the meeting ended suddenly, which was unfortunate to see, especially considering that so many of the folks towards the end of the evening were working class folks.

who work day jobs and are only able to come sign up for public common when they were able to get off of work.

So a shame that many of those folks were unfortunately unable to speak.

Really looking forward to the next one, making sure that we can be able to hear from those voices and just learn from our first public hearing as we continue to engage the public.

And with that, I'm happy to take any questions you all have, and thank you for the time.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you.

All right, well, last week I attended the Puget Sound Regional Growth Management meeting.

I also have been meeting with, as part of my committee work, I've been meeting with FEP levy oversight members to do individual meet and greets.

And I've also had meetings with child care providers and preschool providers just to hear about their experience with the city, with the Department of Education, Early Learning, and just to hear their ideas about childcare and preschool.

As I continue the committee work, I am so grateful for these providers.

And I certainly learned a lot about their particular work.

And we have a lot of great providers booked in their childcare and preschool space.

So that was really those meetings have been really great.

I also have had many coffee chats with constituents across the district.

And of course, what's on everybody's mind is the comprehensive plan.

So I've been engaged in conversations with constituents about that.

Also this week, I met actually this morning with Chief of Police Sean Barnes for our just to have an introductory meeting.

We got to discuss his plans to deal with public safety issues across the city, but in particular, we were talking about Magnuson Park and what to do about the public safety issues at Magnuson Park.

And Councilmember Moore, I also, because we're partners up there on the north end, northeast end, also talked about the situation on Aurora.

So it was an introductory meeting and we also talked a lot about these issues.

I found him to be very responsive.

I very much look forward to working with him and I'm so glad that he is now on board and situated.

So more to come on that as we all move forward.

I'm sure you will, if you haven't already met him, we'll have the opportunity to do so.

So we'll keep plugging away on the public safety issues across the city.

And I will say, actually, I was at Magnuson Park yesterday where SPD has stationed their mobile precinct.

And I met with some police officers there who were doing a great job.

And it was really great to just, I stopped by just to show my support for them being there and just learn a little bit about the work that they do and what their thoughts are.

And one thing we've learned is when there are more patrol officers around, It has a very important impact on what's going on, and so there is less petty crime when there is patrol patrols around.

And so, you know, we know that that is the case.

The data shows that as well.

So looking forward to more officers getting hired by the end of the year here.

So we have more patrol officers on the ground.

So more to come on that for all of us.

Also, this week I have a meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

We'll be hearing from the Department of Neighborhoods on the Neighborhood Matching Fund Program.

You'll remember that I advocated for and was successful in getting restoration of that program's budget because it is one that is important to all our residents across the city.

It's an opportunity for residents to identify projects that they're interested in doing in their neighborhoods.

And I think it's a really great piece, particularly when we know that not all the funding that we provide in other areas are able to get to all the things that we'd like seen done across the city.

So I think this is really an important program for folks on the ground to be able to apply to.

The other thing I've been doing is been meeting with department directors about the statements of legislative intent that that I supported as part of the budget, just touching base with the department directors to make sure that they understand what the requests are, that there is what I call a meeting of the minds on what we are looking for, because I know that I appreciated when I worked at a department and I was responsible for the department's responses to the statements of legislative intent, that I was very clear on what the ask is.

And so I proactively have been reaching out to the department directors to make sure they're clear on what the ask is and help set them up for success in responding.

So I've been having those meetings.

Also, thank you, Council President, for sending out the memo on the creation of the Families Education Preschool Promise.

levy select committee.

Um, we have a, um, a, as part of the memo, there is a calendar, um, for committee meetings.

So I thank you for that and, um, welcome conversations.

I have met with every single one of you on your interests on the levy and what you'd like to see supported and any questions, initial questions you might have.

Um, that is one of, um, more meetings we will have on that topic, but now you have the, calendar so you can hopefully get these on.

We really made an effort to go through and I want to thank both my staff and also Jasmine from the central staff going through all the calendars to all the committee meetings, internal and external to make sure there were no conflicts.

So hopefully this will work with everyone here, but just know we did do that and more to come on that.

And then lastly, I wanted to say that this week I will be attending an event with the King County Executive, Dow Constantine, where he'll be announcing his proposal to renew the King County Parks Levy.

He will be at a park in the district, actually, Pathways Park.

And you'll remember earlier last year, we had the inauguration of Pathways Park as an all inclusive park.

And so I'm very happy to welcome the King County Executive into the district as he makes this announcement.

And of course, you all know that the King County Levy funds maintenance and safety, enhances ball fields, playgrounds and aquatic centers and protects and restores open spaces and expands regional trails.

the importance of funding for our parks across the city, well, across the county in this case are important.

And of course, some of that flows to the city and the county gave some funding to Pathways Park as well.

So we know that those funds are also utilized by the city.

So that is it.

And unless anyone has any questions, I'll pass it on to my colleague, Council Member Saka.

All right.

All right, thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Let's see here.

On the Transportation Committee front, colleagues, we have an exciting meeting coming up a week from tomorrow where we're gonna be discussing robust conversation, two important topics.

I encourage everyone to attend if you're able, your schedule permits.

Two important topics, the first being regional transit security.

We're gonna have a diverse group of stakeholders, both internally within the city and then externally in our partners, both Sound Transit and King County Metro.

We're gonna have ATU Local 587. present and others as well.

So it'll be a great lively conversation and really excited for that.

And then also we're going to be discussing, SDOT will be discussing their proposed SDOT levy spending plan.

As you know, we took some action during budget last year to do exactly what's gonna happen A week from tomorrow, SDOT prepared a very detailed proposed plan for how they're gonna spend levy dollars, levy dollars, levy dollars, emphasizing levy dollars, not other budget items that we authorized that weren't last budget year that were non-levy dollars.

Levy dollars, what that's going to look like.

those levy dollars are going to look like.

And just for the avoidance of doubt, we're talking about proposed levy dollars spanning Councilmember Schroes.

And so those two really important topics would encourage everyone to join.

Again, even if you're not a member of the committee, because really important conversation, it will likely go long.

And again, I invite everyone to attend.

Next up is, as Councilmember Kettle aptly alluded to, him and I are gonna be tag teaming the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Transportation Policy Board later this week.

Looking forward to that regular meeting, monthly meeting.

Co-chaired by Kent Mayor, or chaired by Kent Mayor Dana Ralph.

Next up on that I wanted to just briefly mention is thank you council member Strauss for your leadership and encouraging all of us to join you at the city action days in Olympia next week.

I will be proud to join you and our interested colleagues who will be there.

Sadly, because of a conflict that I have on Thursday, I will only be there for that first day.

So we'll make it impactful and, you know, Jam packed, so looking forward to that.

And then finally, I guess I'll note that colleagues thank you all for your letter of support for the state and the state senate and house bills that would authorize noise enforcement technology and really important.

And I think it's a strong showing of support from the city.

And it's not just me that we have all nine council members, plus the mayor, that this is officially the city.

So I want to thank you all colleagues.

And also, like I mentioned, there was some initial confusion last week during that testimony.

So I want to thank Senator Valdez for sparking this conversation at the city level and making it abundantly clear that this is the city's position.

No, nothing else from my perspective.

I welcome any questions or comments, colleagues.

If there are none, I will pass it on to Council Member Shrouse.

Actually, we'll go Council Member Solomon.

Oh.

I know, I had to update my notes.

Thanks, man.

Hey, hey, hey, anytime.

Thank you very much.

So in terms of an update from our office, I am fully staffed now, so we do have everyone onboarded.

They're hard at work, and I'm very grateful to have the team that I do have.

In terms of committee work, we did not have a land use committee meeting this past week, again, onboarding new staff.

I do anticipate that we will have a meeting on February 19th.

Let's see.

I'm still doing a lot of onboarding.

Again, getting up to speed as to how this body operates and figuring out what I need to know.

But at the same time, I'm also engaging in conversations with department heads, department liaisons about the various work projects we have in front of us and the various priorities that this body needs to address in a very short amount of time.

So with that, I have been meeting with And again, the liaison to the mayor's office, just to get up to speed as to what they're working on, what we need to be working on together.

The meetings that I was planning to have China down and Little Saigon last week got postponed due to weather, so we'll be getting that back on the books.

In addition, I do have meetings in the works with the West Precinct command staff as well as the liaisons that are working on the issues regarding Little Saigon.

A couple other things that are coming up, as I mentioned, the South Precinct Advisory Council meeting tomorrow night at the New Holly Gathering Hall at 6.30.

I will be there.

As well as setting up office hours in district.

We will be at the Beacon Hill Library this Friday from noon to 4. And I will be scheduling office hours at various days of the week, various times of the day to accommodate folks who work during the day or work at night so that we can be available online.

for people in person, regardless of what their schedule may be.

And that's all I have for now.

Thank you.

Councilmember Strauss.

I'll take it from there.

Thank you, Councilmember Solomon.

Colleagues, last week in Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee, we went over the work plan for the year.

We had conversations about how to structure our select committees this year because last year we took such a deep dive into budget starting in April.

I foresee us to still have a few select budget committees throughout the year and I'm gonna be walking the hall to take people's temperature on whether we want to remain strictly in the program that we did last year go back to how committee structures used to work, which was everything would come through finance and we would only go to select budget in the fall or a hybrid.

My best guess is that we will land in a hybrid and wanna just take everyone's temperatures on Do we want to have grants and acceptance ordinances through select budget or can that just go through finance?

I do see that mid-year supplemental would probably go through a select budget committee.

Do we want to have, again, those grants acceptance and World Cup appropriations through finance or select?

We will continue our budget reform efforts this year, both in process and in content.

In process, how to improve the fall process.

Over the course of many years, the budget process has ebbed and flowed with more time on the dais, more decision points along the way, or fewer.

One of the ideas is that bringing back another one of the decision points, bringing back some more dais time, may be helpful to give people the opportunity to speak to what is most important to them before the chairs package comes out.

In content, we will be looking at the statements of legislative intent and other topics that we've identified for further review and refinement, as well as we'll continue the five-year budget look back rather than doing the incremental analysis that has traditionally been done before I was budget chair.

The next Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee scheduled for next Wednesday the 19th will be canceled as I'll be at AWC as with many of you And then we will be planning to have the Select Budget Committee meeting, the first one, on Wednesday, March 5th.

to address the transportation levy lift proviso that council member Saka discussed.

Colleagues in my committees, I have a Dan rule, which is that items are briefed twice before they're taken a vote.

This is not a hard and fast rule in council rules.

I think it's just good practice.

And so to accommodate this and to keep the process moving quickly, I asked council member Saka if he would like to have this item briefed.

in Transportation Committee.

We were working through the whole process together.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

And so we're taking an abnormal step this time, which is having the item briefed in Transportation Committee and having it voted in the Select Budget Committee.

This means if you're not on transportation, you have to come up to speed.

before we get to select budget committee, please.

We will also, to keep things be moving in the select budget committee, we will have an introduction regarding the FAS director appointment.

We will be taking the final vote and asking the FAS director, interim director questions in finance native communities later in March.

That's internal committees.

Moving into external committees, I've got a lot of sound transit updates and then a few SIRS.

Sound Transit Expansion Committee will be meeting this Thursday.

We'll have an update on the West Seattle work plan, including programmatic and project level cost savings.

initiatives that Sound Transit's taking up.

We'll have a presentation regarding the scoping, the Ballard extension scoping period, which ended in December.

And we will be taking up some property acquisitions in West Seattle and Lower Queen Anne.

In West Seattle, it's the Skylark mode music.

I've been very clear with Sound Transit that because that piece of property is on the edge of an industrial zone and The welcome sign into Delridge that they have to keep their eyes on it to make sure it's either occupied with good tenants or not falling into disrepair because it's the first thing that you see when you come into Delridge.

Delridge.

I was going to make some joke about Delridge's dad sitting next to me.

And then Council Member Kettle, similarly, the Bank of America across the street from Dick's.

It is right in the heart of Lower Queen Anne.

It has to be either kept up with good tenants.

It can't fall into dereliction.

And that's the main point that I've been making to...

Sound Transit, I did see those eyes.

Could be Uptown.

Is it Uptown Lower Queen Anne?

Is it Pike?

Is it Pine?

Who knows?

That's been settled.

That's Uptown.

Sir, yes, sir.

Moving right along, we are in the process of the search for the new CEO of Sound Transit.

Jerron Sparman will be with us until May.

We're hoping to have a new CEO on with some transition time.

So board members will be interviewing candidates over the course of the next two weeks.

There has been a committee set up for this.

I'm feeling good at this time.

I'll let you know if I'm not.

Thank you to Council Member Sock and Kettle for inviting Sound Transit to the Transportation Committee later this month to discuss transit safety.

Again, Sound Transit Security Operations Center can be reached.

I'll say the number very slowly.

It's 206-398-5368, 398-5368.

I've got that number saved in my phone.

If I've got problems on Sound Transit, I make the call, I send the text.

Fun facts from Sound Transit, Sound Transit Express, so these are the buses, will have a fare change from $3.25 to $3 even, which is consistent with our light rail fee, which is $3 per trip.

that changed last August and most importantly for your awareness, there will be sound transit link light rail disruptions this weekend, starting at 10 PM on Friday to allow for the completion of tie in work that will connect the one and two lines.

So as soon as I-90 floating bridge section is done, which we're hoping to have done this year, we'll be connecting straight in to Seattle and the work that we're doing this weekend is ahead of that.

So there will be shuttle buses replacing the one-line service between Capitol Hill and Soto running every 10 to 15 minutes.

And trains will operate between Linwood and Capitol Hill between Soto and Angle Lake every 15 minutes.

I apologize for this inconvenience.

It is very necessary.

Lastly here, I will be attending the Seattle City Employee Retirement Services Board of Administration this Thursday.

I want to highlight some things that they've done very well recently, which is they took a They took staff out to the Boundary Dam, which is outside of Spokane on the border of Canada.

It's one of our Seattle City light facilities.

And they went there to meet in person with the employees to talk about retirement.

And I just really appreciate this because folks out there at Boundary Dam can sometimes, well, they are physically isolated, especially physically isolated from the city.

And so having moments like this, I really appreciate.

of SIRS.

SIRS is also looking for a new space to rent.

I pushed them very hard to get back into Seattle Municipal Tower when I had the understanding that Seattle Municipal Tower had vacancies.

It's important for us to keep our building full.

In the interim between that, it has come to my attention that Seattle Municipal Tower is now full.

There's a couple floors that are in flux, but that is a much better update than a year ago when we thought we would have many floors that were not full.

That serves district six and more.

I have office hours this Wednesday.

Uh, council member Kettle talked about the Magnolia community council.

I want to also share that I am, we followed up and we'll be following up with parks more about the fact that both the community center and the environmental learning center, discovery park, the only two buildings that the parks department operates in Magnolia are both closed.

The environmental learning center closed due to a flood of the building.

And so, We'll be following up with that.

Again, office hours this Wednesday.

Thank you, colleagues.

That is my report.

If there are no questions, I will hand it over to Councilmember Saka.

All right, thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Just wanna thank you for representing us in our city on the Sound Transit Board.

And thank you for your collaboration and sharing out all these important insightful pieces of information.

And then also, Thank you for your partnership and that allocation that we aligned on where the briefing portion of SDOT's proposed levy spending plan will be presented in the transportation committee, but the voting will happen appropriately in your finance committee.

And it also highlights a couple things.

And I'll double click on something you mentioned.

Yes, it kind of doesn't force, but you should pay attention to that.

proposed levy spending plan either in the transportation committee or something that I've been asking you all colleagues for a month now is to please remember to take your briefings from SDOT, your private briefings on their proposed, they've been reaching out for weeks and I think most folks as I understand it based on my last conversation with the department have taken that up but if not please do so because they are ready willing and able to provide a briefing.

So there'll be no surprises during the voting portion.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thanks, Council Member Saka.

Any other questions?

If not, over to you, Council Member Hollinsworth.

I did want to note that when it comes to the dates for the select committee, I mentioned in your meeting, Chair Strauss, that I'm interested in knowing what meetings, so I did hear that there was a feeling of a lot going on, especially with the approach of the FEP select committee.

So please do, let's make sure that we, that you talk to me about what those dates are and what will also be happening in your committee during the year so we can determine whether or not things should go in the budget committee, I mean the select budget committee or the finance committee.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Absolutely.

As noted in the committee, I duly recognize that, and I can assure you any time that I...

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Excuse...

Council member, council president, I'm just going to finish by saying anytime that we have select budget committee, it will be during the time that finance native communities would be a schedule.

And other people have things scheduled at the same time who are not on the finance committee.

That's why we have to be respectful for everybody's schedule.

So there are five people in your committee, then there are four other council members.

And so we do have to think about external committee assignments, et cetera, in addition to, you know, it's not just what's going on in this room, it's also what's happening in the external committees of other folks.

So to be continued.

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

utilities technology meeting will be Wednesday February 12th at 2 p.m.

This week our agenda we have appointments coming up it should be a fairly quick meeting appointments and a presentation from Seattle Center as well looking forward to that meeting it will be our first meeting of the new year and so gearing up for a full A FULL CALENDAR OF REALLY GREAT PARKS UTILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY MEETINGS.

THE NEXT THING, I DEFINITELY WANT TO THANK OUR COLLEAGUES, THE STAFF, AND THE PEOPLE WHO CAME OUT TO THE PUBLIC HEARING.

I DO BELIEVE IT WAS UNFORTUNATE THAT WE COULDN'T THANK YOU, couldn't hear from some folks that were, tried to move through as much as possible.

We were fighting the weather and everything.

And so we sent a press release the next day regarding that information, unforeseen inclement weather that forced us to prioritize safety.

I will always prioritize safety of our staff, of our people, of our community, because it would have been a shame if someone got hurt going home.

Shortly thereafter, it did started snowing, and so I was really happy that we were able to get a lot of our staff and our people home as well, you know, during the public testimony.

We also will be working with our central staff and also the city clerk to prioritize the speakers who were not called on.

We have a list and a record of all those and I know that a lot of people have reached in and have sent those.

There will be more opportunities for public hearings and scheduled and continuous public engagement opportunities that are gonna be available for folks.

Continuing to ask people, send us your comments.

Please connect with your council members.

I've been connecting with people and taking a bunch of meetings, doing walks, neighborhood walks, and so forth.

So it's been really, really great feedback from people.

So really appreciate people coming out.

And we'll always continue to prioritize safety, number one.

Also, colleagues, you will be getting, we'll be passing around the Black History Month proclamation.

I'll be joining Councilmember Solomon and Councilmember Sacca next week for the celebration and the Bertha Knight Landis room.

Downstairs, Department of Neighborhoods, there'll be a celebration of Black History where we're presenting our proclamation to the community.

So really excited about that as well.

Also had the chance, shout out to the Jones family, Quincy Jones family had the opportunity to join Council Member Sokka and his daughter at the cracking game where they honored the Quincy Jones's family.

So it was great to see Judge Jones and his wife, Mrs. Jones and their family celebrating celebrating the life of Quincy Jones, all of the work that he's done in our community.

We have a musical legend that grew up right here in Seattle and went to Garfield High School, which is phenomenal.

Also had a chance, Rapid Ride J check-in.

I've been working, and I know that Councilmember Rivera's office has as well, is the uh, inner agency that has with the J line and also the 520 bridge and all the different agencies, S dot, wash dot, Metro, all the folks, because, uh, my district North and district three, and then also the Southern part of district four, um, is really, you know, uh, paralyzed by a lot of the, uh, construction that's going on in the community, um, in those areas.

And so, uh, I just wanted to work with those neighbors.

We know that it's a huge undertaking.

A lot of the small businesses and people in the neighborhood and maybe the people that are, you know, different bus stops have to get on different areas and ways because some bus stops are closed and different routes.

So we've been working with WSDOT and SDOT, getting constant updates, making sure that people are notified in a timely manner because it affects and impacts their neighborhood tremendously as well.

So definitely wanted to highlight that as well.

And last but not least, I had a chance to do a tour of the Denise Louie Education Center, which is in our district.

Phenomenal people.

So really thank the executive director and then also board member Vivian Moritz's song that invited me out there to see the kids.

Whenever, sometimes, if you're ever having a hard day or you're want to think twice about some of the stuff that we have to go through as a council member go to a school go see the babies and the kids go see a baby smiling and laughing and and the kids I'm telling you it's probably the most rewarding thing of this job is to be able to go and talk to kids and then be able to talk to a council member and get connected so really looking forward to all of the feet levee stuff that we have and council member Rivera's leadership on that as well in our committee so With that being said, I will pass the ball to Council President.

Okay, thank you very much.

I will start with the fact that we do have the Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee meeting this Thursday, February 13th at 2 p.m.

And again, we'll hear a roundtable discussion on some of the issues going on with our permitting systems and ways that the that the panel members will suggest to perhaps reduce some of the challenges that it presents.

The panel will include respected and experienced architects of commercial, residential and mixed use projects of all sizes and representatives of small businesses who share their thoughts on how we can help improve current system and also make it easier for for small businesses to get permits for tenant improvements, et cetera.

And then, so mostly the discussion will be focused on commercial, but some of the things we'll be talking about do impact residential permitting as well.

The panelists will include Jim Graham, Heather Pogue, Michelle Linden, Ian Butcher, Greg Schiffler, Francesca Renard, and Don Blakeney of the U District Partnership.

So tune into that and the agenda will be posted tomorrow.

Let's see, on Wednesday I attended the 2025 Friends of Scouting breakfast and the program featured an award that was given to the Spady family, owners of Dick's Drive-In for their support not just of the scouts but also for their generous support Lots of generous things that they've done for young people, young employees with the nexus on their employees and also their employees' education needs, et cetera, and training needs, but basically it was a featured part of the program that I enjoyed because they, again, small business that's doing right by their employees in the community.

Let's see, I was there for, I won't pile onto the city, to the comp plan, public hearing, but I do want to thank you very much, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for a very well-run public hearing with so many people signed up.

And I do want to say that you guided us through it very well, but you were also mindful of the difficult weather that was forecast.

And I know that leading up to the actual public hearing, you were in close communication with the executive and with folks at the Emergency Management Center, I believe.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were watching the weather and you gave a lot of warnings to people about the garage closing and when that would close.

And also, I do believe that you made the right call in cutting off public, although it was extremely unfortunate you did so.

Because even though many people were going to be giving remote testimony, there still needed to be staffers in this room and we wanted everybody home safely.

And it just so happens that in my neighborhood, it did start snowing shortly thereafter.

I live between U District and Green Lake and it was, I definitely woke up to a winter landscape the following morning.

So thank you very much for reminding that.

And speaking of the next morning, I was gonna go to the State of the Port breakfast event in Renton, but had to cancel.

because of the snow and people like me from California really shouldn't be driving in the snow like that.

So anyway, again, apologies to port leadership for not being able to make it, but I was able to attend to participate in a tour later that afternoon last Thursday with the CEO and staffers of the Northwest Seaport Alliance and for a tour of port in the areas around it to look at the, to have a more a closer look at operations.

And so some of the folks that I was able to have a conversation with were the Northwest Seaport Alliance CEO John Wolf, Ryan McFarland, the Alliance's Government Affairs Director, and Lindsey Volpa.

Jerry Poore, the regional transportation manager of the Port of Seattle.

Dana Brand, the general manager of Terminal 5 with SSA Marine.

Gisa Sten, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 52. And Mark Elverson, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 19. And then finally, on Thursday, I had my first one-on-one with interim SPD chief.

Barnes and I welcome him as he gets up to speed during his first month on the job.

I'm sure that everybody is very happy to be working with him and I'm glad he's here with us and look forward to working with him closely, especially on increasing staffing.

Then finally, on Friday, my chief of staff and I toured the Lake Union Dry Dock.

Does anybody know where that is?

Excellent.

All right.

The Lake Union Dry Dock is on the eastern shore of Lake Union and it's a family owned and operated company that specializes in vessel repair and conversions and it's been in operation since 1919, making it one of the longest operating shipyards in the United States it's a union shop and you can't really tell when from the street but the there are seven acres of pier there and doing all in really massive spaces for all kinds of repair and I just really was really happy to see it right there in our neighborhood and doing that important work.

And they service everything from fishing vessels to NOAA research vessels, Navy, et cetera.

So if you ever have the opportunity, please avail yourself of an opportunity to tour that homegrown gem.

All right.

Finally, I will stop talking here, but we do have an executive session.

And later on today, I'll be joining the Suyen Association tonight for their Lunar New Year dinner.

Are there any questions or comments?

All right.

So at this point, I will close this part of our meeting and then we'll move into executive session.

So hearing no further business, we'll move into executive session and as presiding officer, I'm announcing that.

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

And the council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters, with city attorneys as authorized by law, and a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that the council reserves questions of policy for open session.

And I expect the time of the executive session to end by 4.50, and if it ends sooner, this meeting will end automatically, but if the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I'll announce the extension and the expected duration.

And at the conclusion, as I said, this meeting will just end.

The next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is on February 24th, 2025 at 2 p.m.

That's because there is a holiday in between now and then.

And with that, we're now in executive session.

So please log on to that Zoom link in your office.

Thank you.