Seattle City Council Briefing 6/27/22

Monday, June 27th.

Will the meeting please come to order and will the clerk please call the roll.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

And Council President Juarez.

Present.

Eight to present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Moving on, we will go to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of June 13th will be adopted.

Not seeing or hearing an objection, the minutes are adopted.

I will go to the president's report.

I have some rather lengthy ones today.

Actually, not too bad.

On today's agenda, we have a proclamation for signature recognizing the work of our city clerk, Monica Martinez-Simmons, upon her retirement.

We also have three executive sessions, which taken together are expected to last about 45 minutes.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as one appointment recommended by the Finance and Housing Committee.

We will take one vote on all items of the consent calendar, as you all know, And if those of you want to pull one of those or remove one of them for consideration separately, please let us know.

I'm sorry, we'll take that up at the end of the agenda.

Following the consent calendar, we'll be voting on six items.

One, acknowledging the receipt of Initiative 134 by our city clerks.

Number two, reconsideration of Council Bill 120342 regarding Montlake Playfield Agreement.

which had been recommended by the Public Assets Committee.

Number three, an ordinance regarding reimbursement for moving expenses.

We'll also be voting on three items considered and recommended by the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee, including the appointment of Andrew Lee as the general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities, and one item from the Economic Development Committee, and three items from the Housing and Finance.

Information on all these items are available on the online agenda.

Moving on to section three of our agenda, signing of letters and proclamations.

Today I'm bringing forward a proclamation for signature proclaiming Tuesday, June 28th as Monica Martinez Simmons Day.

I will leave the discussion on this proclamation for any additional feedback before I request signatures be affixed to the proclamation.

I just briefly wanna share that we put together a proclamation and I just wanna share a few tidbits and then we'll go through it tomorrow where all of us can say I'm guessing very kind words and appreciation to our clerk, Monica Martinez-Simmons.

Just some quick notes here.

Monica Martinez has been with the office of the clerk since July, 2010. The first Latina to hold the office of city clerk in Seattle, who joined the city of Seattle in a distinguished career as the city of Henderson, Nevada.

Her time as Seattle city clerk, Ms. Martinez-Simmons served under six council presidents, worked with 22 council members, swore in 126 city officials, and was responsible for oversight of 576 city council meetings and worked with five mayors.

I will share the rest of my information and great words for Monica tomorrow, but I just want to give you an idea of what the proclamation consists of.

And I believe you all have that in your, went to your inbox Friday.

With that, is there any other comments or discussions on the proclamation?

And then you'll have an opportunity tomorrow to expand more.

Okay.

Not seeing that there is no further discussion on the proclamation, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signatures affixed to the proclamation proclaiming June 28th, Monica Martinez-Simmons Day.

Madam Clerk?

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Yes.

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Eight signatures, there'll be a fixed appropriation.

Thank you.

We will now move on to the preview of City Council actions.

And let's see, we will start, this is the lineup for today and tomorrow.

It will be Council Member Peterson, Sawant, Straus, Herbold, Lewis, Mosqueda, Nelson, and then myself.

So let's, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

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

All of these items were recommended unanimously by our committee.

Council Bill 120345 is a request from the Seattle Department of Transportation to grant final approval to vacate a portion of 29th Avenue Southwest and Southwest View Street to facilitate the installation of a storage facility adjacent to Port of Seattle Land in West Seattle.

In August 2017, the City Council granted conditional approval and the petitioner has met all those conditions.

to the city of Seattle and the city of Bellevue.

Councilman 120346 has a request from Seattle public utilities to grant a temporary easement and a smaller permanent subsurface easement to King County for a narrow track of land on the east side of Bellevue for the main purpose of constructing and maintaining a sewer line.

The committee also unanimously which as you know it's a 1.3 billion dollar enterprise with over 1400 employees.

This is appointment 02194 on the agenda.

Please note that we did follow resolution 31868 in considering and recommending this highly qualified nominee.

I encourage my colleagues not fortunate enough to serve on that committee to vote in favor and relieve tomorrow afternoon.

Our next committee on transportation and Seattle Public Utilities is scheduled for next Tuesday, July 5 at 9.30 in the morning.

At that July 5 committee, we plan to discuss and vote on a joint resolution with the mayor on recommendations regarding Sound Transit's West Seattle Ballard Link Extension routes and stations.

As you may recall, we had a presentation on Sound Transit's draft environmental impact statement on February 15 and presentations from Sound Transit and the executive on April 19. Then at our committee on June 7, we received a thorough presentation, had a robust discussion of that joint resolution 32055. Council members were asked to reach out to central staff analyst Calvin Chow to provide their early input on that.

And we wanted to take some extra time with this.

So rather than rushing that resolution to our committee on June 21, we're scheduling the second meeting for July 5. Please reach out to Calvin Chow on city council central staff and of course, Sound Transit at Sound Transit Board, we're represented ably by our mayor and also our council president, Deborah Juarez.

Thank you.

I don't know about that.

I think we are.

So District 4, this past week, I accompanied staff from Senator Patty Murray's Seattle and D.C.

offices as well as our city's Office of Intergovernmental Relations for an extensive tour of the National Archives building.

which is located in District 4 on Sandpoint Way Northeast.

The tour of the warehouse areas with countless boxes piled to the ceiling reinforced the extent and value of these historical records, as well as the deteriorating physical condition of the existing facility that we rely on to protect these documents.

As you recall, there was a coalition of local journalists, research advocates, tribal government leaders, as well as leaders from our cities, the state, regional congressional delegations, they all joined forces to save these precious National Archives in Northeast Seattle from a sudden sale by federal agencies.

So many have asked, well, what's next?

So I'm happy to report that U.S.

Senator Patty Murray has answered that question in a big positive way by recently requesting up to $98 million through the Congressional Directed Spending Process, also known as earmarks, for an archives facility in the Seattle area.

The request is a little bit vague at this point, so she has maximum flexibility.

And of course, it has to survive the competitive appropriations process in DC.

But the good news is that there's a large chunk of funding that's being pursued.

I also visited the recording studio for 101.1 FM radio, which is located at the entrance of Magnuson Park in District 4. Former council members Gene Godden and Sue Donaldson interviewed me for their radio show which has one of the best titles of any radio show.

It's called The Bridge and I answered questions about city budget, public safety, and of course bridges.

101.1 FM radio has a fun variety of music information broadcast widely from its home in Magnuson Park so be sure to tune in to 101.1.

Oh we will.

Also at Magnuson Park, I joined the director of the Department of Neighborhoods, Greg Wong, for a celebration of the growing community garden at the park, which we, of course, refer to as a pea patch.

As you probably know, the city has nearly 90 pea patch community gardens.

But what you may not know is that the first official pea patch sprouted from District 4 at the former farm of the Picardo family, where the Ravenna neighborhood meets Wedgwood.

fresh produce from the community gardens, help to supply food banks throughout the city.

Lastly, I attended the lively Seattle Pride Parade yesterday, which is full of proud marchers and colorful crowds showing their strong support for each other on a sunny day in downtown Seattle.

That concludes my report.

Are there any questions before I turn it over to Council Member Sawant?

I have one.

I have a couple.

Yes, Council President.

First of all, Council Member Peterson, thank you for taking the time and working with me on the resolution with Calvin Chow regarding the West Seattle Ballard link and all the other issues.

I know we're still working through that and thank you for the compliment, but you've been the one that have done the work with Calvin.

We've done some of it, but thank you for that.

And I hope to learn some more before you get to a vote, which I think you say it's scheduled on the 5th?

Yes.

Okay.

Is that a hard date?

we're not voting on sound transit until we hope the 28th, but is that standard?

I think the thought was we'll definitely make sure you have everything you need about what Calvin is working on.

Right.

And then I understand the expansion committee meets on the 14th.

So I think that was the thought process to skip the June 21st committee meeting and are having it on the 5th.

But that's at least before the July 14th expansion committee.

So if you voted, if you vote on the fifth and it would come out of here, it would come to full council on the 12th or whenever you want.

I mean, at that point, it's obviously totally up to you when it actually comes to a full council.

I'm just trying to deal with the committee.

Okay.

Well, let's, let's just keep talking on that timeline.

Um, okay.

The second thing is, um, Thank you for the update.

We had also gotten a call from Senator Murray's office regarding the archives building and the $98 million budget request.

Did you also learn that because they shared with me and they shared with you that the state is asking for $10 million for the archive building?

That's great.

The more the merrier.

Well, it's an ask, so I don't know what that means.

So I guess I want to thank you for those who don't know the history.

Councilman Peterson worked with me in the last two or three years.

and with the tribes and tribal governments, and also with the city attorney's office, so we could intervene as plaintiffs as well, the city of Seattle to maintain the archive building, because it is the archival, obviously, of all the records of everything in four states.

So Councilman Peterson, thank you for that.

I don't think a lot of people know how much work we put into that, and also intervening as plaintiffs.

So thank you for that work.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

and I don't think I'll be listening to your radio show, but if you want to send it to me, maybe I'm really...

You can stream it live, you know, at your convenience.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

So, Council Member Sawant, good afternoon.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Good afternoon, everyone.

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

Last Friday, the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee voted to confirm seven executive appointments, mayoral appointments to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

Those items will be on the July 5th full city council agenda.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee this Friday will be canceled.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee will be on July 15th.

At that meeting, we intend to consider the appointment of Jessen Farrell to be the director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

She is currently acting as Interim Director.

My office will compile questions from all council offices for Interim Director Farrell to answer on July 15th as part of the confirmation hearings.

Please look out for the emails from my office and send us your questions by July 6th to be included.

Last Friday, my office organized a press conference alongside UAW 4121 and the resident and fellow physicians union at the University of Washington to announce legislation in response to the single biggest attack on women, queer and pregnant people and reproductive rights in most of our lifetimes when the right wing Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

We must make Seattle a sanctuary for and pregnant people and their doctors and other care providers facing persecution for seeking and performing abortions anywhere in the country.

Laws violating basic bodily autonomy and criminalizing reproductive health care are fundamentally unjust and our movement should not allow Seattle to be complicit.

The city council central staff are under direction from my office drafting legislation to prevent Seattle police from arresting people, either patients or care providers, for outstanding warrants related to anti-abortion laws around the country.

The legislation uses the same legal approach as Seattle's Initiative 75 in 2003, which made enforcement of marijuana-related offenses the lowest priority for Seattle police.

Basically, the legislation is saying that police should only look into abortion-related arrest warrants after there are no more jaywalkers in Seattle, effectively never.

Let anyone threatened by draconian anti-abortion laws come to Seattle without fear of persecution.

If the city council passes my office's legislation, which I hope it will, to make Seattle a sanctuary for abortion rights, and if people around the country are facing prosecution because they have had an abortion or because they are an abortion doctor or other care provider, they can come to Seattle.

If they can make it here, the warrant for their arrest will not go away, but police in Seattle will effectively be instructed not to act on that warrant.

I also urge the Washington State Legislature to similarly pass urgent legislation to make our entire state a sanctuary for pregnant people and their care providers.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

And aiding the legal persecution of people seeking or providing this basic right would be deeply unjust.

As I mentioned in the past, I also I urge Mayor Harrell and all city officials to include in this next city budget, in the upcoming city budget, funding to make abortion in Seattle free for anyone fleeing states that have criminalized reproductive health care and for all Seattle residents.

If Mayor Harrell does not include this in the proposed budget, then my office and the People's Budget Movement will certainly propose a budget amendment for this funding to be funded by increasing the Amazon tax that our movement won in 2020. The day that the Supreme Court announced their overturn of Roe v. Wade, which was Friday, tens of thousands took to the streets, perhaps maybe even more across the country, the shameful ruling by The Supreme Court runs counter to the support for legal abortion by a majority of American working people.

But the protest also made very clear that millions are enraged at the complete failure of the Democrats to fight back and at the idea that all we need to do now is vote blue in November.

In New York City, over 20,000 people angrily marched through Manhattan led by Socialist Alternative and other left groups and labor unions.

The energy of the demonstration was so ferocious that the march went on for four hours.

In Fayetteville, Arkansas, hundreds protested in the town center demanding a Socialist Feminist Alternative to the bankrupt girl boss feminism.

In Houston, where Socialist Alternative put out a call for mass protests at the federal courthouse, 5,000 people turned out In a now viral video from the protest, Democrat Beto O'Rourke, who showed up asking for brownie points and a speaking slot, can be seen hanging his head in shame as the crowd around him chanted, quote, voting blue is not enough.

Democrats, we call your bluff, end quote.

In Seattle also, thousands of people marched and demonstrated.

I spoke alongside many other movement speakers at the rally, in which it was very clear that people are angry at the inaction of the Democrats.

And it's not lost on people that immediately following the ruling, the Democratic Party, which is now the party in power, rather than fighting to codify Roe or implement executive orders to protect abortion rights, which the majority of American society supports, instead put on a performance of God Bless America on the steps of the Supreme Court.

And this really happened.

And hours after the ruling, Democratic fundraising emails started coming like an avalanche.

Quoting one fundraising email that went, please, I've never needed your support more than today.

Can you chip in $15 so we can win these midterms and finally codify reproductive rights into law?

Nancy Pelosi wrote this.

Can you rush in a donation of any amount to stop the far right and elect a pro-abortion rights Congress this year?

These insulting pleas by the Democrats for money and votes are facing widespread anger from young people as quotes from a very important article published in Salon today indicates that article is titled, Democrats face a rage after a road disaster.

Some of the quotes from young people in that article are, it feels like they couldn't care less.

They've had multiple opportunities to codify row into law over the past 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and they haven't done it.

And another quote is, it's like they're asking, it's like asking us to buy into a broken system yet again, in the hopes that it might fix itself.

It won't.

The fact is that this very second President Biden could sign an executive order opening abortion clinics on federal land in the more than 20 states with trigger bans.

He could make abortion pills accessible across the country by using the FDA's guidance to preempt any state of restrictions and an executive order to expand access to telemedicine services for abortion and use the federal control of the mail system to guarantee shipments of abortion pills will not be restricted.

Beyond this, Biden and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate can fight tooth and nail to codify Roe.

They can use every tactic at their disposal to force Joe Manchin and Christian Cinema to get on board with abolishing the filibuster and passing the Women's Health Protection Act.

They can also urgently repeal the Hyde Amendment and tax the billionaires to massively expand funding for clinics now buckling under increased demand.

And in addition to all of this, of course, we would need a host of social services to ensure people can afford to have children when they want them.

This would mean an immediate transition to Medicare for all on a federal level to make all reproductive and gender-affirming care free.

It means bringing back the pandemic-era Child Tax Credit, fighting for universal child care, and fully funding public schools, all of this funded by taxing the wealthy.

However, there is no sign that Biden or the Democrats are going to take any of these steps, so that it is important for us to call for mass action, just like Cori Bush did with the eviction moratorium AOC Bernie and other members of the squad should call for an occupation outside the White House demanding Biden use executive action.

to open abortion clinics and carry out the other steps.

And if the Democratic leadership still refuse to act, then we need to step up the pressure with protests and direct action at the offices of Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

All of this needs to be done, but we will need rank-and-file leadership to make any of this happen.

And in addition to we need action at the local level.

And therefore I urge everybody, all members of the public for listening to this to join me in calling for passing this legislation that my office has put forward.

And I really urge all city council members to vote yes on it.

And if you would like to co-sponsor that legislation with me, please let me know.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Herboldt has her hand up.

Do you have a question for Council Member Sawant?

Council Member Herboldt?

I do.

I have some broader remarks around the Roe v. Wade decision.

I have a specific question about the bill that Council Member Sawant is proposing.

You had mentioned that you were going to be calling on the state to pass legislation that creates sort of sanctuary protections for the state of Washington.

And I see that House Bill 1851 says that the state is prohibited from penalizing, prosecuting, or otherwise taking adverse action against an individual based on the individual's actual potential perceived or alleged pregnancy outcomes, or against an individual for aiding or assisting a pregnant individual in exercising the pregnant individual's right to reproductive freedom with the individual's voluntary consent.

And I'm just wondering, as it relates to the bill that you are proposing for Seattle, have you determined that this bill, 1851, does not cover the city of Seattle?

Council Member Sawant, before you respond, I have a follow-up that I was going to ask the same question as Council Member Herboldt.

The law that she's referring to was passed in March of 2022, and she just read it.

We all were briefed on that.

And what I was going to add to that, if you could respond, is that 30 years ago, the city or the state of Washington has had passed initiative 120 in 1992, which is a state law protecting abortion rights.

So we also know that the governor Inslee yesterday or the day before is proposing an amendment to the Washington State Constitution to protect a woman's right to choose or to obtain an abortion.

So we have three, two laws already on the books.

We have another one coming from the state and we already know of the 21 states that have legalized abortion, Washington State is one of those.

So is your office working or looking at those laws as well so we're not duplicating what's already on the books?

Thank you for those questions.

I will, of course, make sure that my office looks into all of this.

But as far as my knowledge at this moment is that the bill 1851 is not about warrants.

The legislation that my office has put forward is specifically along the lines of the marijuana-related initiative 75, which mandated that Seattle police should put the lowest possible priority on any marijuana-related offenses.

That is exactly the approach that we're using in this legislation.

So it is about the approach to warrants.

Hospital 1851 is not about warrants.

It's about people coming to Seattle to have an abortion.

And all of those laws, I believe, that were mentioned are about abortions that are performed in Washington state.

But the legislation that I've put forward is not about abortions themselves, but it's about the warrants that are outstanding from other states.

Okay, well, I look forward to seeing it.

Council Member Herbold, did you have anything else?

Nope, okay.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues, starting off, happy Pride.

Excited to be here with you.

We do know that summer has arrived, no matter what the weather is because the annual solstice parade in Fremont was a huge success.

Thank you to all the partners who made this happen without a hiccup to all the participants who dressed up, dressed down, made floats or push the floats.

and especially to the Fremont Arts Council for their stewardship of this event every year.

Council Member Nelson, thank you for your assistance in making sure no hiccups occurred.

This is the only parade in Seattle where motorized floats are not used, and it makes for a spectacular show.

Additionally, with 4th of July coming up, I've been working with SDOT to increase bridge operators from one bridge operator to three operators so that departing boats from South Lake Union who need the bridge to raise don't have to wait for the operator to run from one bridge drive from one bridge to another.

I don't think we're going to make them run to allow for traffic from like you need to clear and also thank you to the Coast Guard for allowing us to clear vehicular traffic ahead of it.

Vessel traffic district six I continue to host my regular operational meetings with members of the community.

to move action plans forward at the Leary Triangle, to address homelessness in the Ballard Industrial Area, and to implement the 22nd Avenue Plan in downtown Ballard.

This is in addition to the case conferencing through the mayor's office with LEAD, REACH, SPD, and community members to assist and address people in the district who need more intensive case management across departments, across governmental and non-governmental entities, and with community leaders.

Thank you to all those participants.

I also hosted a 14th Avenue field visit with representatives from SDOT to discuss the larger plan stemming from the Leary Triangle activation.

This is a plan to really create the activation plan for the entire brewery district to maybe take out the things that don't We don't need any more like the derelict railroad tracks, increased pedestrian safety and increased vibrancy.

SDOT and I have also released the next steps for the cafe street on Ballard Avenue that is being used as the pilot for citywide policy creation.

I've been regularly meeting with SDOT and community members to get this project implemented as soon as possible.

These implements include using flexi posts so that we can take down the do not enter signs, shortening pedestrian crossings at intersections, removing unnecessary signage, clarifying load zones and parking, and filling tree pits with rubber so that you're not tripping over tree roots.

Once these improvements are made, I'll host another design shred to understand what has worked well, what needs to be improved, and to focus on the structural integrity and aesthetics of pergolas.

Separately, I met with the Ballard Alliance and North Seattle Industrial Association to discuss the Sound Transit alignment and importance of locating Ballard Station no further east than 15th Avenue.

In the Transportation Committee, when they took up the Sound Transit resolution, I advocated for the needs of Ballard and our surrounding neighborhoods with regards to station placement, and I'll continue to do so as Sound Transit Board does make the final decision, and they'll be making that decision about station alignment and station placement later this month.

During my D-6 office hours, I met with D-6 residents, one from Upper Fremont, one from Whittier Heights, one from Loyal Heights, and three from West Woodland.

We discussed homelessness, public safety, the 33-cent plan proposal to the Metropolitan Parks District, the needs for a greenway on 6th Avenue between Fremont and 65th.

I think we should go all the way to Carkeek and more on that at another time.

6th Avenue really is more desirable than I even realized before this meeting.

At City Hall and around the city I had my check in with Seattle City Light CEO Debra Smith to discuss distributed energy resources in District 6 and how to make SEL owned properties more vibrant in our district.

After the Juneteenth holiday I spent last week attending the Association of Washington City's annual conference in Vancouver.

The board meetings and audit committee as part of my duties as one of the two Seattle representatives to the Association Washington cities.

Last Thursday I also attended the PSRC transportation board meeting to vote on about $57 million in federal funding projects located in King County.

It funds a number of SDOT projects and other countywide investments that directly support our city, including the almost $5.5 million for the 130th Street Transit Corridor to support the new light rail station up there, thanks to the good work of Council President Juarez.

This coming week in city hall and around the city, I'll be meeting with the Muckleshoot Tribal Council to hear their thoughts on how the tribe and city can work together to strengthen relations.

I will also be traveling to the Skagit with Seattle City Light with Mayor Bruce Harrell and Council Member Nelson to represent the City of Seattle in government-to-government meetings with leadership from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe regarding the federal energy regulation relicensing of the Skagit hydroelectric project.

And I'll be joining Council President Juarez later today at the award-winning Seattle Channels Council addition after Council briefing from the land use committee.

There are no items from the land use committee on this week's full agenda.

There is one item from the land related to land use on this week's introduction referral calendar.

It is adding SDCI floodplains third extension for the interim regulations ordinance to today's IRC in July.

Colleagues, we voted on this.

Now this will be the third time extending the window for the floodplain regulations so that we can meet FEMA's updated flood insurance rate maps for King County.

These updated regulations are necessary to remain in compliance with FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program.

In 2021, we extended those interim regulations for an additional year to allow SDCI to create those permanent regulations.

Those permanent regulations have now been drafted and are currently being challenged with a SEPA appeal from our dear friends at the Port of Seattle.

We do indeed love our friends at the Port of Seattle.

So we need to extend these regulations.

We did so in February, 2022. So this will be back before full council.

The next meeting of the Land Use Committee will be on Wednesday, July 13th.

Council President, colleagues, that is my report.

Any questions, friends?

Did I make it under 10 minutes?

I tried.

I didn't clock myself this time.

Yes.

I'll do better next time.

Well, with that, our dear friend, Council Member Herbold, you're up next.

Take it away.

Thank you so much.

So the items on the full council agenda, not coming from my committee because it's going directly to full council, but being sponsored by me, is Council Bill 120351. This is the follow-up legislation.

the bill I sponsored requesting that the Seattle Department of Human Resources update personnel rules to allow the city to pay the relocation expenses of a broad range of salaries, not just the top tiers as is the current rule.

The new rule would provide the requested flexibility and make the necessary changes to the municipal code.

As a follow-up to the intent of the previous bill, I really appreciate President Juarez referring this directly to full council.

Ali Panucci of Council Central Staff sent council members a memo about this legislation this morning.

Existing rules note that this applies when the city is unable to recruit persons in the immediate employment area who possess the unique skills, expertise, and or educational qualification.

As noted in the fiscal note, the maximum reimbursable allowance for qualified moving expenses is $25,049.

And in order to access these benefits, employees must relocate to a distance that meets the IRS distance test, typically 50 miles to qualify.

So look forward to council members support on this bill so we can work on being more competitive, recruiting people to work for the city in departments where they're struggling to fill vacancies, including the Seattle Police Department.

Tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m., the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will meet.

Agenda items include an appointment to the Community Police Commission.

We'll be getting an update from the Mayor's Office on the work plan for the 911 call analysis and scoping of future alternative response to 911. We'll also be receiving an overview of 988 and the behavioral health crisis system.

A briefing will be from King County and Crisis Connections.

And finally, we'll be hearing again, I think this is the third meeting on the legislation regarding investigations of the chief of police, the intent in this committee, is to move the substitute version of the bill before committee and then we'll bring the bill back for final consideration at the July 12th meeting.

just a few issue area.

I want to provide Human Services Department, today is the launch of the Summer Meals Program, which ensures that children receive nutritious meals during the summer months.

Where school is not in session, it provides free meals and snacks during the summer to children 18 and under.

Summer sites will operate June 27th, starting today, through August 24th.

Children are eligible for summer meals if they are between the ages of 1 and 18, and if you want to find locations, you can text the word food to 304-304, or you can email sfsp at seattle.gov.

On the public safety area, after A period of time where the city was experiencing fewer homicides, a much smaller period of time than I would have liked.

There were again last week a number of homicides, including in more than one encampment.

including one in District 1 here in Delridge.

Last week, I met with the Chief of Police and Southwest Precinct Captain Rivera, and he noted that in the homicide at the encampment in Delridge, the homeless person in that area, it was homeless people in that area specifically who were helpful officers in identifying the suspect who was arrested.

So really appreciate community members, including our unsheltered community members, in helping apprehend that suspect.

I also want to flag for interested folks, my newsletter released last week has an update on the Seattle Police Department's new 911 call handling protocol for low-priority three and four calls.

that we received a briefing about in the last Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

There had been some reporting that I didn't feel clarified the ways in which the new approach is intended to be an improvement over the old clarity call handling protocol, and so really wanted to add some additional clarity about those specific improvements in the new approach that SPD is taking on.

What else?

of course, on the devastating Supreme Court decision last week to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Just wanna, and as others have, recognize the fact that millions of women and pregnant people will be unable to access basic healthcare and will be forced into decisions that endanger their safety and their lives, require them to abandon their dreams.

government, whether or not we're talking about local government, state government, or national government, should never ever stand between a pregnant person and their doctor in making this very personal decision about healthcare.

But that's where we are right now.

I'm really grateful that we have so many people in our community coming out to affirm that we in Seattle and Washington State will remain a safe place pregnant people to access health care and want to just also publicly thank Mayor Harrell for announcing last week that he's included $250,000 in the supplemental budget legislation that will be coming very shortly to council.

And this is in direct response to Council's call for increased funding for abortion access in a resolution that Council Member Sawant sponsored when we first heard of the leak of the decision.

I'm also working with public health and abortion advocates to understand where the immediate needs lie, and I want to also speak to my gratitude for Councilmember Morales' leadership in this area, specifically some regulatory efforts that she is leading on, and I really look forward to working with her on those.

And then lastly, in that in that area, I want to just uplift the keep keep our care act.

Senate Bill 5688, House Bill 1809. This was in our state legislative agenda last year, we must pass it this year.

It will prevent continued health system consolidation from moving forward if it negatively impacts communities' access to affordable quality care.

We have this issue with hospital consolidations, creating these limitations that directly impact the ability to access comprehensive healthcare services, and it needs to stop.

On the regional committee, last week I met with the leadership intervention and change steering committee.

I represent the council on that committee meeting.

They work to engage gang-involved and at-risk young people to direct services to address their specific needs.

Also, not hold office hours last Friday.

We'll be looking to reschedule them in July.

And then some major events just want to highlight that I visited the East African Senior Center in Rainier Beach last week.

Since I worked on the effort to get the East African Senior Center funding this year, they invited me to visit a Rainier Beach urban farm and wetland site for a home-cooked Ethiopian meal and to meet the East African elders and the staff which were able to be hired thanks to the council's funding.

And I had a wonderful chance to see the program in its full bloom and I promised folks that I would share the news of my visit with my council colleagues.

So on Saturday, I spoke at the Highland Park Improvement Club reset summer event at the Riverview Park to support efforts to rebuild the facility that burned a year ago on Saturday.

Coming up this week, started week off with meeting with abortion access advocates from the ACLU Washington and Pro-Choice Washington.

I'll also be participating later this week in the Chief of Police Search Committee.

and I think that's all I have.

Do any of my colleagues have questions or comments?

Seeing none, I'll pass it on to Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold, and good afternoon, everybody.

There is one item on tomorrow's full council agenda from the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee, Council Bill 120342, This council bill was kicked forward from last week's full council meeting, meeting with a group of only six council members assembled.

The council was unable to reach the necessary five present and voting members for passage, although a majority of council members present did vote in favor of the council bill.

Councilmember Morales was kind enough to make a motion for reconsideration and allow us to reset this council bill this week.

I appreciate Councilmember Juarez working through the logistics of getting that taken care of so we can reconsider the bill in a timely manner.

We are looking for a replacement of a turf field in exchange for use of that field for certain school related athletic activities.

Arrangement also comes with a commitment from university prep new from the previous arrangement, whereby they will provide 50 hours of programming for the community.

At that location and beyond, so we will be reconsidering that bill at tomorrow's full Council meeting as a reminder that bill did pass with a unanimous recommendation.

of four council members from the committee recommending passage of the bill and with one abstention.

So I look forward to the reconsideration of that bill and the discussion tomorrow afternoon.

This week, or sorry, rather, next week, the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee will meet on July 6th.

And King County is expected to attend and provide a presentation on the proposed land swap of City Hall Park and the various properties that King County is proffering as part of that exchange.

So we will have another conversation about the status of the county's offer and responses to some of the questions the committee made in our meeting on this topic in, I believe, April.

So I look forward to reconvening that discussion and getting the latest updates from our partners at parks and King County on that proposal.

Clean City Update.

Between June 13th and June 19th, the Clean City Initiative collected 1,000 needles and collected 90,660 pounds of trash from various pickup locations.

West Seattle Stadium and District 1 got focused treatment for that period.

And we look forward to continuing to get these updates from the Clean City Initiative.

Moving on to the library.

We have officially kicked off our 103rd Summer of Learning at the Seattle Public Library.

The library's Summer of Learning offers ways for kids to read, learn, explore, and grow all summer, including a superhero action guide and game board available at every neighborhood library location and at seattlepubliclibrary.org slash summeroflearning.

This year's Summer of Learning has a superhero theme, but with a plot twist.

Instead of superheroes that have invisibility or superhuman strength, the library is going to highlight kids with superpowers that can be encouraged in everyone, such as creativity and compassion.

So looking forward to that great program that I remember benefiting from when I was in Seattle Public Schools and look forward to encouraging broader participation through my office's social media and email list and strongly encourage colleagues to share and proliferate that programming opportunity as well.

The next item of business from the library.

I'm excited to relay that the library has announced the stem bullet scholarship winners for 2022. For those who are unfamiliar the stem bullet scholarship is an essay contest that honors the legacy of the late library supporter community leader and activist Simpson bullet.

The contest challenges local high school and college students to write an essay about an individual or group from our state who demonstrated the courage to advance an important community issue at great personal, political, or professional risk.

Each year, $10,000 is divided among three outstanding students and their essays are permanently cataloged in the Seattle Public Library's Seattle Room.

The first place winner this year, Sidra Warnley, will receive a $5,000 scholarship to attend Lewis and Clark in the fall.

Sidra currently attends Garfield High School and visits the Douglas Truth branch of the Seattle Public Library.

The runners up in the contest, Maricia Koltonowska is a University of Washington student and a Northeast branch patron who wrote one of the running up essays and is a Chief Sealth International High Student and a Delridge branch patron.

And Olivia Turner, the other awarded runner-up, oh, sorry, it's Olivia who's the Delridge patron.

Sorry, my script was written a little awkwardly.

So each of the runner-ups will receive $2,500 scholarships for their higher education.

So I'm very, very proud Maricia, Olivia, and Sidra on their selection for the STEM Bullets Scholarship and looking forward to what they continue to achieve in their career.

With that, colleagues, I don't have any additional updates this afternoon, so I will pass it forward to Councilmember Morales isn't here, so I think it's to Councilmember Mosqueda.

But Councilmember Strauss, it looks like you have a question before I call on Mosqueda here.

Yes, I've got a question about the land transfer from the county to the city regarding City Hall Park.

But before we get there, I just want to highlight the Stimson Bullet Award.

Is our society continuing to benefit from the philanthropy of the Stimson family and the Stimson Mill that was located on Churchill Avenue in Ballard?

We can say as we want about cutting down of trees, but here we are.

This is still a benefit to our society.

Just wanted to focus in on the land transfer.

I know Council Member Lewis, you and I had talked about there's two locations in District 6 that are subject to the land transfer, the Greggs Garden Pea Patch on 14th and 54th, 14th and 54th.

I just want to highlight still the desire and the need that when we accept that transfer, we do need to have that property fenced with a fence that is aesthetically pleasing as well.

And then just wanted to check back in, and you don't have to answer me now, I just want to highlight this is something that I've raised before, to make sure that the parcel of land that's being included from Sunset Hill Park has not fallen down the hillside.

I'm all for accepting parcels to make sure that we have a clean ownership of the park, but just want to make sure that that portion hasn't already fallen off the hill.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you.

I am hoping, Councilmember Strauss, that we will get a better understanding of the nature and condition of the parcels being proffered by the county as part of this discussion.

Just as a reminder, I don't believe that SEPA review has begun on the potential transfer yet.

So we still have a lot of deliberative time on this proposal before a decision point is put to the council.

So this is purely, the meeting on the 6th is not anticipated to be a meeting.

Well, it will not be a meeting, I'm not going to go into the details of where any kind of action is taken, since a lot of those prerequisites haven't been completed yet.

This is just an opportunity to get some additional information on some questions that were left outstanding from April, and certainly one of those outstanding questions was kind of the state and nature of some of the parcels, and hopefully we'll get updates along the

Council President, did you have a question?

Council Member Mosqueda, turning it over to you.

Good afternoon.

Sorry for the delay there.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Colleagues, the next Finance and Housing Committee meeting is scheduled for July 6th.

However, as I noted in our last committee meeting, we are going to cancel that meeting.

meeting.

We will continue to meet again on our regularly scheduled time on the third Wednesday of the month which is July 20 at 930 a.m.

At tomorrow's full Council meeting we will have the following items from the finance and housing committee.

We have a motion to approve the consent agenda.

The other item that is policy-related will not be on the consent agenda.

This is Council Bill 120343. This legislation is something, as I noted in our Council briefing a few weeks ago, a piece of legislation I'm very excited about.

We worked in partnership with community organizations through our Community Housing Roundtable that we convene about on a quarterly basis.

And in partnership with the Office of Housing and their previous leadership and current director, Michael Winkler-Chin and her staff to propose modifications to the housing funding policies to create what we're calling the Jumpstart Acquisition and Preservation Program.

This is really about how we use Jumpstart revenue to specifically allocate to smaller organizations to allow for greater self-determination.

One of the things that we heard from organizations repeatedly who are interested in getting into the process of developing housing that is community oriented, that is developed for the community lens, that is coupled with things like childcare and plazas and small business opportunities, is that they had to wait for many years and often told that they needed to partner with other organizations who had more experience and more money.

Well, we're in a point in our city's history where many organizations are wanting to step in and determine for themselves what housing should look like and have true ownership and determination over what those projects and what those dollars should look like.

And I'm very excited that this legislation takes that concept of self-determination and puts it into action by using the Jumpstart Progressive Payroll Tax, which we passed and specifically allocated funding in the spending plan.

to make sure that we could direct it to organizations who are interested in doing this type of work.

This funding goes to help organizations who want to create housing and operate housing using different eligibility criteria.

The funds are intended to contribute to the city's equitable development goals by investing in organizations and projects that are working to address both displacement and to redress the long-standing harms of discriminatory housing policies.

It updates the finance and housing plan to codify the portion of jumpstart funds that we set aside for acquisition, development, and capacity building.

It's really making sure that we're looking at organizations rooted in and serving communities at most risk of displacement and harm by past discriminatory policies.

The fund also responds to the statement of legislative intent in the 2022 budget, which requested Office of Housing to come up with recommendations to modify these policies to remove barriers to acquisition especially for our smaller community-based organizations who are facing additional funding pressures.

And we had a great discussion in committee.

We were joined by members from El Centro de la Raza, Filipino Community Center of Seattle, skipped a PDA.

Folks from Africatown weren't able to join us, but did have intentions to send someone until their plane was delayed, but they were represented in spirit.

And they talked about how this funding is needed to support community-driven affordable housing development, paired with community services like childcare, small businesses, community and cultural space, and more.

I want to thank Erin House from our office, who's really spearheaded this effort over the last two plus years with Tracy Ratcliffe as well.

And Erin had reached out to every single one of your offices in the last week and sent you a video of the committee discussion in case you hadn't had a chance to see it and link it to the materials on the legislation and the programmatic details.

She offered to answer any questions.

And if you still have any questions, please do feel free to reach out to Erin.

today, but we're really thankful for all of your offices participation and responses.

Just to make sure that you knew it was coming up.

We also have on our list for tomorrow Council Bill 120338. This is the ordinance that will accept grants and enable a I'm going to call on the Human Services Department to execute agreements with the funding agency.

The ordinance will also appropriate budget authority that is tied to the grants agreements and Council Bill 120340 legislation that authorizes lease of property near I-5 and I-90 interchange, referenced as the Royal Braun property by the city from the Washington State Department of Transportation.

I want to thank Councilmembers support for this legislation as this is items that go that relate to policy in their committee but because of the funding elements we had in our committee and thank them for their comments in committee as well.

Council President, I just want to add my voice as well to the extreme outrage about the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As our council has stated before, as the state has said before, the choice for any individual to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy should be no one else's decision but theirs.

And it should not be a political decision.

It shall not be a political discussion.

And the need to be able for any individual to access comprehensive health services including reproductive health care access and it sounds like in the future needing to protect anybody's ability to access contraception care as well should be the right of that person and it should never be a fight.

I stand with all of you in continuing to call for cities across this country to be welcoming cities and in every state that we can continue to make sure that we are sending a message that folks will constantly have access to comprehensive health care in Washington State, including access to reproductive care for their bodies and their choice.

I also want to thank Mayor Harreld for the proactive addition of the $250,000, this quarter of a million dollars into their supplemental budget to increase access to services is greatly appreciated.

And Jumpstart was in the news last week.

Last Tuesday, we had the chance to celebrate yet again our city's win in the courts.

The Washington State Court of Appeals upheld Seattle's Jumpstart progressive payroll tax as the law of the land.

The progressive payroll tax that we built together, we being the broader community that have been calling for progressive taxation for years.

We passed in 2020 in the early months of the pandemic that provided critical relief then to those who were in need due to the effects of COVID and critical relief in the outgoing years for housing, Green New Deal, workforce development, equitable resilience, equitable development.

We will continue to be able to seek the rewards for this important investment in our city through the lawful and appropriate Jumpstart Progressive Payroll Tax.

I'm really excited about being able to move forward together.

to make sure that we're implementing the codified spend plan.

And we did send out a statement on the court's decision below.

But I will note, we have now won twice in the actual courts, and we continue to win in the court of public opinion with near two thirds of Seattle voters supporting progressive payroll tax that is known as jumpstart.

So thank you.

We also have some other good news to share.

You may have seen late Friday, we posted again today on our social media that the Human Services Department in our city has reissued the Child Care Grant Awards notification that they are accepting requests for proposals.

This is from the American Rescue Plan Act, the Seattle Rescue Plan dollars that we put in for child care facilities, originally $5 million, working with the previous Council President, We added another million in last year's budget.

So near $6 million available to increase capacity for childcare facilities across our city.

These are things for like expansion or opening a new facility, allowing for the footprint of childcare to grow in the city.

And it can come at a more critical time when we see 7-10% of childcare that existed pre-COVID shutting their doors and potentially not opening again.

So please, please apply.

for these funds.

If you are interested, more information is available on our social media and the deadline is July 19th.

So again, this is not just for the few, few existing nonprofits or the larger publicly traded child cares.

This is for every licensed child care in the city of Seattle.

You are now eligible to apply.

So please go ahead and do so.

And I want to thank HSD, the mayor's office for their addendum that they sent around.

And lastly, Madam President, last there's just a few updates from last week.

Last week I did attend the Association of Washington City's Board of Directors meeting in Vancouver with fellow board member Dan Strauss.

I expressed concerns again for the fifth year in a row we've seen the Association of Washington City's lobby against City of Seattle priorities Whether it's voting rights, the ability to have scooters, key TAM labor protections, housing density and zoning changes, we need to have a better process moving forward to ensure that we are not paying for an association that is directly lobbying in contradiction to what the City of Seattle has prioritized.

And as we said that I want to continue to extend a welcome to the new CEO, the now six CEO and first woman in the 89 year history of the Association of Washington cities.

So, very excited that Deanna Dodson is now at the helm there but we'll continue to take up our concerns around making sure that the city of Seattle's priorities are reconsidered in this under her leadership.

There was surprisingly a good presentation from Joe Minnicosi from Urban 3 and Karen Porlalok from Optics Design.

I posted it on our social media as well, who talked about housing density and the return on investment to cities.

working in partnership with Councilmember Strauss as the chair of land use.

We will be looking forward to having a work session that features these two presenters so that information can be shared more broadly with the residents of Seattle and hopefully published on Seattle Channel as we get into the comprehensive plan updates.

I thought that their presentation was a breath of fresh air.

for the group to be considering.

Last week, I also presented on the Democracy Voucher presentations with LA Council Member Nithya Raman, and we talked about how Democracy Vouchers are a great tool for increasing civic participation.

And I really want to thank the folks from Seattle Subway who are working on the I-5 LID feasibility study in partnership with Senator Marco Elias.

I was hoping to join them this afternoon.

Unfortunately, I'm under the weather and not able to join them for the walking tour of Freeway Park, but look forward to hearing more about them.

Madam President, on July 20th as well, we will have a quick overview of the May 4th materials that we covered.

I know there's been some coverage lately of the possible budget deficit that Seattle is facing.

It is not $117 million for this year, but we will go over those same materials that we discussed on May 4th, and we will hopefully have more information at that July 20th meeting leading into the August revenue forecast.

So folks, I know that there's some concern that those articles have raised, but please note that we will have more opportunities in the next four to six weeks to have a more accurate picture for what it means for us in 2023. And with that, I am done.

No questions?

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

I'll pass it off to you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, everybody.

So I spoke to the Supreme Court decision on Roe three and a half hours or three hours after it came down at the beginning of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

So I won't repeat what I said then, but suffice it to say that I share the horror and outrage voiced by my colleagues today.

And in my comments before the vote on resolution 32054 in support of abortion rights and reproductive rights, I called out actions the city could take, including contributing to the Abortion Access Fund.

So I, too, thank and commend Mayor Harrell for including a $250,000 contribution in the July supplemental.

Okay, so tomorrow there's one item from the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee on the agenda, which is Council Bill 120349, which authorizes City Light to accept $4.5 million from the Department of Commerce and convey those funds and $1.25 million of City Light funding to the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission for the purchase of mining rights in an otherwise protected area in B.C.

surrounding the headwaters of the Skagit River.

And the bill passed out of committee unanimously, and I'll give a bit more detail tomorrow, but for now, just let me say that it's a major environmental win and the culmination of years and years of collaboration and hard work.

Also at last week's committee meeting, the OED interim director, Markham McIntyre, gave a presentation on what he's calling the new OED, which is the Office of Economic Development, and its priorities for an equitable recovery and inclusive economy.

And then finally, we had our first discussion of city lights 2023 to 2028 strategic plan and rate path.

And we'll have our second discussion and possible vote at our next meeting on July 11th.

City Light is setting up briefings with members of the committee and they're also happy to meet with and answer questions from other council members.

So let me know if you would like that or Eric McConaughey and we can facilitate that.

And I do want to thank team and of my office who clerked that meeting, and was on a really steep learning curve to learn how to run a meeting, and, and it was exciting to be there in person in chambers, and we didn't have any major problems with technology.

All right, some meetings of note for the past couple of weeks.

On July 15th, I attended a Friends of the Waterfront event for about 50 people or so.

And many of them were new to Seattle and didn't know much about Waterfront Seattle.

So I spoke about the economic benefit of our transformed waterfront once it's completed.

And I'll just give a couple of high points.

It will, there will be $288 million of ongoing economic benefits that just from the Waterfront Seattle Operations Maintenance and Programming, and that's not including visitor spending and the benefits of that.

There will be projected 2,300 permanent jobs it'll support and $103 million of wages it'll generate just for the operations and maintenance.

So it was just nice to be invited to speak, but also to learn about the status of the project.

And they are giving tours.

If anybody is interested, Friends of the Waterfront is happy to set that up for you.

And it's just really interesting to think that pretty soon we'll be able to walk five blocks and enjoy the natural beauty of the sound in mountains.

At our transformed civic front porch, All right, then on Thursday, June 16th, I met with representatives of the Port, North Seattle Industrial Association, Recreational Boating Association, and American Waterways operators, speaking on behalf of the Save the Harbor Patrol Coalition.

This is a coalition of 13 plus maritime businesses and organizations, including the Floating Homes Association, Washington Maritime Federation, and the Northwest Marine Trade Association, to name a few, who are concerned about the severe staffing reductions to Harbor Patrol in recent years and its impacts on boating safety, public safety along the waterfront, and the availability of police services at major maritime events.

Just some background, before 2020, Harbor Patrol had at least 26 specially trained officers deployed on three boats.

And there are now only about 18 officers staffing one Harbor Patrol boat.

This is division of SPD, by the way.

And historically, they've been responding to about 6,000 calls a year, but we're anticipating a sharp increase due to the fact that sales of recreational boats soared during the pandemic.

So there are a lot more boats and inexperienced boaters on our water.

And then plus stand up paddle boards and kayaks continue to be very popular in Lake Union and also in Lake Washington.

So that's the foundation of their concerns.

And the coalition requests an increase in one more boat this summer and the eventual restoration of three going forward.

Additionally, the coalition requests the city put in motion the fully funded study sponsored by Council Member Strauss and last year's budget designed to help ascertain proper Harbor Patrol staff levels and equipment needs going forward.

And Council President, I will refrain from engaging in any policy discussion at this point.

All right.

In case you missed it, on June 16th, FIFA made its long-awaited announcement that Seattle will be one of the host the nation's host cities for the 2026 World Cup and the Sports Commission visits Seattle, King County in the city and Sounders ownership I think must have placed bets on the outcome of this announcement because they staged a great party on the waterfront and It was it was a beautiful day and it was it was the perfect opportunity to celebrate Seattle as a world class global sports city.

And also I am now placing a bet also celebrate our home team, the Sounders, and their sure win of the championship.

Anyway, just kidding.

So yeah.

I spent Friday, June 17 on a PSRC regional connections tour in Kitsap County.

We took the fast ferry from Bremerton and met the mayor at the Harborside Conference Center, and he pointed out the new residential project under construction on the site of an old decommissioned city parking lot.

And we then moved on to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, toured that by bus, and learned that it is the largest of the five shipyards that make up the Naval Shipyard Kitsap, which employs 44,000 people directly.

We then went on to the Port of Bremerton, learned about economic development projects going on there, And then to the we were hosted by.

Leonard Forsman, who is the Squamish tribe chairman, and he hosted us for lunch at the Clearwater Casino.

We ended the tour on Bainbridge Island and learned about things that you don't often see on the island, several industrial parks that are outside the downtown Winslow area.

It was a great trip and learning about other counties' efforts.

is always good to put into context other things that we could do.

Let's see.

Last week, my chief of staff, Jeremy Moen, attended the Association of Washington Cities, forging relationships and learning about what other cities are doing on some of the very same challenges Seattle is facing.

And finally, I went to dinner hosted by the Washington Technology Industry Association and the Global Blockchain Council.

with leaders of the industry and a representative of the Department of Commerce and several regional policy makers, including Senator Wellman from the 41st Legislative District, Bellevue Mayor Lynn Robinson, and Deputy Mayor Yamaguchi.

And the purpose was simply to have an informal conversation about the current state and future vision of the blockchain industry locally, and also learn of its potential application as a tool to meet policy goals.

So I know next to nothing about blockchain technology, so I did a lot of listening.

In any case, that is my report, and I open it up to questions or comments.

Well done.

10 minutes.

Council Member Nelson.

Seeing none.

What were you going to say?

I said, well done, Council Member Nelson, under 10 minutes.

So Council Member Mosqueda is under the impression that she has rollover minutes when she's not here.

And no, you don't.

Yeah.

She wants to be able to roll those minutes.

So it's like the old phone plans.

They don't work like that.

Vice President, I thought it was 10 minutes per week.

No.

So let me get, before I go into, My report, I just want to briefly thank Council Member Sawant and Council Member Morales and Mosqueda and certainly, well, actually all my colleagues, Council Member Nelson, who spoke about our response to the Hobbs decision and what we plan to do about it.

I think I was, Roe v. Wade came out in 1973 and I was 14. Title IV came out in 1972, and I was 13. And so for me, it's a real profound moment to be 63 and recognize that I had more rights to privacy and liberty than to my two adult daughters.

I wanted to read the Hobbes decision, so I actually printed it out and brought it home and read it.

And without going into everything about what I thought and thinking about it and trying not to listen to all the talking heads over the weekend, I think the thing that struck me, a lot of things struck me, on two levels, on intellectual and a personal level.

On an intellectual level, Justice Alito's language about a woman's right to obtain an abortion was not an essential component of quote, unquote, ordered liberty.

That's some real handmaiden language right there.

That's just, it's not right because what we're really talking about is privacy and liberty under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, which is guaranteed to us.

under the United States Constitution and has been upheld for 50 years.

And so I, while I respect Council Member Swann's position, I would disagree that not all Democrats are just sitting back and letting this happen.

We have been hit with something difficult these last four or five years.

And with that decision and a couple other decisions, including the prayer decision, which is just, you know, another decision that we have to look at what our rights are in privacy.

On a more personal note, those of us that have their children and have daughters that are having children and are going to move forward in our allies and our men, I don't think we can look away from the arguments on both sides about the sanctity of life.

I was raised Catholic, so I understand that position.

Do I always agree with it?

No.

But I would hope that some of these discussions, that we could both look to each other's humanity and understand each other's position about life, but that as a foundation, we start from a medical, perspective from a foundational basic fact perspective before we go into a political morality discussion.

I find that what's troubling to me is that the good thing is we still have 21 states where the right to obtain an abortion still remains legal.

I think what's scary to me is that we have these 13 states with trigger laws that the minute Hobbs came down, those triggers will kick in.

And people from other states, as Comptroller Sawant pointed out, will be coming to states like Washington, Oregon, and California to obtain their right to an abortion.

And it'd be our job to stand there to help with access and costs and making sure that no one is prosecuted for people exercising a right that is ours.

The other part is that what saddens me is that there are still 16 states that are going to hold abortion illegal even in the case of rape and incest.

And those of us that have been a victim to rape understand what that means in a very profound way.

And some of the things that I've heard about how people believe that you can't get pregnant if you're raped or all these other crazy things, again, it just underscores to me just pointing out that we have to have some basic facts to discuss this very important issue and what's going to happen with our country.

I don't want to say anything more about it.

I'm, quite frankly, still going through some of the dissenting opinions by the other three justices, very alarmed at Justice Thomas' words and some of the things that he said.

And I, quite frankly, think they were terror-driven to scare us.

And I'm hoping that people aren't afraid.

If you're not, you don't have to be a lawyer to read this, but I think it's important to read it and to understand it.

And I appreciate the central staff that sent out an email Friday about those of us that wanted to talk about it, that we could.

I know that we are a nonpartisan Seattle City Council, but we certainly are allowed an opinion about how we feel about the law.

And as we shared earlier when Council Member Herbold brought this up, this state did pass an initiative in 1992 protecting a woman's right to an abortion.

And then in March, we also passed another law to protect people getting an abortion and those that aid them.

So I think our state is on the right path and will continue on the right path with those protections.

And I think I just want to end with, we have to be honest about this difficult discussion and listen to both sides and try not to come at each other with anger or dishonesty or politics.

And we need to hear arguments for both sides.

And I keep saying that because it's important.

And that we do look at the health care and the medical issues as a foundation to start those discussions.

And the bottom line is, if a woman or a man, nobody wants more abortions.

That's not who we are.

We are going to face this, so I know that I'm looking forward to seeing what Council Member Sawant is teeing up for us to look at and how we can work with the state to strengthen those rights and those protections and access.

So I will leave it at that because I don't want to go over my 10 minutes.

So I will go ahead with my report.

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

The next committee meeting is July 21st at 9.30.

Last week, I sent each of my colleagues, all of you received the 2021 Annual Report of the Seattle Indian Health Board, also known as the Good Medicine Report.

I also recently sent each council member the Washington Indian Gaming Association's 2022 Economic and Community Benefits Report.

report, which detailed the economic contributions of our 29 federally recognized tribes.

One of the most impressive statistics offered by the report is that tribes create one in 86 of our jobs in our state.

I want to thank my colleagues, some of you that mentioned that you'll be meeting with the tribes up north on not only on the dam issues.

This is something that we've been working on and more than a land acknowledgement.

that city council to the legislative branch actually works with tribes government to government in any field any issue that's in your committee, and that you use sovereignty and understand tribal sovereignty as a tool to make our city better whatever the issue is housing economic develop recreation.

you name it, that's something that we can work with with tribes.

In regards to Sound Transit, I attended a Sound Transit Board of Directors meeting where we unanimously confirmed Julie Timm as the new CEO of Sound Transit.

Julie Timm is the current director of the Richmond Transit Company in Richmond, Virginia.

She'll begin on September 26th.

I also attended a Sound Transit North King sub-area meeting where staff briefed me on improvements being made in platform safety compliance to the Civil Rights Act and options for the West Seattle Ballard Link light rail extension.

And again, these are just options and refinements that we're still discussing.

Regarding platform safety, Sound Transit recently announced a series of construction projects called Future Ready, with the first project in Columbia City starting July 11th.

Starting August 19th, Sound Transit will be doing critical repair work to a second platform in Columbia City to make critical safety improvements to tile work and to prevent tripping and falls.

Okay, riders should sign up for the rider's alert at Sound Transit or to get further information on construction impacts when it becomes available.

In other Sound Transit news, my staff toured the Chinatown ID with King County Sound Transit board members and met with business owners concerned about potential impacts, construction impacts, when we do light rail.

Last week's summary.

Last Thursday marked the official 50th anniversary of Title IX.

Thank all of you for participating and signing the proclamation.

Our communications team did a great job getting the word out on social media.

A big thank you to Jenny Gelder of Sailstorm and Jackie McCormick of Rise Above.

In addition to the annual Pride Parade on Sunday, this past weekend was the annual Seafair Pirates landing at Elkeye.

The landing marks the start of a series of seafair events that have been on hiatus due to the pandemic but are now back.

Coming up this week, tomorrow I welcome all of you to join me in sending a fond farewell to our wonderful and esteemed city clerk, Monica Martinez-Simmons.

The party will begin at four in the Bertha Knights Landis Room.

As you know, Monica started with the council in 2010 and is leaving with a wealth of experience, institutional knowledge, and wisdom.

I, for one, am going to miss her greatly.

She is the one that lets me know how the hell to do this job.

Thank you, Monica.

On Wednesday, I will be attending a graduation ceremony for the students in the Refugee Women's Alliance, that's REWA, in Lake City.

with our friend Susan Lee, we have three schools I think we got two more coming online.

They're the little guys that we take out to go ice skating and the graduation if you could join me is pretty fun with all the kids on Friday I'll be meeting on site with representatives of North Haven, they've been a friend of ours, since the day I was elected as senior.

living community in Northgate, the Northgate neighborhood regarding crime in and around their building.

We've worked with them on up zones and other social programs and services.

And they've just been a good friend to the city of Seattle and certainly District 5. And with that, that concludes my report.

So any questions before I take this into executive session?

Okay, not seeing any.

Before I call us into executive session, I need to read this into the record to make it legal.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into an 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 city attorneys as authorized by law.

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

I expect the time of the executive session to end by, or at least go for 45 minutes.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension in the expected duration.

Madam clerk, is there anything else I need to do?

You're doing just fine, Council President.

We'll wait for Eric to notify us that only authorized attendees are on the call.

So please stand by.

And I would also offer this.

We have three different sessions.

We don't need to pause between session one and two because the presenters and the attendees will be the same, but we will need to pause before session three.

Madam Clerk, let me ask you this, because we've done it two different ways.

So can I adjourn now?

And then if we need to, so I can just get that out of the way.

Recording stopped.

You can just state that the meeting will be adjourned following the executive sessions.

I think the recording just stopped.

I don't think we're on air anymore.

That's correct.

We were on recording.

Thank you, Eric, for stopping that.

And I'm turning off Chambers.

OK.

Well, I guess we're going to stop recording then.