Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 7/15/2020 Session I

Good morning, everyone.

Today is July 15, 2020, and it is 10.03 AM.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee for the Seattle City Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Lewis?

Lewis?

Present.

We got that.

Present.

OK, thank you.

Morales?

Here.

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Here.

Strauss.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Chair Mosqueda.

Chair Mosqueda.

Seven present.

My apologies.

I'm here.

This is Lisa Herbold.

Okay.

Eight present.

We have a motion and a second.

It appears that we have lost our chair.

It looks like she is logging back in.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

For folks hanging on, we are going to give Councilmember Mosqueda an opportunity to get oriented again.

I will filibuster in the meantime.

Your audio is not working.

Apologies to folks watching us.

We're just having a little bit of a technology challenge at the moment, so appreciate everybody's patience, including those folks who are waiting to give public comment this morning.

Sorry for the slight delay here.

It's like she's still having some issues with the technology.

Unfortunately, I don't have the cheers script so.

I'm going to suggest that we go into recess for just a quick moment.

If we can stop the recording and just go into recess for about five minutes to address some of the technology issues, I'd be greatly appreciated.

I see that Seattle Channel is no longer recording.

I appreciate that.

So, colleagues, let's just stand by a little bit longer to give Chair Musgate an opportunity to troubleshoot her technology.

Colleagues, I apologize for that.

I want to thank Council President for going into recess.

Madam Clerk, how many more minutes until our recess is over?

It's five minutes.

The lottos have expired.

All right.

Before we get started, let me make sure that I sound fine.

Okay.

Well, good morning again, everyone.

Sorry for the interruption.

We are resuming our Select Budget Committee.

Again, today is July 15th, 2020. The clerk has read the rule.

Madam Clerk, will you please, again, identify how many council members we have here present with us?

Eight present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Is there anybody who's joined us late that didn't get a chance to say present?

Because I am present now.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Again, Council Colleagues, it is our intent to have public comment at the beginning of every Select Budget Committee, and there is a lot of people signed up for today's public comment.

The first item on our agenda is public comment, so I'm going to get right into that.

We will open public comment for the period of at least 45 minutes.

Given the delay, I may add additional time.

The public comment period will be given 45 seconds for each person to speak.

I will call three speakers at a time in the order in which they are registered on the list today, giving preference to Seattle residents, and then if time permits, going to the remaining speakers.

If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can still sign up for public comment.

Once I call the speaker's name, the staff will unmute you and a microphone will promptly tell you that you've been unmuted.

That's your cue to begin speaking.

Please start with your name and tell us what topic you're here to address.

You will hear a 10-second chimer when your allotted time is about to conclude so that you get a chance to wrap up your comments.

When you're done speaking, please do hang up and connect again to watch the rest of the meeting through the Listen In line or Seattle channel.

All of these options are listed on our agenda for today.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first three speakers who are present on the list.

Apologies for the delays, folks.

Here we go.

Maya Garfinkel, Sarah Bender, and Erin Mendel.

Welcome and thank you for waiting.

Maya, please begin.

My name is Maya Garfinkel and I'm a tenant organizer with Be Seattle and I grew up in B5.

By demanding the city defunds the SPD and investment communities, activists are fighting for people of color to live, thrive, and stay in Seattle.

We as a city are not in this housing and gentrification crisis by accident.

Centuries of racist housing discrimination and exclusion in Seattle, including the Native and Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1923 zoning laws, which formulated the residential zoning codes many continue to fight to preserve, were developed expressly to exclude Black people from Seattle neighborhoods and have brought us a catastrophic housing shortage.

Activists leading the fight live and know the legacies of this housing history and are calling on their elected officials to give them the resources they need to theorize and implement the solution.

Defund SPD.

Thank you.

Sarah Bender, welcome.

My name is Sarah Bender.

I'm a community member.

Cutting SPD by 50% will result in less than 700 officers on the street across three shifts, 365 days per year, which is hardly enough to serve the needs of over 730,000 community members even with other systems in place.

What is your plan if some major crisis occurs?

Are you prepared to be held accountable for a lack of emergency response?

While some of the department's funding can certainly be redirected to other community support dedicated to prevent crime, this should be done over time and with intention.

Please consider reviewing the department's proposed budgets at 20% cut, 30%, et cetera.

Please slow down, be intentional, and involve more people at the table, including representatives of SPD, so that we can collaborate to come up with an intentional action to care for Seattle community members.

Thank you.

Thank you Sarah.

Aaron Mandel.

Welcome.

Hi my name is Aaron Mandel.

I'm a lifelong resident of District 6. I'm attending today's City Council budget hearing in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50% and reinvesting in community-led solutions because it is well past time we actually invested in real solutions that keep us safe and not in a failed, racist, militarized police department.

In addition to defunding police, SPD by 50%, I urge councilmembers to support decriminalize Seattle and King County equity analysis four-point plan for community reinvestment of those funds to replace current 911 operations with a civilian-controlled system, scale up community-led solutions, fund a community-created roadmap to life without policing, and invest in housing for all.

Please support defunding SPD and community reinvestment now, and don't let

Thank you, Aaron.

The next three speakers are Lucas Vargas, Robert Krushenek, and Mike Sloan.

Welcome, Lucas.

Good morning.

Hi, I'm Lucas, an organizer with 350 Seattle.

The Jumpstart Spend Plan, as shaped by the amendment Councilmember Mosqueda is bringing forward today, is a down payment on a just recovery for communities struggling against the COVID-19 pandemic and Seattle's Green New Deal.

We are proud to have worked with partners in labor, affordable housing advocates, environmental justice leaders, and Council Member Mosqueda's office to put forward this proposal after extensive community consultation.

This plan will create local clean energy jobs that will help make good on the council's commitment to eliminate climate pollution in Seattle.

It ensures communities already most impacted by the climate crisis and economic injustice are served first.

It prioritizes job training and retraining for workers impacted by COVID-19 and the transition away from fossil fuels.

In the same spirit, we support defunding the SPD by over 50% and reinvesting the funds in Black and Brown communities.

Thank you, Lucas.

Robert, welcome.

Thank you.

My name is Robert Crookshank.

I'm a homeowner in Greenwood in District 6. Ten years ago, I worked in the mayor's office when a consent decree was negotiated.

It was better than nothing, but clearly insufficient.

Police officers shot and killed Charlena Lyles during the consent decree.

Her murder was ruled justified during the consent decree.

Two weeks ago, Seattle police brutalized a reporter and protesters.

They caused an international incident.

The mayor has had no public response to this.

The stories that reporter told were harrowing.

They're the stuff of authoritarian regimes, and they happened here in Seattle just two weeks ago.

This shows the urgent need to act now.

Slowing down means more death and suffering.

The community demands we defund SPD.

Yesterday, the decriminalize Seattle movement held a teach-in going into clear detail about how we can do it.

We've had detailed discussions about it.

I urge you to reject the mayor's lies, step up, and defund SPD's budget by 50%.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mike Sloan.

This is Mike Sloan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

I appreciate the council's time today as I address the reckless movement to defund SPD.

I cite 2016 led study on behalf of then Mayor Murray, citing that the department needs more officers due to the robust economy and the population growth in the city of Seattle.

Six weeks ago, President Gonzalez is on record applauding the work of the men and women of the Seattle Police Officers Guild conducting the reform work leading on training and de-escalation.

This defund movement is reckless, does not purport nor represent the ignored majority of the citizens of the city.

You still have time.

I urge everybody to not back this position.

Okay thank you very much Mr. Sloan.

Olivia Smith followed by Jessica Escaslo and Jeslyn Huerta.

Welcome Olivia.

Olivia Smith with Youth Undoing Institutional Racism.

Our language has been co-opted so I'm going to talk about institutionalized white supremacy.

Same thing, systems institutions working together to give white people best possible outcomes.

Birkin's family history, her grandparents, Italian Catholic colonizers assimilated into whiteness, both her father and grandfather were in state legislature, nearly all seven of their siblings are high up in government, law, and media.

I think J.D.

knows full well that the systems killing our people are the same systems helping her people thrive and gain more power.

That's institutionalized white supremacy.

With the economy the way it is and climate change, I think there are a lot more crises coming.

Mayor Karen and these stay-at-home moms running police support groups need to take a seat.

We ain't got no time for their games.

Defund the police by 50%, period.

Peace.

Next we have Jessica.

Welcome, Jessica.

Thank you.

Hello, Council.

My name is Jessica Scalzo and I live in District 3. I am calling in support of defunding the police by 50% because in my eyes, the police are here to protect the wealthy and property owners and do a lot more harm to all the rest of us.

I urge the Council members to support the four-point plan put forward by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now.

which is replacing 911 operations with a civilian-controlled system, scaling up community-led solutions, funding a community-created roadmap to life without policing, and investing in housing for all.

And on the last point, use the Amazon tax to build the first 1,000 homes for specifically Black families in the Central District.

Thank you.

Jazlyn Huerta, welcome.

Hello I'm Jocelyn Huerta.

I live in District 3 on Capitol Hill and I'm calling to request that you decrease the STD budget by at least 50 percent and reinvest that money into community led solutions.

I'm excited and honestly for the first time in a while I feel hopeful because of decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now's four point plan.

Council Member Juarez I know you said we need a plan not a percentage and like you in their wealth add up strategy we get both.

So we have an opportunity to make real systemic change, and I'm hoping that you, our representatives, hear the call and answer.

We have too much of our police force, and it's clear that it's not working.

Let's demilitarize the SPD and reinvest that into community-led solutions.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

The next three people are Garrett Blingsman.

Megan Murphy and Ashley Douglas.

Garrett, welcome and apologies for the mispronunciation on your last name.

That's okay.

My name's Garrett Blassingame, resident.

I'm attending today's City Council budget hearing in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50% and reinvesting in community-led solutions because the system is bloated and not currently serving the people.

The council, in part from leadership by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now, has laid out plans for how to accomplish these goals clearly, despite any claims by our current mayor, and should proceed.

Jenny Durkin's negotiation from the other day is simply not enough.

Also, Alex Peterson, please listen to and respond to your constituents.

I know your inbox has been flooded with calls for 50% defunding.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

The next three people are Ashley Douglas, Jacob Lynn Wall and Ab Jonner.

Ashley welcome.

Ashley Douglas.

Hello.

Thank you.

My name is Ashley Douglas.

I support defunding SPD by 50 percent and I like other callers urge you to support decriminalized Seattle and King County Equity Now's four point plan to community or community reinvestment.

I previously lived in the Central District and recently moved to Capitol Hill.

When Cox murdered Charlene Lyles in her home, it was not an isolated incident.

It was a tragic example of the racist standard in the department.

When white folks started listening to their black peers and protesting in support.

Anyway, SED must demilitarize and be held accountable for literal war crimes as a first step toward regaining public trust, defund police, and invest in black and brown communities now.

Thanks for bearing with me if I misunderstood this.

Thank you for bearing with us.

Thank you for bearing with us.

I know that it's a lot to get in in a short amount of time.

Again, a reminder when you hear that chime, you'll have about 10 seconds to wrap up with a slight grace period at the end to finish any remaining comments.

But thanks for calling in today.

We appreciate it.

And if you don't get your chance to say all of your words, please do email us at counsel at Seattle dot gov. Jacob, welcome.

Thank you.

My name is Jacob William Wall.

I live in District 5, and I would like to thank most of the City Council for voting to defund the SPV by at least 50% and follow decriminalize Seattle's four-point plan.

I think it's extremely telling that the mayor, my own representative Deborah Juarez, and the pro-police advocates who are just showing up today, welcome guys, only became interested in analysis after it became clear that they could not end the conversation by simply using violence.

The pro-cop side had their chance to negotiate, and they chose instead to gas shoot and beat peaceful demonstrators.

There is a plan, and we need to implement it now over these obvious bad faith objections.

50% is a good start.

Now is already too late for some of us.

I yield my time.

Thank you very much.

Ab, welcome.

My name is Ab.

My name is Ab Winner with Puget Sound SAGE and South Core speaking on the Jump Start Spend Plan.

COVID-19 further exposed our society's structural inequities evident in how BIPOC communities are extremely impacted by this crisis.

The fractures in our economy came out of centuries of extracting resources and creating wealth from BIPOC land and labor.

We need bold community driven solutions for a future rooted in racial equity and community self-determination.

Equitable development initiatives and a Green New Deal are racial justice, values-driven policies that BIPOC communities fought for.

We urge the council to pass a jumpstart spend plan with 10% for EDI and 10% for Green New Deal.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Patience Malava followed by Eric P. and then Isaac Boyance.

Patience, welcome.

Thank you.

My name is Patience Malava with the Housing Development Consortium.

I want to start by thanking you, Council, for passing Jump Start Seattle.

As you deliberate on the SPAM plan today, I urge you to protect the capital and O&M allocation of the SPAM plan.

Please use this new progressive revenue to invest deeply in the production and operation of housing, housing that is permanently affordable and environmentally sustainable.

I urge you to avert short-term fixes that will not increase long-term supply of affordable housing.

Thank you.

Eric, welcome.

The City Council has offered no...

Hello?

Hi, Eric.

We've restarted your time.

Please go ahead.

Excellent.

Thank you.

The City Council has offered no viable solutions to the public safety risks and unintended consequences of their reckless actions.

Over 10,000 crisis calls annually, SPD has a 1.6 use of force rate and an arrest rate of under 10%.

All Seattle police officers have 40 hours of training in de-escalation and crisis intervention over the last five years.

And 73% of patrol officers are 40-hour CIT certified.

SPD has five full-time officers and five full-time mental health professionals.

And SPD is continually recognized as a national leader in de-escalation and interactions with persons in crisis.

The City Council has steadily turned this once-emerald city into a dystopian nightmare.

Keep our communities safe and do not defund the police.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Isaac Boyance?

Hi, my name is Isaac Boyance.

I'm attending today's Seattle Council budget hearing in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50% and reinvesting in community-led solutions.

I'm doing this because I'm afraid of the police, and have been for most of my 28 years.

I've seen the police pull up in unmarked vans, and 15 officers pull guns on my stepfather because he looked like somebody that they were after.

I've seen SWAT team kill my cousin while his child was in his arms.

The police don't protect my community, they terrorize it.

This can only be fixed by abolition, or at a minimum, defunding the police.

Let Seattle be an example for when it's possible.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you, Mr. Boyance.

The next three speakers are Reverend Jeffrey Erica Logan and Jabri Ade.

Reverend Jeffrey welcome.

My name is Robert L. Jeffrey.

I'm a pastor of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

In 1961 Seattle initiated a racist initiative to remove African-Americans from the central area.

Today is time to undo that initiative and I'm calling in favor of the 1,000 affordable housing units to be built in the central area.

We have an opportunity to do the right thing and we should use this opportunity.

In addition I'm calling in to to support the Defund the Police initiative.

So I think that now is the time for us to do the right thing in Seattle.

Thank you very much Reverend Jeffrey.

Erica Logan welcome.

Erica Gallardo Logan welcome.

Thank you.

I'm Erica Gallardo Logan a resident of City Council District 3 as an economist by training a family member to police officers and a person of color.

I strongly support divestment from the Seattle Police Department.

also called defunding SPD in a thoughtful way.

The unfortunate truth is more training and diversity among police officers, while intrinsically valuable, will not work to end inappropriate use of force.

The most studied and supported method to help our communities is to assign more appropriate professionals, such as licensed social workers, community medical professionals, etc. to respond to specific types of emergencies.

It should not be a surprise that that shift in responsibility also necessitates a shift in funding.

We are all on the same team.

Thank you for listening.

I strongly support defunding the police.

Thank you very much.

Erika, Jabari, welcome.

Could you repeat the question?

Mr. Ade, it's J-A-B-A-R-I-A-D-D-A-E.

And my apologies from the associations.

Welcome.

Hi, I'm Jabari Ade.

I'm a lifelong Seattle resident, person of color, and son of a convicted felon.

I, however, have committed myself to attempting to ensure that our community is safe.

I have pride that our police department treats our community with dignity and respect.

Please do not cut Seattle Police's budget by 50%.

Doing so will plunge our city into chaos.

Do not throw away everything that our city has worked for.

Thank you.

Thank you, and apologies for the name.

Commence pronunciation on my part.

Ethan Manas, Sarah Scott, and Victoria Woods-ar-key.

Woods-ar-key.

So sorry, everyone.

Ethan, welcome.

Was that me, Ethan Mance?

Yes, thank you, Ethan.

Yeah, so I'm calling in support of defunding SPD by 50% at least and reinvesting in community solutions because investment in community is what keeps communities safe.

When we talk about neighborhoods that are popularly regarded as safe, what do we see?

It's not more police officers roaming the streets like in my neighborhood.

It's high rates of homeownership.

It's good schools.

It's access to healthy food.

It's strong community relationships.

These black communities exist in a state where the city refuses to invest in solutions that support the people that actually live there, instead opting only to support projects that only support gentrification, all while sending legions of armed officers who, remember, mostly don't even live in our city, but are funded with our tax dollars to come in here with guns and keep their knees on our neck.

I support King County Equity now and decriminalize Seattle's four-point plan for community reinvestment and defunding the police.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sarah Scott, welcome.

Hi there.

Hi there, council.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me.

I am completely against defunding the police.

Seattle police officers are human beings.

They are mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters who took an oath to serve the citizens of the city of Seattle.

They have served selflessly during the COVID-19 global pandemic, coming to work on the front lines while so many, including the city council, were able to work from home and stay safe.

They worked the front lines during protests while taking bottled rocks cement, bricks, explosive devices, frozen water bottles, and other items pelted at them.

They listen to protesters scream comments like, take your gun, put it under your chin, and pull the trigger, while council members stood by, unfazed by these peaceful protesters' comments.

They come to work every day, while elected officials play politics with their careers.

Please do not fund SPD.

The next person is Victoria.

Welcome.

Hi.

This is Victoria.

I'm a 20-year resident of the city.

The city's charter has three pillars centering around the protection, health and safety of its citizens.

An arbitrary 50% SPD budget reduction fails all three and negatively impacts every resident by reducing staff numbers and response time.

What thorough educated research was done to make these cuts?

How does this address the issues of policing policy and standards reform?

judicial reform, providing services and programs that advance the viability for underserved communities and create pathways for positive change.

This is a knee-jerk reaction and not thoughtful, educated policy.

I have traveled the world, but only in my hometown have I been the victim of a violent crime upon my person.

The city is not safe, and this does not make it safer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three people are Jesse Willard, Christine Bloom, and Reverend Anjali Ging.

Jesse, welcome.

Hi, my name is Jesse Willard, and I am calling as a Seattle resident to support this proposed defunding of SPD.

I would like to thank City Council for taking real action here and say that I think that redirecting funding away from policing toward agencies better equipped to handle the problems we face as a city is a vital part of making this a more just, safer, healthier place for all Seattleites, especially Black, Indigenous, and other Seattleites of color.

It's something that so many of us have known is necessary for so long, and I want to thank Council and especially the people in the streets for making what seemed impossible very possible.

may be even inevitable.

As a political scientist and a comparativist, I can say with confidence that we know there are better ways.

And I'll add that one thing that many protesters and many police agree on is that police in this society are asked to do too much.

So let's take this opportunity to rethink who the best responders are across the board and find better options instead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Christine, welcome.

Hi, Christine.

speaking about do not defend SPD.

The Seattle Police Department has completed 10 of 10 assessments with a settlement agreement and consent decree.

The letty has ordered on releasing SPD from federal site.

Defending the police department could jeopardize all the progress that has been made.

Good training.

Good hours put in for these officers.

The settlement agreement and consent decree specifies training supervisory de-escalation less lethal tools and oversight as primary focus while under federal oversight.

Defunding of the jeopardizes EPD's focus as well as compliance with the formal agreement.

Thank you for your time.

Do not defund SPD.

Thank you very much.

Reverend Angela Ying welcome.

Thank you.

I am the.

Thank you.

I am the Reverend Angela Yang Senior Pastor Bethany United Church of Christ.

I stand with over 220 clergy and numerous community leaders many waiting to speak today to urge the council to invest 50 million dollars per year to fund a thousand new affordable homes in the CD.

Included in your spending plan resolution of 240 million 214 million and begin to reverse gentrification and displacement of thousands of our Black families.

We call on you the council to be bold and to prioritize Black lives by investing and propose the proposed $50 million per year.

Thanks to council members so want to fund and build a thousand new affordable homes in the CD for our Black families to return live and thrive.

Defund the SBD for in doing so we will do justice for all.

It is time.

Do the right thing.

Thank you.

Thank you, the next three people to speak are Day Tabert, Logan Bowers, and Kerry Grant.

Just double checking, do we have Mr. Tabert with us or Ms.

Tabert?

Hi.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

I didn't, okay.

My apologies.

We're going to restart your time here.

Thank you for being with us today, Dave.

Sure.

OK.

Dave Tabbitt, District 6. I want to thank the council first for listening to their constituents and pledging to the cause of defunding SPD by at least 50%.

I recommend the council follows through with those plans and the ones sponsored by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now.

Police all over the country are being exposed en masse for clearly not operating in the interests of the people and are heavily militarized and overprotected by their unions and their budget SPD are some of the most overpaid cops in the country to do what?

Sweep homeless people during a pandemic?

And don't be fooled by the rhetoric of Durkin and Best, who have demonstrably lied to news networks and public about protesters for nearly seven weeks now.

These cuts were not decided arbitrarily, nor are they blunt.

We have an enormous budget shortfall, and we can make justice for Sean First, Charlena Lyles, and John T. Williams in the same moment.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Logan, welcome.

Thank you Chair Mosqueda.

I'm Logan Bowers a renter in District 3. I'm commenting on today's amendment to concentrate 1,000 homes in the Central District.

Honestly I'm surprised the council in 2020 is entertaining such a racist policy.

By concentrating housing and therefore concentrating BIPOC folks in the CD you're necessarily making all other Seattle neighborhoods even whiter than they already are.

You reinforce decades of racism and redlining that forced BIPOC folks into the CD in the first place.

You should instead be prioritizing how affordable housing in Windermere or Blue Ridge or Madison Park or any other of the many neighborhoods in Seattle whose founding principle was no Black people allowed.

I don't want to live in a segregated city and good God is this policy segregationist.

What are you guys thinking.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Carri welcome.

Hi I'm Carri.

Hi I'm Carri Grant.

I live in West Seattle and I've lived in Seattle all my life.

I am calling to support defunding SPD.

The goal here is to have our communities be safer and more functional.

I volunteer in an experimental city that has solid mental health, law enforcement, fire, and troubleshooting mediation branches.

They all work well together.

The mediation branch is the first responder, and we can call in law enforcement if they are needed.

Most of the time, they're not.

It works in Black Rock City.

It works in Eugene, Oregon, with a program called Cahoots.

It can work in Seattle.

The mayor and the chief of police have shown that they are not in control of the police who are a danger to our city.

Please defund SPD.

It's the- Thank you.

Kevin, welcome.

We'll have Kevin Vitswong, Peyton Lachin, and Derek Bonofilia.

Kevin, welcome.

Hi, big thanks to the council members who have publicly committed to defunding by at least 50%.

I'm from District 6, and I want to thank Dan Strauss for walking the mark.

I urge the whole council to follow the four-point plan from Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now.

We can strengthen communities of color, fund affordable housing, and find more effective alternatives and armed police responses.

Study after study shows that more cops and more patrols do not prevent crime.

So please resist the mayor and police attempts to mischaracterize and belittle this process and the unity of the movement behind it.

Finally do not let your colleagues use proximity to this process subvert it with last minute weakening amendments.

Stay strong and defund SPD.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Welcome Peyton.

Hi.

My name is Peyton Laughlin and I'm a Seattle resident living in District 7. I support defunding the SPD by 50% and reinvesting in community-led solutions because SPD has proven time and time again that they cannot safely and responsibly carry out their duty to protect our community.

Police do not prevent crime.

They respond to it when and however they see fit.

They murder by POC and stand by as allies and protesters are also murdered.

In addition to defunding SPD by 50%, I urge council members to support Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now's four-point plan.

And yes, there is a plan created by experts for community reinvestment of those funds to replace current 911 operations with a civilian-controlled system.

I also support the use of funds to build homes in the Central District.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Derek, welcome.

Hi my name is Derek Bonifilia and I'm a resident of District 6 and a member of Sunrise Movement Seattle.

I'm attending today's budget hearing in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50 percent and reinvesting in community-led solutions by adopting the four-point plan presented by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now.

We need transformational change away from SPD's violence racism and punishment to a system based on community care and equity.

I want to emphasize the reinvestment in community-led solutions because the best solutions come from impacted communities, not from government panels or consultants or detached millionaires like our mayor.

To the council members who have already committed, be assured that we are all still paying attention and that those of us who have taken to the streets will not be slowing down until all these demands are actually enacted, not just agreed to.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nick Kartz, followed by Daniel, And Ryan you've got Nick.

Good morning.

Good morning council members.

My name is Nick Cartus and I'm here to speak about the budget for the Seattle Police Department.

First point is the Seattle City Charter specifies that the city must maintain adequate police coverage in each of the districts of the city.

How does defunding SPD by 50 percent and losing over 700 police officers meet the specifications of the charter.

And the charter states and I quote, the police department shall consist of a chief of police and as many subordinate officers and employees as may by ordinance be prescribed.

There shall be maintained adequate police protection in each district of the city end quote.

My next point regarding training.

Some proposed budget cuts would deeply impact the training the few remaining officers receive thus having an adverse impact on the quality of services officers provide.

This is the complete opposite of what community members have been demanding from SPD.

Everyone should agree that officers should properly and be

Thank you Nick.

Sorry you were cut off.

Please send the rest of your comments in.

Danielle welcome.

In addition to defunding a Seattle PD by 50 percent I urge council members to support decriminalized Seattle and King County Equity Now four-point plan for community reinvestment of those funds.

Sorry.

And to replace current 9-1-1 operations with a civilian-controlled system.

And I also want to urge City Council to support Council Member Gourmet Zahili in transferring vacant Southland land on MLK Way from Sound Transit to Blackwood organization.

Thank you very much.

Ryan Yucca.

Hi my name is Ryan Yucca and I live in Seattle's 3rd district and I'm a member of the UAW 4121. I'm calling to urge the council members to allocate $50 million per year from the new big business tax upon affordable housing in the central district to begin the process of reversing gentrification in this historically Black neighborhood.

As you've seen this summer through the massive and continued Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle the citizens of Seattle want real action to help Black communities.

$17 million is simply not enough to aid communities that have been hit the hardest by the unprecedented gentrification that has been ongoing in Seattle for over a decade due to unchecked big businesses like Amazon.

I urge the council members to follow through with defunding the police by at least 50% and reinvesting that money into communities of color and to use $50 million of revenue from new big business tax to fund permanently affordable housing in the central district.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three people will be Dustin Lambrough, Bridget Harman, and Patricia Allen.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda.

I'm here with my colleague, Nicole Grant, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Labor Council, and we're going to testify together.

Nicole?

Thanks, Councilmembers.

MLK Labor and King County and Seattle's labor movement stand united in our support of the Jump Start program.

I wanted to take a moment to especially elevate the Green New Deal work inside of Jump Start.

It's important that we get our homes off of fossil fuel, and as well mention that we support the economic revitalization allocations that support getting workers out of the fossil fuel industry.

Thank you all so much for your leadership on this and all your work.

We've used our time.

We'll extend your time if you, since you're a group, you still have a few more seconds, Dustin, if you have any other follow-up comments.

Okay.

Thank you for your time, folks from MLK Labor.

Bridget, welcome.

Hold on a second here.

Apologies.

Would you repeat the name again, Council Member?

Bridget Harmon.

It sounds like Bridget's not available.

Thank you, IT, for flagging that.

And then the next person that we had was Patricia Allen.

Hi, my name is Patricia Allen.

I'm a citizen of the Tlingit and Haida nations in southeast Alaska and from a third generation family in a historically redlined black central district community.

On behalf of the National Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness and Chief Seattle Club, as the coalition leads on, I would like to encourage the ending of the Seattle Police Department's $2.6 million in the navigation team budget.

In this historical pandemic, heavily impacting unsheltered Indigenous Native communities, as well as recent discoveries of the 5% increase of Native homelessness in the year 2020, several leading Native direct service organizations have proven that our low homelessness relapse rates that community-led, culturally responsible, and trauma-informed policies positively address long-term solutions to end homelessness.

We also, as Chief Seattle Club, endorse decriminalize Seattle.

Thank you and you.

Thank you so much.

Nice shot shot.

You Devin who and.

Mahal Johnson.

Nyasha welcome.

Hello, my name is Nyasha Sarju.

I'm attending today's City Council budget hearings in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50% and reinvesting in community led solutions because I've lived in Seattle in the Central District my whole life.

I work with young people and police don't keep them safe or me safe.

In addition to defunding SPD by 50 percent I urge council members to support decriminalized Seattle and King County equity now.

Four point plan for community reinvestment of those funds to replace current 9-1-1 operations with a civilian controlled system.

Scale up community led solutions.

Fund a community created.

Roadmap to life without policing and invest in housing for all.

Please support defunding SPD and community reinvestment now.

Thank you.

Devin welcome.

As Devin Cue I live in.

Hi my name is Devin Cue and I live in District 2 and I'm a local high school teacher.

I've heard council members here publicly support the 4-point plan to decriminalize Seattle and King County equity now.

But this budget readjustment is the moment where you must show you are serious about this.

We need to reimagine what our emergency response is.

Police are not the only way to keep our community safe.

In fact they do not keep our community safe at all.

We need to address causes, not symptoms.

We need to reinvest in our communities.

You need to shift funds to replace the current 911 operations with civilian controlled systems, skilled community-led solutions, fund the community, create a roadmap to life without policing, and invest in housing for all.

Please support Defund the SPD and community reinvestment now.

If the council does not make these changes, we will know you are not serious at all.

Please take action.

The next person is Mahal.

Welcome.

Hello, as a resident and worker in District 2 and the daughter of a 29-year veteran of Seattle Police, I do not believe in defunding the department.

SPD is the most progressive police department in the nation.

In recent years, STD has made an effort to recruit from the community it serves.

In 2019, 39% of the officers that were hired were people of color.

If the STD budget is cut by 50%, all of those officers would be the first to go as the city, as well as the labor contract, both specify that layoffs are based upon reverse seniority.

SPD is touted as a national leader in reform, de-escalation, and training.

Former President Obama, Federal Monitor Merrick Bobb, and Department of Justice, and even Council Member Lorena Gonzalez have quoted the marked progress of the city, and SPD has made since 2012. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next three speakers will be Richard Vogt, Maya Lara, and Jessica.

and Jesse Hagomian.

Welcome Richard.

I'm Richard Bogut living in District 4. Climate change will not stop devastating marginalized communities while waiting for everyone to be vaccinated for COVID-19.

Please ensure adequate funding in the 2020 and 2021 budgets to fully staff the planning and other pre-implementation activities to assure Timely implementation and evaluation of greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Waiting will only cost more money that we currently do not have.

I yield my time.

Thank you for your time today.

Maya welcome.

Seattle plans for the funding to Hi, my name is Mayra Lata and I live in Greenwood, District 6. I fully support the current Seattle's plan for defunding the police by 50% and redirecting those funds to community programs which have shown to do more for public health and safety than cops.

We're in a new reality, one with obscene wealth inequality, unemployment, unrest, with possibly sliding back a phase of mass evictions coming soon, all which will be disproportionately suffered by black and brown people.

Do we really need $400 million for a racist police department unequipped to deal with poverty, mental illness, and trauma when we only put forward $20 million to the Equitable Development Initiative, the future we say we want but continue to systematically starve?

Let's not repeat 2008. That's what's reckless.

Let's instead trust communities who fight for change versus the community afraid of it.

We know who have the most.

Thank you.

The next three are up.

Sorry, Jessie, please go ahead.

Hello my name is Jesse Hagopian.

I'm Seattle born and raised and I teach at my alma mater Garfield High School.

And in early June I put forward a resolution to support decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now's call to defund the police by 50 percent and reinvest in our communities.

And that resolution passed amongst Seattle educators and the Seattle Education Association Union overwhelmingly some 80 percent or more.

Why did your child's teacher vote to defund the police.

One because they harass and have assaulted our students that we teach every day.

They've assaulted us and they killed a Seattle Public Schools mother Charlena Lyles.

So we want to redefine public safety to mean a home for all our homeless students.

COVID-19.

Thank you Jesse.

Please send the rest of your comments as well.

Appreciate it.

Florida, Star, Jeffrey, and Madeline Coyley are the next three speakers.

Jason, welcome.

Hi.

My name is Jason Flores, and I'm the project manager for the AMP AIDS Memorial Pathway, which is what I'm speaking about today.

I've been able to present to the council before on this important project, and I appreciate the support we've received from council members The AIDS Formal Pathway will be a permanent place of reflection and remembrance in Seattle that will tell the stories of those affected by HIV and AIDS, particularly communities of color disproportionately impacted by the HIV pandemic.

I'm asking and encouraging you all to keep the grant provided in the budget for the AMP to complete this project.

The grant will specifically fund technology needed to complement the physical artworks of the AMP.

This will provide important remote access to real stories, resources, and information about HIV and AIDS.

This will allow people to learn lessons from our past and build community for today and the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Star, welcome.

Good morning.

I'm Star.

A citizen of Seattle, I am here supporting defending the Seattle Police Department by 50% immediately and reinvesting in the community-led solution because SPD continues to escalate situations through abuse of power and refuses to acknowledge and accept proper de-escalation and trauma-informed care training.

Taxpayers' money would be better spent to build the individuals within the community rather than increase jail population.

Studies have shown that providing communities with resources and opportunities reduce crime.

I would also like to request that SPD's quotas be capped at a lower capacity to not retaliate against the community through abuse of over ticketing the public.

I support decriminalize Seattle and King County equity is now a four point plan.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Madeline, welcome.

Hi, my name is Madeline.

I am a resident of District 7. I am calling to ask the council to uphold their commitment to defund the SPD by at least 50% this year and follow the four-point plan put forward by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now.

Please reject the mayor's inadequate proposal.

It would be reckless to not take action now and to allow the police to continue to harass and assault our population.

In addition, I also urge council to support funding 1,000 new affordable housing units in the Central District and to amend the COVID-19 to our proposal to also provide more tiny home houses and hotel vouchers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the next three speakers are Makias Wolden, say, Reverend Will Seals and Megan Castillo.

Welcome, Macias.

Hi, my name is Macias.

I'm calling in regards to defunding SPD.

I'm a member of District 5. I support the criminals in King County equities now full point proposal to defund SPD.

The job qualifications between SPD and parking enforcement is the same.

They absolutely do not deserve the amount of money we give them.

The training requirements for them are 720 hours versus 1,000 hours required to be a barber.

A rookie receives $83,000 a year, whereas a UW-registered nurse receives $77,000 a year.

Nine officers made over $300,000 a year last year.

One made over $400,000 a year.

$409 million that they receive, 83% of that is payroll.

They have no need to fire officers.

They can just reduce the amount of ridiculous salary that they receive.

And Council Member Juarez, you.

Welcome, Reverend Seals.

Of the Christ Spirit.

My name is Willie Seals, the pastor of the Christ Spirit Church District 2. Thank you, Chairwoman Teresa and the council for the Jump Start program.

I stand with over 200 faith leaders urging the building of 1,000 new affordable homes in the central area.

I just want to remind the council that we are at a historical moment in this city and you have a great opportunity to do some amazing things.

Things that seem impossible, it is impossible until someone does it.

The central area used to be the home of so many people who could go to Big Mother's home.

So I urge you to support the additional of the homeless population and the funding of the central area community.

Thank you, Reverend Seals.

Megan, welcome.

Thank you.

I'm calling in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50% and reinvesting in community-led solutions, because as a resident of Capitol Hill, I have witnessed firsthand how the Seattle PD do not make our community safer.

SPD is foiled in resources they only misuse.

It's time we take money, control, and responsibilities away from them and into the hands of people, organizations, and departments better equipped to support health and safety in Seattle.

Police do not make our community safer.

They never have, and they do not have the potential to change for the better.

In addition to defunding SPD by 50%, I urge councilmembers to support decriminalized Seattle and King County Equity Now's four-point plan for community reinvestment of those funds to replace current 911 operations with a civilian-controlled system.

Thank you so much.

Please defund SPD by 50%.

Thank you so much.

Council colleagues, we have gone for the allotted 45 minutes.

If there's no objection, just because we had a delay and folks had to wait, I'm going to extend public comment for another seven minutes.

Hearing no objection, I'm going to read the names of folks that we have allotted for this time and greatly thank everybody who's called in today.

Again, there will be public comment offered for each of our budget committees that are coming up.

There is no vote this afternoon on the select budget, so you will have more time to testify on budget-related matters.

There will also be another opportunity to testify on Monday at 2 p.m.

at full council related to the spend plan, so this is not the last time.

The next speakers, and I'll read them all just so folks know who's in the queue, and then we will go on with our meeting.

Sean Rico, Rabbi David Assore, Jane Singer, Barbara Finney, Blair Ferguson, Reverend Dr. J.P. King, Evanna Inouye, John Priak, Reggie Ginnis, and Reverend Cinda Stenger.

OK.

Here we go, Sean Rico, welcome.

Hi, my name is Sean Riccio.

I am a renter and resident and worker in City Council District 4, and I'm calling to support King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle's plans for what to do with the money allocated after defunding the police by 50%.

The council has already made it clear that they are in support of those plans.

I think that they should go forward with that.

We can't afford to have a paramilitary police force brutalizing us in this time of crisis.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And folks in IT, just before we go on, I did call Bridget Harmon earlier, and it looks like she is here.

So let's go to Bridget really quickly, if we can.

Bridget, thanks for waiting.

Give me a second while I locate Bridget.

I'm not locating her.

Apologies for that, Bridget.

When we called your name earlier, it looked like you were not present.

So I did not have the chance to hear from you.

Please do send in your comments.

Moving on, we have Rabbi David Besor.

Welcome, Rabbi.

Hi, I'm Rabbi David Bassior, Rabbi of Kadima Reconstructionist Community in District 3. We're with members in every council district.

Today I rise with over 220 faith leaders led by black central district clergy to urge the council to commit $50 million per year to build 1,000 new affordable homes on the CD and undo the decades of intentional racist gentrification in the same neighborhood in which Jews and black community were once redlined and forced to live together.

Now I support them doing so out of their own agency.

Further, I support the four-point plan put forward by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now to defund the SPD by at least 50%.

I say this as a Jewish who understands that safety comes from local communities standing up for one another, not from city and state militarized police.

Finally, please support HB 1377 to support permanent housing, more tiny house villages, and no sweeps for houseless neighbors.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Jane Singer, welcome.

Hi my name is Jane Singer and I'm a lifelong resident of Seattle on occupied Duwamish land currently living in District 5. I'm here today in support of defunding the Seattle Police Department by 50 percent and reinvesting in community-led solutions because our community keeps us safe while the Seattle Police Department continues to protect property and profit over people.

In addition to defunding SPD by 50 percent I urge the council members to support decriminalized Seattle and King County Equity Now's four-point plan for community reinvestment of those funds to replace current 9-1-1 operations with a civilian-controlled system, scale up community-led solutions, fund a community-created roadmap to life without policing, and invest in housing for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Barbara, welcome.

My name is Barbara Finney.

I'm a union member delegate of the MLK Labor Council, homeowner in D5, and member of the Tax Amazon Movement.

Built 1,000 homes in the Central District with the new tax on Amazon and big business, the tax that would not have been passed without the efforts and leadership of Council Member Shama Sawant, her council office, Socialist Alternative, and all the organizations and grassroots members of the Tax Amazon Movement.

Council Support Council Member Salant's amendment to designate $50 million to fund construction of 1,000 new homes in the central area for Black working class people to bring back households displaced over the years from racist gentrification.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Blair, welcome.

My name is Blair Ferguson.

Hi, my name is Claire Ferguson.

I'm a resident of District 3 on occupied Duwamish land.

First of all, city council, thank you for your time.

I want to say that my father is a police officer and a quote unquote good cop.

In fact, he's the best man I know.

But the structural racism that all police forces are built on needs to be, for lack of better words, burned to the ground.

And defunding SPD by 50% is a good start.

Please support the call to defund SPD by 50% And I encourage the City Council to support the four-point plan laid out by Decriminalize Seattle and King County Equity Now.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we have Reverend Dr. J.P. King.

I am the Reverend Dr. I am the Reverend Dr. J.P. Kong District 3 and I'm a pastor of the 113-year-old Japanese Presbyterian Church one block south of Jimi Hendrix Park and the Northwest African-American Museum.

I have lived and worked in the central area since 2007, and my children are students at Leschi, Washington, and Garfield.

I am also a professor of Hebrew Bible at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, where a primary focus of my work is to bring alive the scriptures' central demand for economic justice and equity.

Thus, I join my friends in urging the Budget Committee to adopt the amendment to put $50 million a year toward 1,000 affordable new family homes in the CD.

This money is a necessary investment toward dismantling racist policies so that we can not only claim but prove by our actions that Black Lives Matter.

Thank you.

Ivana, welcome.

Okay, can you hear me?

Oh yes, thank you.

Oh, okay.

Hi, I'm Ivana from District 10. I'm attending today's city council budget hearing to talk about defending the police department by 50% and reinvesting in community solutions.

I wanted to note that the police are anti-Black and they descend from slave patrols.

So despite all the training, they cannot stop beating, killing and assaulting Black and Brown people.

It's in their nature.

What I'd like to see or what would it look like to invest these resources and community-based organizations that are not rooted in murdering and lynching?

Ron Morgan, over 400,000.

William Edwards, over 360,000.

Stephen Kim, over 300,000.

That's over a million dollars that you can invest in community resources.

Don't be swayed by Jenny Durkan or Carmen Best.

There is a plan.

Educate yourself.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And the next person is John.

Welcome, John Pirca.

Sorry about that.

Yes.

My name is John Pirack, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

First, I feel that providing safety protection for the public is the very first and primary responsibility of all those holding elective office.

It is also the most basic expectation of those who elected them.

I feel that the people who would suffer the most from radically cutting SPD's budget would be members of Seattle's very diverse population, people living in economic disadvantaged areas, our youth, the old, the most vulnerable, et cetera.

Within our own community, we know Seattle officers as people who do this critical and often dangerous job because they have dedicated their lives to the city.

Thank you John and please send the remainder of your comments in.

Appreciate you waiting.

And the last three speakers for this morning are Reggie Glynnis, Trevona Thompson-Willey and Reverend Cinda Stentor.

Welcome Reggie.

My name is Reggie.

I am a trans Black organizer with both African and Indigenous ancestry.

Seattle is my home.

In my home, I've had exactly zero positive interactions with police despite reform.

Since the age of six, every police encounter I've had has been marked with terror at the least and grotesque physical violence at the very worst.

I'm a public servant, not out of choice, but out of necessity.

I was born into this responsibility, and I am not alone.

The people have spoken.

The time to defund SPD by 50% was yesterday.

The time to reinvest in BIPOC community was yesterday.

The time for the purveyors of this prison industrial complex to be removed from office was yesterday.

To the mayor and her so-called troops listening in, you're about to lose your job.

OK.

And Trevona, welcome.

OK.

My great-grandparents.

I'm a third-generation Black woman from the Central District.

My great-grandparents moved here from the rural South in the 1950s.

Almost all my family has been displaced due to racism and gentrification from the Central District.

I am with the Tax Amazon Movement.

I demand that $50 million is used to fund those thousand homes for working-class Black families.

These families matter.

The City Council must work around the clock to undo systematic oppression.

Black Lives Matter defund SPD by 50 percent.

My brother's friend was Sean, my mother's friend was Charlena.

We cannot protect blue lives and not protect black ones.

In qualified immunity, free all protesters value life over property.

Thank you.

Apologies, I was on mute.

And the last person is Reverend Cinda Stenger.

Hi, I'm Cinda Stenger.

D1 I serve on the CAC for Camp Second Chance and I'm a social justice lay leader at Alki United Church of Christ.

Thousands of Seattle residents disproportionately residents who are Black Indigenous and people of color experience homelessness and lack access to affordable housing.

With the pandemic and the economic downturn we need to secure safe affordable homes now.

I implore you to invest in the central district housing plan to stop the total gentrification of that historic district.

Seattle is better than that to just let economic forces take over.

Let's be a leader in the nation showing the way how to uplift our people and stop white gentrification.

We need ultra-low income housing as well.

By prioritizing housing resources for people with the lowest incomes in Seattle under 30K Jumpstart will help address the crisis of homelessness and lack of affordable homes.

Thank you so much for all that you do.

And thank you so much for all that you do.

I want to thank everybody who's called in today.

Again, if you could please email us your comments if you didn't get a chance to speak, especially the clergy folks and faith leaders who are on the line.

We really appreciate all you're doing in this time of crisis.

We know that a lot of folks are looking for ways to reduce stress, and we appreciate you all calling in, community members, small business folks, and community at large.

Thank you for all of your comments today.

Please do send the rest of your comments to council at Seattle.gov, and there will again be public testimony opportunity on Monday starting at 2 p.m.

at full council, and again here at our Select Budget Committee starting next Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Again, 8 a.m.

is when the sign-up will happen.

Thank you, council colleagues.

At this point, this concludes our public comment portion of the agenda, and we will move on to other items on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read into the record the title of item one.

Agenda item one, Council Bill 119812, amending ordinance 26000, which adopts the 2020 budget, making appropriations for the emergency fund for public assistance during the COVID-19 civil emergency.

making appropriations from the general fund for public assistance during the civil emergency, and making appropriations from the revenue stabilization fund for public assistance during the civil emergency, all by free first vote of the city council.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Colleagues, I'm really excited about our today, this morning's conversation.

Today we are wrapping up our discussion about progressive revenue spend plan.

Again, there's two bills in front of us, both the council bill, which we are about to discuss as item one, which is our COVID emergency relief fund.

And item two is our resolution, which is the detailed spend plan that corresponds with the progressive revenue proposal we passed on Monday.

I want to thank, last Monday, I want to thank council, central staff, Allie Panucci and Tracy Ratzcliff, who are here with us today to walk through items one and two.

And just before we start, a huge amount of appreciation for all of your work and in advance for the walkthrough that you are about to give us, the comprehensive documents that you've provided for us and the public so that they can follow along, and the materials that you will be sharing via the screen here on Zoom.

If you want to get those loaded up, that would be great.

Before we do that, I'm going to go ahead and officially move that we consider Council Bill 119812 that it's in front of us.

I move Council Bill 119812. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the committee consider Council Bill 119812. 9282. And there are a handful of amendments.

I'm going to ask central staff walk through the amendments in just a moment.

And Ali, before you could do that, I'm going to ask central staff folks, Ali and Tracy, before we go into the amendments, so much work has gone into just the bills as they are.

Could you please just provide a summary of the base bill in front of us so we have an understanding of the council bill?

that's being considered for emergency relief related to COVID.

As folks will remember, this was introduced in mid-June, and we've held it till now so that we can have this robust conversation related to spend.

I'll turn it over to you, Allie, and we see your screen up here, so we greatly appreciate that.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good morning, council members.

The first bill for discussion today is Council Bill 119812, the COVID relief bill that authorizes spending $86 million from the city's reserve funds in 2020 to invest in programs and services to support people and businesses impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Attachment A to the central staff memo summarizes the proposed investments, and that's what's on my screen right now.

This includes support for small businesses, immediate housing programs, support for immigrant and refugee communities, and an expansion of the city's emergency grocery voucher program.

The central staff memo posted to today's agenda outlines how this proposal fits in with the proposed rebalancing package that will be discussed in the afternoon session.

This includes confirming that this proposed spending from the reserve funds works with the proposed rebalancing package.

And it also provides a brief summary of how this proposed spending fits in with the city's broader COVID relief efforts.

I won't walk through that in those details now, but I'm happy to answer questions before we move to a discussion of the proposed amendments.

Thank you, Ellie.

I want to thank all of the council members for your feedback on the COVID-2020 relief bill that's in front of us.

And just thank you for the bill as introduced.

You have provided robust feedback along the way.

So thank you in advance.

Any additional comments before we move into amendments?

Hearing none, I want to acknowledge that Council Member Juarez is with us, and she just joined just a few minutes after we started.

Apologies.

for the technical difficulties, Council Member Juarez.

We know that you were with us the entire time, including in public comment.

So thank you for being with us.

I also want to thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I want to thank Council President Gonzalez, who also helped when we were having technical difficulties this morning.

Thank you, Council President, for helping to steer the ship as we got our IT up and running.

So thanks.

Okay.

With that, thanks again, Allie and Tracy.

Let's go ahead and consider amendments.

The first amendment is one that I am introducing.

So I will move to amend Council Bill 119812 as presented on Amendment 1 to the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1 as presented on the agenda.

I'm going to ask central staff to go ahead and walk us through Amendment 1, and then we will consider comments and potential vote.

Great, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

For reference, I am using the table that was included in the central staff memo as attachment P.

I'm going to turn it over to councilmember Perks.

includes a variety of changes to the bill as introduced.

This includes technical and clarifying amendments as well as changes to the bill that were discussed in the central staff memo or discussed at committee in last week's Select Budget Committee meeting.

And that reflects additions and amendments proposed by a variety of council members.

So I'll briefly walk through the more substantive changes that are included in this amendment.

So this again is amendment one attachment B to the central staff memo.

So to the small business support section, there is a change to expand eligibility criteria to allow small businesses with up to 10 FTEs, full-time equivalent employees, rather than five employees to qualify for assistance and includes nonprofits with up to 10 FTEs.

This was proposed by Council Member Gonzalez and Council Member Strauss.

This, it also adds in a priority to support business owners with limited English proficiency.

This was a change sponsored by Council Member Gonzalez.

And then in the area for supporting childcare providers specifically, the criteria is expanded to include all childcare providers that adhere to labor laws and have a commitment to labor harmony, and it includes some assistance for family, friends, and neighbor providers.

In the area of investments to support immigrant and refugee communities, the changes include allowing up to $1,000 payments per eligible individual.

This will allow, for example, a couple with children to receive $2,000.

It increases the administrative support that can be provided to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs from 5% to 11%, recognizing the smaller office may need some additional help to administer this program.

And it expands the areas of spending to include providing services.

Oh, excuse me, and that last change was sponsored by Council President Gonzalez.

It also adds language to expand the eligible areas of spending to include services to advise potential recipients of the direct financial support about how such assistance might impact their ability to remain eligible for other assistance programs that was sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and prioritizes supporting those who experience structural or institutional barriers to accessing support from other governmental programs and require compliance with the city's rules around making inquiries about one's immigration status, and this was sponsored by Councilmember Gonzalez.

Thank you very much, Allie.

I will have a few comments here, and then I know our council colleagues have provided a robust amount of input, so thank you so much for everybody in your initial Feedback on the council bill is introduced.

We have, I think, really important amendments here.

So one of them that we have talked about repeatedly was just making sure that we were getting as much support out the door as possible, given the crisis continues and potentially getting worse with COVID cases continuing to skyrocket.

I think that this level of relief that we're providing here is not only needed, it's essential for us to have a healthy community and a more robust economy on the end.

This is both about the physical health of our population and also about the resiliency of our city in the long run.

I'll turn it over to council members who've offered other changes to this base amendment for any additional comments that you would like to make to highlight some of the amendments that you have provided to this base amendment.

Any additional comments that folks would like to make?

Council Member Herbal, and did I see another hand?

Okay, Council Member Herbal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to speak very briefly about one of the elements of the amendments that is included, and then I have a question about another element sponsored by another councilmember.

Thankful for the cooperation of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in developing this amendment and the support of Council President Gonzalez as well.

Income-tested benefit eligibility can be very complex for households to navigate, especially in a year when households may be receiving more than one that we are not going to be able to provide that type of unplanned for assistance from local, state, or federal governments.

And the community-based organization, of course, who help navigate, help clients navigate these programs themselves might have questions about how benefit and support programs interact.

So I'm really thankful that this amendment will help make it to access and provide advice to the folks receiving these benefits so that no one inadvertently loses needed benefits in accepting the assistance from the city.

As it relates to one of the questions I have about the mandatory language in section 4A related to nonprofit organizations who are eligible for support from the office of economic development.

I'm interested to know the intent with the preference for brick-and-mortar small businesses and whether or not that's intended to prioritize brick-and-mortar small businesses over other types of recipients, including nonprofits, or is it meant to prioritize brick-and-mortar small business over other types of small businesses?

with the understanding that nonprofits are part of that definition.

I recognize that brick and mortar businesses may have greater costs associated with the main maintenance and upkeep of a space, rent on a space, but I'm just trying to figure out whether or not that prioritization of brick and mortar small businesses also allows nonprofits that are brick-and-mortar small businesses to be prioritized.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I can speak to that.

Oh, Council Member Strauss, would you like to speak to that?

Is that your hand going?

Yes, and my apologies, my camera was off when I was raising my hand before.

I've got some other comments.

I can just address Councilmember Herbold, great questions right there.

And Councilmember Mosqueda can back me, fill in any areas that I don't cover.

The preference for brick and mortar businesses is the latter of what you discussed, meaning that businesses operating a space should be prioritized over businesses that don't have a space to operate physical brick and mortar space.

there was no intention of prioritizing that over non-profits.

And so if clarifying language is needed, I'm happy to accept it.

I'll just echo that, Councilmember Herbold.

I think it's a great question.

One of the feedback that we got from folks at GSBA, for example, were really asking how does this reconcile the impact that COVID has had on storefronts, brick and mortar entities.

And so you're absolutely correct, and I agree with Councilmember Strauss.

it would include those nonprofits as well.

And did you have a follow-up, Council Member Herbold?

That's it for me.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

I saw Council Member Strauss' hand, and if there's other hands, please do let me know.

Yeah, I just wanted to speak to the substitute.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for putting the substitute together.

I was happy to work with you to include the items that are important to me, rather than having to vote on each amendment separately.

As well, working with you and Council President Gonzalez, we work to increase the eligibility for small businesses to support any business with up to 10 FTEs rather than five employees total.

And why this is important is FTEs, if there are two part-time employees, that counts for one FTE.

And so this expands the number of businesses that are able to be supported by our relief.

And specifically, it helps address businesses that have part-time workers and labor-heavy business.

This change will allow more of our small businesses, restaurants with part-time workers to receive this funding.

And just for reference for colleagues, I had originally started this amendment with the number of 25 FTE.

The 10 FTE was the agreed FTE between our offices for this substitute.

I still believe that a higher FTE would best serve our labor-heavy businesses needing COVID relief.

And not to make amendments on the fly on the dais today, I'll converse with each of you over the next several days.

And depending on those conversations, I may bring an amendment to increase the FTE on Monday.

but don't want to confuse the very deliberate conversation that we have today so that we move forward.

In addition to that, I also worked to add nonprofits with up to 10 FTEs to be eligible for this support with the stipulation that they must be nonprofits that provide services related to the community's health, safety, environment, or general welfare.

Last week, or two weeks ago, I spoke to the nature of nonprofits and how nonprofits are just another tax status.

And so I wanted to make sure that when we are looking at nonprofits, we are specifically focusing on those organizations that are providing services.

These words, health, safety, environment, or general welfare were taken directly out of our city's charter, the preamble to our city's charter, as demonstrating what we as a city need to be doing for our residents.

And so that's why I used those words.

Those are my remarks.

Thank you for all your work, Council Member Mosqueda.

And thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 1?

Okay, I am not seeing any and I'm not hearing any from folks on the line.

So I want to, again, thank you for all of your feedback.

Obviously, this is a detailed bill that has many council members' fingerprints on it, so we'll have the chance for additional comments on Monday, assuming final passage.

But just want to say thank you to all of you for your input on Amendment 1. So it's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1. Seeing no additional further comments, will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 1?

Madam Clerk, I think you might be on mute.

It's a morning of technical difficulties.

Just kind of see if the clerk's office is still with us from IT, if you could confirm that, that'd be great.

This is Emilia Sanchez.

Okay, the roll call is Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Aye.

Councilmember Stroud?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Councilmember Herbold?

Aye.

And Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Could we have central staff please walk us through amendment number two, which is from Council Member Morales.

Council Member Morales, in order to consider amendment two, would you like to go ahead and move that?

Yes, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I move that we, God, I don't have the script.

I move that we consider amendment two.

Wonderful.

It's been moved to amend Council Bill 119812 as presented on amendment two in the agenda.

Is there a second?

been moved and seconded to consider Amendment 2 as presented on the agenda and described by Central Staff.

Central Staff, why don't we go ahead and have you walk us through it, and then we'll consider comments and possible vote.

Thank you.

Amendment 2, sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Councilmember Lewis, allocates at least $3.6 million of the $10.8 million that is allocated under the immediate housing category for shelter de-intensification efforts to establish new tiny home villages.

This could accommodate between four and five new villages depending on a variety of factors such as the opening date that impacts the cost to provide services at the villages in 2020, site conditions and size of the village.

Any new villages established in 2020 will have an ongoing operational cost that will require identifying funding to support such operations, and I understand the sponsors are working on identifying sources of funding for that ongoing need for these villages and others.

Okay, Council Member Morales, as the sponsor of this memo, would you like to speak to it?

Yes, thank you.

make sure I'm not on mute.

So thank you.

As Ali said, this would allocate 3.6 million specifically for small tiny home, tiny house villages.

And I do want to acknowledge, you know, we've got a lot of comments and calls about this particular amendment.

I think it's important to note that we all agree that the long term solution to our housing crisis is to build more housing, particularly for folks who are very low income and who need transitional housing and more assistance in that way.

That said, right now we have 2,500 unsheltered neighbors who are living outside.

So we need fast solutions to help them get indoors before the winter comes and before their risk of exposure to coronavirus increases.

We know that that is definitely still a problem in our community.

and will continue to be for quite some time.

The other issue is that the mayor does keep talking about the 95 units that they've funded, but we know that there is so much more to do that's not nearly enough, and it needs to be done quickly to help move people off the streets.

I believe that this amendment is important because for less than $4 million, we would more than double that number, that 95, and help people get off the street.

Couple that with the funding from ESG and we can sustain these villages for several years.

We still have millions of dollars left.

for hotels and for other alternatives in addition to this.

So I also want to acknowledge that the tiny house villages are not the answer for everyone.

Folks who need behavioral services won't necessarily get that kind of case management in a tiny house village.

But it can help many people get off the street, particularly before the wintertime comes.

They are a type of shelter that is commonly asked for by people who are experiencing homelessness.

I've had many people myself tell me directly, as I've been to some of the encampment removals, that if they were given that option, they would much prefer that to living under the highway.

So those are some of the reasons why we are proposing this amendment, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Council Member Lewis, as co-sponsor, would you like to speak to this amendment?

Yes, thank you so much, Madam Chair.

And I want to say from the from the outset that it's been a great privilege to work with Councilmember Morales and follow her leadership on shaping this amendment.

to follow through on a commitment that I think a lot of us on this council share of really what we've been frustrated about over the last several months, where we are seeing increasingly visible chronic homelessness and just so much want on the streets of our city and in our community and not being able to summon a sense of urgency to get more placements for people to successfully exit from living in unsanctioned encampments on the street.

And so I'm proud to support this amendment today.

I do want to briefly address a couple of concerns that I've heard from some folks in the provider community about the amendment perhaps being a little too prescriptive in carving off a segment of the money that's allocated for deintensification.

And I do appreciate that we have a lot of providers that are out there that are doing really important work and pursuing different strategies, including hoteling, including other forms of enhanced shelter.

But I really do think, just based on the work that we've been doing over the past seven months, and really engaging with the people that are doing outreach too, like workers with REACH and workers with a lot of our other partners, that one of the most demanded placements, as Council Member Morales alluded to, to folks that are doing the outreach work from people experiencing chronic homelessness, are placements in these tiny house villages.

I think that in terms of the level of investment for the village, in terms of the number of spots and the stability and comfort that these villages provide to people, it is an investment that we need to be pursuing.

I echo Council Member Morales' comments that we know that ultimately what we really need is permanent supportive housing and that these tiny house villages do not go far enough.

But we're in a position right now where we have thousands of people living unsheltered who need a place where they can go right now.

We can scale up tiny house villages quickly.

We know that they are popular with folks who are experiencing homelessness.

And I'm proud to support this amendment as something that can make some material progress on the challenges that we're seeing on our streets.

OK, thank you very much.

I think that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Council colleagues, any comments or questions on amendment 2?

Councilmember Peterson, did you have a comment?

of villages?

So I think the average number of units per village is about 50. So depending on how many we are able to fund with this, we could be providing 250 units, tiny homes for people.

At this point, there is really only one provider who we are regularly contracting with to do this.

But that's not to say that there aren't others who could step in.

You know, I think part of the challenge is that there is a right now anyway, the way these these villages are operating is that there is a.

relationship, I guess, with the NAV team.

And so the NAV team is sort of making decisions about who gets access to these.

I do think that that is problematic, and we need to make sure that if we are able to build another 250 units, that those, you know, REACH workers, street outreach workers, are able to get access to those more directly.

And we have some other amendments later on in the conversation that we hope to help address that with as well.

Thank you.

Did I see Council Member Herbold's hand?

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you.

I have a question that I don't know if the sponsors are prepared to answer, but I believe Central Staff, this is information from Central Staff, just trying to get a handle on what happened to the funds that the council provided in last year's budget process specifically for tiny house villages.

The message that I have from my staff is that there are no more funds in the 2020 budget for tiny house villages and that those funds were not were not spent for tiny house villages in totality as intended by the council.

So we'd like to know a little bit more about that.

And then a question for the sponsors.

I'm just interested to know what the plan is for continuing operations for both 2020 and 2021. Is that, are the cost estimates provided in the proposal?

I have two questions.

One is, do those include operating costs for 2020?

Is the intent for 2021 for operating costs to come out of the jumpstart revenue?

And my second question is, I wholeheartedly support the funding of additional tiny house villages.

in this amendment for funding for tiny house villages, but could feel otherwise if I was confident that the city and the operator are, you know, as they say, ready to go to stand up new villages before the year's end.

I just don't want to tie this funding to one option if that that one particular model isn't ready to use the resources.

And if they're not, then maybe we should consider making the resources available to a broader number of models.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

So we are beginning to look at that.

As I said, we're considering ESG funding in part for some of the operations, but can talk with central staff as well to see if there is a way to be additive with the funding that we had considered, that we thought earlier in the year was going to be going to support operations.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

I'm sorry, I believe you are still on mute.

of this amendment, really love the intent, and Councilmember Herbold, did Councilmember Morales' answer, did she answer your question?

I was left a little unclear.

I think she answered the question that I had about operating costs.

I did not hear a response to the question about whether or not the operator and the city were sort of I think we are ready to stand up the number of tiny house villages that would correspond to the funding that we are looking at making available in 2020. And then I also had the question for central staff around the already allocated 2020 money for tiny house villages.

Thank you for checking.

Um, well, I have a, I, we will respond to your question, but I, um, want to delay responding fully until this afternoon when my colleague Jeff Sims is on the line who, um, we'll have a better sense of all the moving pieces for the tiny home, um, for those funding to support tiny homes that was adopted in the 2020 budget, the funding or that has been used to in the COVID, uh, response efforts in 2020 already.

And then I can confirm that this is in addition to any of that, but I can't fully answer your question exactly tracing those dollars.

So I have flagged for him that we will need a response to that question this afternoon to follow up.

I will just confirm also that these estimates, the reason why we're saying four to five villages is depends on when they open.

It does build in service costs in 2020, but it depends on when they open.

and how big they are, like the cost of the service.

So it's making some assumptions.

And in the amendment sheet itself, there's a table that sort of provides a couple of different scenarios, but it does include service costs.

And then as Council Member Morales and Council Member Lewis spoke to, they are looking at some of those other sources of funding.

in 2021 for the ongoing operation costs.

And I will also just note that this bill includes some ongoing funding to continue some of the investments to address the COVID epidemic in 2021 as well, but doesn't decide today about exactly which of these programs will need the ongoing funding that will be decided through adoption of the 2021 budget.

And before I turn it back over to the, I saw a thumbs up for Council Member Herbold, thank you for answering that question.

Before I turn it over to the co-sponsors, I'll give you my feedback as well in an effort to try to give you the last word before we do a vote here.

And it looks like Council Member Swatt has a comment too, so perhaps, and Council Member Gonzales.

Okay, I'll do mine, and then we'll go back through Council Member Swatt and Council Member Gonzales, Council President Gonzales, and then wrap it up with the sponsors.

Council Colleagues, I want to thank you for bringing this forward.

We did hear from advocates, including Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, SEIU 1199, the Housing Development Consortium, the Low Income Housing Alliance, Representative Nicole Mackert from DESC, that they support additional funding for non-congregate shelters, which would include tiny house villages as the language is currently written.

But they did ask that we keep this language the same so that the funding can remain flexible.

I think in speaking with some of these folks, we heard broad consensus on cautioning against set-asides that dedicate specific interventions such as tiny homes.

I am a huge supporter and supported them in the past.

One of the things that had been raised was the many benefits of tiny houses are really important.

And sometimes the design cannot always support the needs of people with severe disabilities or behavioral health conditions who require greater staff presence.

Also, specifically to the COVID crisis that we're trying to respond to in this bill, I'm specifically interested in keeping the language flexible so that we can offer this both for tiny house villages, since those are ready to be stood up relatively quickly, and also acquiring or renting rooms in motels and hotels, such as the Aloha Inn, thanks to our partners in hotels and motels who've been offering some of their space.

If we had additional funding, we know that Those rooms could dovetail nicely with our combined efforts to try to get additional funds into tiny house villages in the future.

I will be continuing to work with all of you in our budget process to allocate more money for tiny house villages and to follow up with the mayor's office since they did not spend the money that was allocated previously.

I know that's very frustrating for all of us, but I would be advocating for folks to pass on this amendment today so that we can keep the language flexible and it does still include tiny house villages.

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Sawant and then Council President Gonzalez.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I will be voting yes on this amendment and I believe the set aside of this kind for tiny house villages is necessary because our past experience has shown that tiny house villages keep getting shortchanged in the sense that we want all kinds of options on the table but we want to fund, in my view, we need to be able to fund the options that work the best and based on the feedback we have received from homeless neighbors themselves who have been through homelessness and who can tell us from first-hand experience what works and what doesn't work.

Tiny house villages have proven themselves to be the best shelter option short of actual affordable housing.

Tiny house villages have community and the safety and dignity of your own private space.

Tiny house villages were fought for and won by homeless neighbors themselves and the people who stood with them because they work.

Tiny house villages work both from the perspective of helping people find permanent housing and from the perspective of the quality of life for the people living there the dignity and the humanity that they receive, in addition to the specific facilities that they are able to access as human beings, as families, and as community members.

My office has been proud to support homeless activists fighting for tiny house villages since I first took office in 2014, and I'm happy to support this expansion as well.

The people's budget movement, year after year, fighting during the budget has won the first funding to support homeless encampments in the first place, which led to the legislation allowing encampments to be officially permitted.

And this year we won our legislation, majorly expanding those available permits throughout the city.

We did this in early January.

Last fall, working closely with tiny house village residents, the low-income housing institute, Nicholsville, ShareWheel, members of Socialist Alternative and hundreds of people's budget activists, We were able to win $2 million in new funding to expand tiny house villages, which, as I've said, are a proven program.

I have heard from hundreds of homeless people who say that this works.

More than 500 people signed petitions calling for more tiny house villages and dozens of tiny house village residents and other advocates have showed up to testify at city council meetings.

A group of 43 faith leaders signed a letter to city council calling for more tiny house villages.

In fact, some of the same pastors who are advocating for the thousand affordable homes for black working class community members in the central district, and I was able to lead a press conference in the True Hope tiny house village with clergy and residents some months ago.

We did not win the full demand of $12 million at the time for more tiny house villages, but our $2 million victory was a big step in the direction of Winning more funds and the amendment before the council today represents another step in our goal to build enough tiny house villages to get everyone in Seattle into stable shelter with services and community.

So if this amendment passes, it will represent another victory for our movement.

Now this afternoon when council discusses the update to the 2020 budget we will be discussing a similar budget amendment that comes from my office and from the people's budget to fund the expansion of five new tiny house villages.

The amendment I will be bringing forward from the people's budget will use is intended for to be funded through funds obtained from FEMA reimbursement and or cutting the navigation team that carries out the inhumane and ineffective sweeps of homeless people.

I just wanted to mention that as an aside.

But regardless of which progressive source of funding is used, I fully intend to support funding for tiny house villages in general.

And I hope council members will do the same and have explicit set aside for tiny house villages.

I will vote yes now.

And if necessary, if this amendment doesn't pass, then I will continue to pursue funding through other parts of the 2020 budget, including this afternoon.

And I urge all council members to support expanding tiny house villages.

If not now, then at least in the discussion in this afternoon, then when we take a vote in the summer budget, and also when we come back for the autumn budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Swan, Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Just a quick question, and Ali, you may or may not have the answer to this quite yet, but in terms of the anticipated or desired additional four to five tiny home villages, can you just give me a sense of whether you know whether the sort of what sort of information we have around the siting of such villages?

Like, is it possible to site an additional five to four villages?

And if so, you know, is there a sort of an idea of where given some of the funding that we've done for some of the other tiny villages?

I'm just wondering if there's any capacity concerns about just, actually being able to cite them in places around the city?

You correctly projected that I don't have a complete answer for you on that, but I will add that to information that Jeff Sims can provide.

I will say that legislation was adopted to make it easier to cite tiny home villages and The estimates and, you know, four to five, that it's sort of, we have to make some assumptions, but it could be, you know, a couple of larger villages if those sites are identified, but I don't have information immediately available on how, if there are actually sites already identified by the providers for this, but I will look into that and follow up.

And I think this is what other council members have been saying, but whether this amendment passes or not, this money can be used for tiny home villages.

Chair Mosqueda, can I respond to that question?

Sure, just let me see if the Council President had a follow up to that.

I probably will, but I'm happy to hear Council Member Morales' additional information.

Thank you.

Lehi is the provider who would be able to do this and in our conversations with them, they are prepared.

They have five sites that are ready, mostly in District 2 and District 4. My district would welcome the opportunity to host a couple more tiny house villages.

And then the other question that was asked, I think it is in Ali's document somewhere, but the operating costs are about $900,000 a year.

Yeah, so $4 million.

Sorry, I can't read the document right now that Ali has up, but that information is included also in the packet that we received.

Thank you for that, Council Member Morales, because I think there was, I'm asking the question specifically because we have, the city council in particular has advocated for additional funds for tiny home villages in the past, which I'm supportive of.

And the issue is, as council member Mosqueda described, we can allocate dollars, but we can't force the mayor to spend the appropriated dollars.

And so I want to make sure that any sort of additional funding that we're providing in this space that we've heard directly from the organization that is primarily responsible or has been primarily responsible for development of tiny home villages, that they believe that it's feasible to do so.

And so I just think it's important for us to get that out onto the road.

on the record now publicly that in terms of Lehigh, who is a non-profit organization who does most of the, if not exclusively the Tiny Home Village projects for us, that they've communicated with you that they have the capacity and ability to do that and that there's space somewhere in the city in order to effectuate the intent.

here.

So I really appreciate being able to get that information.

and appreciate the effort around this potential amendment.

I still think that I share the concerns that were expressed by Councilmember Herbold and Chair Mosqueda and others around whether we need to be this prescriptive in order to effectuate the intent here.

But I'm happy to continue to consider additional information this afternoon.

in the ramp up to Monday as we continue to develop this.

And I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity to have ongoing conversations about how to be less prescriptive in the language so that we can signal that as a priority, we would like to prioritize four or five new or expanded tiny home villages, but then allow for use of the $3.6 million if that is not I would certainly be interested in having those conversations offline.

Thank you.

I just wanted to confirm that we in my office have also discussed with Lehigh and we have the same information.

Just wanted to confirm that they have confirmed that they have the capacity to site and make progress and get results on five tiny house villages this year.

And they will be able to build more capacity, additional capacity next year.

So they're certainly not the grass grow under their feet, they're extremely on the move.

And as far as why have an explicit set aside, and I wouldn't call it overly prescriptive, it's because of the experience.

As I've said, we should remember what happened in the budget last year.

We fought for and won $2 million for tiny house villages.

We fought for proviso to say that they would only be used for tiny house villages, but in the end, The proviso was amended by the council to be, with the same argument that's being made here, which is to be less prescriptive.

And then the mayor did basically nothing.

And those are the correct questions that council member are asking.

Why didn't the mayor do anything?

But then we had to learn from that experience and actually do have a set aside.

So if council members are not going to be supporting this amendment, then I really hope that we can, have support for the amendment that my office is bringing forward in the budget discussion.

Thank you.

Okay, closing comments.

We'll go to the council sponsors in just a moment.

Council Member Herbold to wrap us up.

Thank you.

So I mentioned my support for tiny house villages as well as my reservations around a set aside if the operator was not prepared to site five tiny house villages in 2020. I too have received confirmation that they both have property and and are prepared to do this work in 2020. So my reservations have been satisfied, but because I'm really interested in ensuring that some version of this amendment passes, I'm wondering if the sponsors would be open to pulling it and bringing it up at full council so that maybe we could, you know, address some of the other concerns of council members and bring something forward that has a full support of the council in doing so.

Council Member Morales, I see you're off mute, and Council Member Lewis, welcome your feedback as well.

Council Member Morales, did you want to go first?

Sure.

You know, I'm happy to pull this for now and dig a little deeper into some of the particular questions that folks have I do want to echo what Councilmember Sawant said, and Councilmember Gonzalez, which is that we are trying to be fairly prescriptive because this council has been very clear in the desire to see these sorts of non-congregate shelters invested in and used as an opportunity to really move people, particularly in COVID, into safer shelter, not just to get people into a more stable living situation, but also to make sure that they are protected from the risk of exposure.

And because that doesn't seem to be happening, we are trying to be really clear, again, about what this money can be used for.

As I said, I'm happy to pull it for now and keep having this conversation, but I do wanna emphasize how important it is that we find a way to ensure that it is non-congregate shelters that we are supporting with this money and that that is what we expect the money to be spent on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Council Member Lewis, did you have a comment on that as a co-sponsor?

Yeah, so no, I don't have any issue with waiting until Monday to maybe revisit this and take a look at it a little more.

I mean, I would just flag now.

I don't really see how it's going to change that materially between now and Monday, quite frankly, in the sense that, I mean, this is the set aside that is necessary to realize the operational goals of what Lehigh has said.

I would like to add to the can verify that Lehigh is in a position to do this.

I've been talking to Lehigh and their team on probably about a weekly basis for months where their issue has not been sites, their issue has been getting some stream of money to scale up these places that can provide a semi-permanent shelter for folks that are currently in unsanctioned encampments.

So, you know, in terms of materially, like the different accesses of this bill, you know, I mean, if we make it a little more broad and with a 3.6 million could be spent on, or if we reduce the more prescriptive amount, You know, I mean, the effect of that is going to be that it's going to reduce our ability to get that money more prescriptively earmarked for Lehigh or whatever operator and out the door.

So that's why I'm just saying I don't really see, like, you know, there was a lot of intentionality behind the $3.6 million mark based on those goals.

But I'm happy to wait until Monday and maybe let this ruminate a little bit more.

And, you know, I mean, I would also say, too, just the last thing, because, I mean, a lot has been said about the merits of the tiny house villages.

But, you know, I mean, the executive and HSD and the mayor's office have also signaled that they support the model of the tiny house villages, certainly more than they support, have expressed support for hoteling or other kinds of strategies.

So, you know, I really do think we could have an opportunity to move quickly on this if we did have a set aside, but I am happy to talk about it for a few more days and maybe make the final decision on Monday.

Okay, wonderful.

Well, we know that this will come back on Monday and there will be a conversation this afternoon for the budget discussion.

to finalize comments, Council Member President Gonzales, and then we will move on.

Council Member Sawant after that.

Okay.

Council President Gonzales.

Thank you.

As one of the people who just expressed some soft concerns, I don't feel like I want to delay a vote on this particular amendment.

you know, if again, I don't want to sort of create an issue by backtracking on whether or not we take a vote on this amendment today.

I think I think that for those who continue to have concerns, there's always an abstention opportunity and we can still allow the amendment to move forward and and those who feel like they need to abstain can abstain and we can move forward.

I think that the language is not likely to change more is probably true.

I think the issue that I was really flagging, and I'll say it probably more directly now, and would be interested in hearing from either of the co-sponsors of response to this, is what happens when, and I'm gonna say when, not if, what happens when the mayor refuses to spend $3.6 million of the COVID relief jumpstart appropriation?

So what happens to our overall effort around de-intensification of congregate shelter if the mayor refuses or when the mayor refuses to spend $3.6 million.

And so I think I just want to make sure that we have a clear answer to that because what I want to avoid is having $3.6 million not spent because of I think that's a good point.

I don't see any potential refusal to not spend those dollars because we have been prescriptive about it.

That's just sort of my honest concern, and I just sort of want to get a better understanding of sort of what our paths are if and when that occurs.

So there is possibility that that language could be massaged and seem amenable by those sponsors of the amendment prior to Monday.

Let's have them answer that question real quick.

Yeah, thank you.

Council President, I totally understand what you're saying.

We know that this is, in fact, the pattern that we've had regarding this particular kind of homeless response.

But that risk is there for this entire proposal, right?

I mean, everything that we're trying to do right now risks the mayor not actually spending the money on it.

So Like I said, I agree that there's probably not a lot we can do with this language.

I'm happy to look at what was sent this morning.

I haven't seen it, candidly.

But if we want to review that and come back to it on Monday, I'm happy to do that.

I'll leave it there.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant, I saw your hand up.

I'm sorry, Councilmember Lewis, did you also have a response before Councilmember Sawant?

Right, I was just going to say really briefly, the only other thing I would add is that, you know, actually of the de-intensification strategies the executive has posed some of the most enthusiasm for has been tiny house villages, certainly more than hoteling and some of the other opportunities.

So I don't, I don't actually know that hostility on this point is inevitable, necessarily.

Although, I mean, all of the other concerns that the council members, Gonzales and Morales, raised about general uncertainty around Jump Start, sure.

But just from my conversations with the mayor's office and HSD, I don't know that there is I don't know that there will be a conflict on that.

Thank you.

I think Council Member Morales made a good point that in reality, the mayor could decide, the mayor's office or any of the city departments, if there was not actually a movement of ordinary people pushing for results that have been promised, could fail to do any of the things that we are saying as a council.

So I think given, and I'm gonna repeat myself here, given the past experience with the mayor having I think it is important to have specific language on that.

Whether it is this amendment or an amendment from my office that passes in the budget discussion.

We actually push towards holding the mayor's office accountable to funding tiny house villages.

I think that's the main component here is actually making that happen.

And if the sponsors of this amendment decide to withdraw it, I mean, as I've said, I've already declared support for it.

So if you move it and I move it forward, then I will be voting yes on it.

But if you decide to withdraw it, then I wanted to urge you to co-sponsor the amendment from my office so that together we can make sure that the intent of actually providing this direction for tiny house villages is attained through the budget discussion and the budget vote.

Okay, that's all the questions I saw, and it is been moved and seconded, so it is the sponsor's purview what you would like to do this morning.

Yeah, I think I'd like to go ahead and call the question, and we can continue to have conversation and make some changes on Monday if that seems necessary, but I think it would be important for us to go ahead and take a vote.

All right.

Thank you for your directness there.

We will call the question then.

Council colleagues appreciate the feedback.

And again, we will have an opportunity to continue conversations on this on Monday.

I just want to make sure that folks know that this conversation should be reflective of support for non-congregate shelters, including tiny house villages.

The existing language is inclusive of tiny house villages.

So really the question is about a specific dollar set aside.

Obviously, during the time of COVID, we need 24-7 shelter options, and that is not what's being currently provided by the administration.

It is not a healthy place to be in congregate settings.

We know we have about 500 people who are currently in congregate shelters still.

And tiny house villages, along with individual rooms, as was identified in the letter we received from community partners, are much better.

than the current situation.

So I don't want anyone to conflate this conversation or discussion to not be supportive of tiny houses when I think all of our records stand firm about supporting tiny houses in the past.

With that, as the amendment currently stands, let's go ahead and call the roll and recognizing that there could be potential language even further amended by Monday if it gets adopted.

Madam Clerk, why don't we call the roll?

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

No.

Swant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Abstain.

Gonzalez.

Abstain.

Herbold.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

No.

Five in favor, two opposed, two abstained.

Okay, wonderful.

So the amendment is adopted.

Congratulations, council members Morales and Lewis.

Thank you for your work on this.

I believe that there are some follow-up questions that folks may have, but as it stands, we do have this language adopted in the council bill as it's currently being amended.

So thank you for all of your work and for all of the stakeholders who have written in.

We really appreciate it.

Let's move on to item, sorry, agenda number three.

amendment number three.

Thank you.

Chair Mosqueda, would you like me to describe the amendment first?

Yeah, why don't we have you describe the amendment first, and then I'll call on the sponsor.

Great.

Thank you.

So amendment three to Council Bill 119812 would add $9 million in spending.

Excuse me, this is sponsored by Council Member Strauss.

This would add $9 million in spending from the reserve funds to provide additional support for small businesses in 2020. increasing the total amount of spending from $14.1 million to $23.1 million.

This increases the total spending in 2020 to $95 million.

I'll just note here that if this amendment is adopted and an amendment to resolution 31957 is adopted, this table incorrectly refers you to attachment H.

It should actually be attachment L.

Excuse me.

The renumbering was happening very rapidly last night.

So there is an associated amendment.

If this amendment passes, there'll be another amendment to the resolution just to reflect that change.

Wonderful Councilmember Strauss as the sponsor of Amendment 3, would you like to move it?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I move to consider Amendment 3.

Second.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to consider and adopt Amendment 3 as presented on the agenda and described by central staff.

Councilmember Strauss, as sponsor of the amendment, would you like to speak to this amendment?

Yes, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Small businesses are the fabric of our community.

And if this legislation is about an economic stimulus package, then we should be providing the support to as many small businesses as possible.

This amendment would allocate an additional $9 million from the Revenue Stabilization Fund for small business relief.

The additional $9 million would bring the total for small business relief to $23.1 million.

With this amendment, we can provide support in the form of $10,000 grants to an additional 855 small businesses for a total of nearly 2,200 small businesses.

If the amendment passes, I will be bringing a related amendment to the spend plan resolution to ensure that we backfill the revenue stabilization fund as we are doing for the other 2020 expenditures.

We know that roughly 9,000 eligible small businesses applied for this funding during the initial round.

this bill and our previous work could only provide enough funding for about 1,300 of them.

I recognize that even this amount of money is not enough to address this full scale of the crisis, but if we can support an additional 855 small businesses in our community, we absolutely should.

If this amendment doesn't pass, I would like to bring another amendment that would right-size our investments to ensure that small businesses are 25% of the overall package.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you very much, Council Member Strauss.

Not seeing any hands, I'll offer this.

Council colleagues, I am supportive of this amendment of the funding needs related to COVID.

We want to make sure that we're being responsive to the urgent needs, so I support increasing the pot of money for some of these small businesses, especially given that so few of the applicants for the city's small business assistance in the first round were actually funded.

Reading a story yesterday on the potential 20% of restaurants and small businesses that are going to be out of business soon, I can see why this amendment is needed.

And we wanna do all that we can do during this time of COVID to respond to this crisis and provide responsible measures to ensure that small businesses and nonprofits, thank you Council Member Herbold, have support that they need.

So just wanna offer that.

and we are looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you.

I am of course supportive of expanding the resources available to small businesses and including small businesses that are nonprofit businesses, but I am really We are with our jumpstart spending plan already.

Using a lot of those dollars, we have heard from budget director Ben Noble about the need to be able to access some of those dollars in 2021. And a number of us are members of the Labor Relations Policy Committee, and we are hearing some dire predictions for 2021 as it relates to layoffs, furloughs, and the need to explore other options to address what are going to be really intense, I think, COVID-19 2021 budget impacts.

I appreciate the sponsor, Councilmember Strauss referenced a plan to pay the emergency fund balances back, but without understanding what that plan might be, I can't support the further reduction of those fund sources prior to 2021. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I, in addition to the concerns expressed by Councilmember Herbold, am also unfortunately not able to support this amendment at this time.

I was really glad to work with Councilmember Strauss' office to lift the eligibility cap to 10 FTEs for small business support in Amendment 1, which was built into the base there.

And ideally, recognizing that this eligibility cap will allow the additional flexibility to capture more small businesses without opening up eligibility too much.

I do think that in this effort overall it's important that we stay focused on the small businesses that are in need of help without unintentionally making the mom and pop places many of us imagine when we think of small businesses compete with businesses who have back offices that handle payroll administrative work and have the capacity to apply for these grants.

So my office has heard from advocates sharing that we need to have a mixed strategy in supporting small businesses.

Cash grants and stabilization funds are a start and can certainly be a lifeline for some of these small businesses.

I think that, again, in addition to the fiscal policy concerns expressed by Councilmember Herbold, one of the other concerns I have about this particular amendment is that there isn't a clear set of language around racial equity and how to center equity in the disbursement of the cash assistance.

And I have heard that the Office of Economic Development, there may be some concerns about whether or not they can fulfill the scale of what they are being proposed to do through this additional $9 million.

So I think it's important for us to recognize that this cash assistance program can be similar or analogous to what we saw in the federal government's PPP program.

And I think that obviously that federal government's PPP program offered us some lessons and how it's important for us to apply an equity lens in our approach to small business support.

Businesses that had relationships to big banks or other ways to tap into capital in the federal program did very well in that application process.

But unsurprisingly, we also saw that there was a huge amount of racial disparities and who was able to successfully apply and therefore who was able to get awards and who was not awarded.

And so we know through the federal program, again, which I see as sort of an analogous effort here at the city, is that about 90% of BIPOC minority and women-owned businesses were shut out of the federal government program.

And I just don't want to see Seattle have a similar story or anything close to that.

So I still have a few questions about sort of I think it is important to understand what we are doing through this amendment.

Some of those questions are what will be the fiscal impact of using additional reserve funds.

I think Councilmember Herbold has highlighted one potential fiscal impact is taking from the reserve funds in the way proposed could have pretty What is the capacity of the Office of Economic Development to ensure timely delivery of grants?

With the initial round of small business stabilization grants, what is the capacity of OED to do this through a lens that does not leave businesses with capacity challenges or barriers like And lastly, how can we ensure that what happened with the federal PP grants do not happen in our efforts here in the city of Seattle?

So again, I think that the funding that we have available now for OED, my understanding is that they're ready to sort of shepherd those dollars.

These equity questions still exist even in that context.

And we'll be working on that in my office to sort of make sure that there's some sort of equity-centered mechanism for getting those funds to where they need to go.

But I also think that it's important to allow OED an opportunity to get the program right, and I think that the original size as proposed in Jump Start Seattle will stand the greatest chance of allowing OED success in being able to establish the program before we scale up to the level that would be required if this amendment were to pass.

So based on that, I'm likely not going to support this amendment at this juncture, but that certainly doesn't mean that I don't support the overall effort to continue to look at these economic stimulus opportunities for our smallest businesses, and we did so through some of the work that was included in Amendment 1. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

Any additional comments?

Okay, Council Member Strauss, did you have any additional comments or you had alluded to another amendment?

I will defer to you to sort of wrap up the comments on this conversation on Amendment 3.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I did have another amendment that I could bring forward that would require the rules to be suspended because I have not distributed it, which would disperse the $9 million.

5.6 million would be allocated to small businesses, and then an even disbursement to all other support for immigrant and refugee committees, food assistance program, and childcare support.

What I'm hearing is that there is more of a concern about running down all of our emergency funding.

And I think that Council President's comments about making sure that there's an equitable distribution of these funds is very important.

And so if this amendment does not pass, I will likely bring forward another amendment on Monday that just brings forward $5.6 million into the small business to make that 25% of the overall spending, and bring forward additional equitable distribution language as well.

So.

Okay, thank you very much, Council Member Strauss.

Just to confirm, you would like to move forward with the vote on this amendment?

Yes, please.

Okay.

Seeing no additional comments.

Okay, pausing.

Wonderful.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Lewis.

No.

Morales.

No.

Peterson.

Abstain.

Sawant.

Abstain.

Strauss.

Aye.

Gonzales.

No.

Herbold.

No.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Three in favor.

Three opposed.

Four opposed.

And two abstained.

Could you repeat that Madam Clerk.

Three in favor.

Four opposed.

Two abstained.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion does not carry.

The amendment is not adopted.

Council Member Strauss, thank you for the feedback.

We understand that you will potentially be circulating something prior to Monday, potentially.

And with that, we want to thank you for bringing that forward and to our colleagues for the robust discussion.

We have one more amendment in front of us, and I will turn to Ali Panucci from Central Staff to walk us through this final amendment.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Amendment four, sponsored by Council Member Strauss, would add a new section to the resolution expressing the council's intent to consider legislation that would reduce the tax obligations for small businesses.

The intent is to consider the needs of small businesses along with the potential impacts any reductions in the B&O tax revenue may have on the city's funds.

Okay, thank you very much.

And Council Member Strauss, this is again your amendment.

Would you like to speak to it?

I'm sorry, would you like to move it for our consideration?

Yes, thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I move to consider amendment four.

Is there a second?

I second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Council Member Strauss, as sponsor of this amendment, you are recognized to address this amendment.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

And one of the reasons why I brought the amendment from the Stabilization Fund is because most businesses came back to me stating that having a pool of money that they could choose where it was used was most helpful.

And so with regard to hearing from small businesses about B&O taxes, I continue to hear that this is one of their biggest problems, especially during the crisis, because it is levied based on gross revenue rather than profit.

While B&O tax is a separate issue from this legislation, this amendment would express council's intent to consider additional small business support in the form of relief from B&O taxes for certain small businesses.

This does have an impact on our future city revenue, which is why further discussion and analysis is needed.

This is simply stating that the council intends to consider additional support through B&O relief.

There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered if we go down this path, such as who would receive the relief and how much.

And I believe that it is important that we consider these questions during the rebalancing discussions.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I saw Council Member Lewis up next.

Council Member Lewis, thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

So I really want to thank Council Member Strauss for coming forward with this.

I'm very proud to support this amendment.

I really do think that You know, when we talk about our regressive tax system, and I would count the way we assess B&O tax as having regressive implications on a lot of our small businesses in the city, I think it is important that we talk about relief in some cases in addition to seeking higher taxes on people who can afford to pay more, like our highest earning corporations or wealthy individuals.

We also need to look at how we can reduce regressive taxes.

And we as a city don't have a lot of tools, for example, to really get our sleeves rolled up and roll back sales tax or rebate sales tax since the collection is centralized with the state.

B&O is something where we really could provide some targeted relief and get around the prohibition on gift of public funds because we are rebating back taxes.

Instead of giving a gift of public funds, we can rebate taxes, and it's a way that we can provide some direct relief.

Certainly interested in looking at ways we do this where we can build an equity into who's receiving the relief, that we can make sure that it's truly affecting small businesses and not big ones.

But I do think that this is a creative way that we can look to get some money back in the hands of small business owners that we know are really suffering throughout the city right now, throughout this crisis.

And I look forward to continuing to work on this and to vote in favor of this today.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Any additional comments?

Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I am going to support this particular amendment.

I want to thank Council Member Strauss for bringing it forward.

I think the amendment recognizes the need for flexibility and looks at some level of relief in the business and occupation tax area for small businesses.

Of course, there are still a lot of remaining questions.

Councilmember Strauss already identified what some of those would be.

First and foremost would be what the reduction, any potential reduction in taxes as opposed to complete I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about not just the abatement of tax liability but what a reduction of tax obligation would be on the overall revenue picture for the city of Seattle.

head into ongoing budget deficits as a result of the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

So we have to be very thoughtful and careful about making sure that we have a good fiscal analysis of what the impact will be.

The other thing that we have heard that I'd be interested in pursuing is the opportunity to look at not necessarily reduction-only strategies in this space, but what it would look like to have a deferred payment of B&O tax liability.

We've heard directly from some small businesses that moving due dates further out, as was previously, as was recently done, on the payment of B&O was actually really helpful and helped businesses both fulfill their business and occupation tax liability while also adapting their business model to continue to have income revenue coming in the door to stay open.

So I think there's an opportunity to have some sort of mixture of relief here that could be reduction in some instances, in other instances could just be deferral of the tax liability without impact to the full amount of tax liability owned.

So I just want to signal my support of this overall concept, but my ongoing interest and intent in pursuing some other possibilities through the intent language that is included in Amendment 4. And I want to confirm with Allie after saying all of that, that the language in Amendment 4 I would be happy to have an off-line conversation with councilmember Strauss.

Can I get an answer to that question?

Oh, I'm so sorry, Council President.

Do the central staff have an answer to that?

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez, Chair Mosqueda.

Yes, I think it is broad enough.

And I imagine that this is likely work that your central staff will be working on.

And so this wouldn't limit you to exploring one specific strategy of how we sort of reduce the tax you know, obligation, the burdens, that sort of thing.

So I don't think it is necessary in particular because it would be your own staff likely working on this.

So I have noted it down and I'm happy to talk more about changing the language, but I think it addresses, it can address a variety of options.

And as we are likely to do, we will always come with different ways you could try to achieve your goals when we're trying to, help you address a certain concern or policy goal.

Thank you, Ally.

Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you, Madam President.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just wanted to clarify to the members of the public and the movement who might be watching that my office will be supporting this amendment because its intent is to stating, it's stating council's intent to consider lowering BNO taxes for small businesses in the future.

And I just want to clarify that that's why we are supporting this because We don't support lowering taxes of any kind, including B&O taxes on big businesses, in which case, you know, if we had taxes only on big businesses, they would be overwhelmingly progressive.

And because this is making it very clear, it's about reducing the tax burden on small businesses who are already overburdened, I'll be voting yes.

Wonderful.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

I'll be brief.

Um, I just want to express my support for this and thank council member Strauss for raising the issue.

Um, I know this is an issue longstanding council member O'Brien was looking at, uh, how to adjust this B&O tax a couple of years ago.

Um, my office started asking questions of central staff in January.

Um, so, uh, I'm eager to support this and, uh, look forward to working with you on, um, whatever, whatever ends up moving forward here.

Thank you.

Wonderful, thank you.

I am not seeing any additional comments.

Council Member Strauss is the prime sponsor.

Did you have any closing comments?

No, just thank you everyone for your consideration.

We do know that the smallest businesses here in our city may and will need B&O relief, and we need to take this into consideration as we move forward.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, well, thank you all.

I'll also be supporting this amendment today.

Let's also remember there was a statement of legislative intent that was submitted last year.

It is due back in September to explore changes to the B&O tax structure.

So I think that'll be a nice complement to this.

Looking forward to working with you all and the sponsor of this amendment to implement those recommendations to frankly create a more progressive tax structure as Council Member Sawant mentioned, that this is another strategy for us to try to create a more progressive tax structure in the most regressive tax structure state in the country.

So happy to support this.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on amendment four?

Flores?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Are there any additional amendments to the council bill in front of us?

I'm not aware of any.

I'm not seeing anybody walk any on.

Thank you, Council Colleagues.

We now have Council Bill in front of us that has been amended.

I would like to open the floor to any final comments, recognizing we still have another bill to vote on.

And we, I will also note for folks, want to give people at least a half an hour break before the 2 p.m.

meeting.

So if there are final comments, please go ahead on Council Bill, on the Council Bill in front of us.

Any additional comments?

Okay, I will make some.

I wanna thank everybody for all of their work, especially central staff, the folks in my office, Aaron Howes, Sejal Preet, Farideh Cuevas, and Aretha Basu for their work on this COVID emergency relief.

A lot of outreach has happened, not just with small businesses, but this also includes outreach to workers, immigrants and refugee organizations and individuals, folks who are working to provide childcare in the city.

A huge shout out to 925, S-E-A-U 925, who work with us on language to make sure that small childcare providers could be supported in this COVID relief so that more people can have adequate and affordable and accessible childcare for their kiddos as more people are being asked to go back to work or are being forced to go back to work because unemployment is running out or they haven't been able to access federal support.

This is going to provide tremendous relief to the community, at large, and I think we've carefully targeted the folks who we are hoping to uplift in this moment of crisis with some additional relief to step in where the federal and state government haven't yet been able to do so, and to really respond with the urgency that this COVID crisis needs.

I want to thank all of you for your work on this, and we'll have more opportunities for additional conversation and a vote on the final bill on Monday.

Not seeing additional comments.

So, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

on the bill as amended.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Wonderful, thank you all.

The motion carries and the committee recommends passage of the bill as amended.

This will be sent to the July 20th Seattle City Council full council meeting for final consideration.

Okay, moving on to item number two.

I will also ask Madam Clerk to read into the record item number two and then I'll have some comments.

Madam Clerk, please read the title of item two into the record.

Agenda item 2, resolution 31957, establishing spending details by year and program area for the spending plan adopted by the ordinance introduced as Council Bill 119811 that established the authorized use of the proceeds generated from the payroll expense tax authorized by the ordinance introduced as Council Bill 119810 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to ask central staff if you could just close your shared screen and reopen it again.

For some reason on my end, there's some black boxes, so I want to make sure that it's appearing correctly for the viewing audience.

It just might be a technical glitch.

As we are reloading that screen for the viewing public, I will note that we are going to adjourn in about 45 minutes, so folks get a half an hour break.

If we are not done with item number two, we will hold this item over into the afternoon session.

This afternoon, we do have presentations from central staff and from a community panel.

So we have plenty of time to still get through the issue identification, which will still happen this afternoon.

I want to thank you for your flexibility and for your generous times on Wednesdays and Mondays.

We know they're long days.

So thank you.

I know the council president feels the long days on Mondays as well.

And so we appreciate all of your work throughout the day today.

But that will give us a half an hour break.

Just wanted to make sure that we had that information available for the public.

So we have, I think, the ability to see the screen now.

We'll let you know, Ali, if something comes back up again, but it was offering some small black boxes there.

Why don't we have you go ahead and, oh, thank you.

Why don't we have you go ahead and read into the record?

or sorry, read for the public's knowledge what the bill as an underlying bill does.

And in order for us to do this, I'm going to go ahead and move to have item two before us.

I move to have item two before us.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to have item two before us.

I would ask the central staff to walk us through the base bill first before we move on to the amendments that are in front of us.

And Allie, I'll turn it back over to you.

And thank you both, Allie and Tracy, for still being with us on this item.

Great.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Resolution 31957 includes spending details by year and program area for the proceeds from the recently adopted jumpstart payroll tax.

After passage of that tax, Council also passed Council Bill 119811 that established the broad spending categories for the proceeds from that tax.

That affirmed the Council's intent to adopt a resolution outlining these spending details by year and program area.

The resolution as introduced was developed using the details that were originally included in that spending plan ordinance introduced on June 22nd.

that proposed investments in housing, economic revitalization, and the equitable development initiative, and includes some additional details.

These details are described on page three and four of the central staff memo, and I'll briefly describe them here.

In the housing and services category, changes included adding specific green building requirements for the proposed investments in affordable rental housing, and allocating 10% of the funds within that category for investments to support a community acquisition development and program support fund to affirmatively further fair housing and to address past discriminatory policies and practices.

Within the economic revitalization section, the resolution as introduced specifies that investments in businesses, workforce development, and business districts will include programs that retrain workers who are transitioning to a new profession.

And then it includes a change that was sponsored by Councilmember Peterson to include nonprofit organizations and then language to prioritize those investments in businesses for marginalized communities such as those led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color, and to prevent economic displacement.

In addition, the resolution as introduced adds a specific allocation of the funds to implement the strategies called for in the Green New Deal resolution.

And then with that, I will turn it back to the chair.

Okay, well, first I want to say thank you to all of our council colleagues.

You have had a tremendous impact on the language that was introduced here in this resolution.

The bill as originally introduced was converted to a high-level spend plan that corresponded with the revenue proposal that we passed.

And based on that base proposed bill, we are reintroducing this resolution with tremendous feedback from all of our council members here.

I want to spend just a quick second to see if anybody would like to highlight some of the incredible amendments that they have included in this underlying bill.

Because sometimes when we just focus on amendments, we don't get a chance to really underscore the important and incredible work that has gone into the base bill.

So is there any individual who would like to speak to some of the amendment language that they have included in this resolution in front of us?

I'm sorry, I'm using the terms bill and resolution interchangeably.

This is a resolution, just so folks in the viewing audience know.

Council Member Morales, did I see you begin to raise your hand?

No, I'll wait till we're- I'll just say I'm doing a lot of work on the equitable development initiative and I'll talk about that more later.

Okay, excellent.

Are there any other comments on the underlying bill that folks want to highlight?

Councilmember Herbold.

Are we just talking right now about comments as introduced right before we get into comments so that folks know all of the work that you all did to make minor actually significant improvements to the resolution text before.

we get into the discussion about amendments.

So if you do have anything you'd like to highlight for the viewing public, please feel free.

Um, well, it's a, it's a question about the substitute as opposed to, I think what you were inviting was for people who contributed to the substitute.

You can ask a question as well.

Please feel free to.

Thank you.

Just trying to follow your, follow your directions.

Um, so I do have a question about, um, the funding included, uh, for, I understand that the office of housing doesn't currently have funding for program support and capacity building for organizations to pivot programming to acquisition and development, but we've heard from Puget Sound SAGE advocating for these dollars to be allocated to EDI for that same purpose instead.

and I recognize that the EDI program hasn't traditionally focused on the housing element of a project that might include housing, but in my experience, working on projects that that anticipate both OH funding as well as EDI funding.

Part of the problem, I think, historically for getting the OH funding is that the Office of Housing sometimes has a different vision for how to prioritize their housing dollars.

I think it's a totally appropriate approach.

that is often focused on trying to maximize housing acquisition and development, whereas the EDI historically has really been focused on addressing the needs associated with addressing displacement.

And so sometimes that involves projects that include housing, maybe not the same large number of units of housing.

And so I just have concerns about putting these dollars in OH rather than putting them in the EDI specifically for housing within EDI.

Tracy, I'm going to let you take that question.

And Ali, as we do so, the black box is up again on the screen.

If you can reload, that'd be great.

Tracy, please go ahead.

Sure.

So this potential funding for, I think we call it program support.

The vision here would be that as some of those funds from the community fund are allocated to specific projects, that OH would also be able to make an allocation to the specific sponsors of that housing to shore up, to beef up their capacity to actually get that project to the finish line.

You are correct in that OH has not ever really had those resources before.

We actually used to, years ago, we used to have a organizational support funding that we provided to actually many nonprofit housing providers.

We just would give it to these providers as they were building up their organizational capacity.

That money went away long ago, but it's been recognized that for, in particular, some of the newer housing development groups that are coming in, community-based ones, that some of that support that kind of funding for that kind of support is really necessary.

And so that's what the intent about this particular funding is.

It would go along with any kind of funding allocation that's made to a housing project to the organization that's sponsoring it to beef up their capacity organizationally and make sure that they can get those projects to the finish line.

And I'm sorry, what I'm trying to understand though is why can't this be done through the EDI?

I'm not as familiar with how EDI uses their capacity of building a funny alley.

Maybe you can speak to that.

Well, I can't, uh, it's a policy choice to some extent, historically, as you mentioned, and well, maybe historic isn't the right word, but the, in the, in the years that EDI has been, um, a grant making, uh, program at the, at the city, um, it has focused on the non-housing components of those projects.

The, the funding specifically for the equitable development initiative in this resolution, um, says that it can be used both for the housing and non-housing component.

You know, this particular fund is similar to, but it is focused on housing investments specifically.

And I would just note that there is an amendment, it's amendment two to the resolution that tries to tie it more tightly.

So there is coordination and consultation with the equitable development initiative team in the office of planning and community development, as well as working with the advisory, the EDI advisory group to inform those investment areas or investment decisions, excuse me.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, council member Herbold, and looking forward to that discussion as well.

And we'll be happy to highlight some of the conversations that we've had with community organizations like Puget Sound Sage who ask for additional EDI participation in the funding process and project selection.

So that's a really great sort of preview of the conversation to come.

Okay, not seeing additional comments.

I want to thank folks for all of their input on this draft resolution that we have in front of us.

And I'm going to ask central staff to go one by one through the amendments.

So with that, I would like to introduce amendment one.

If you could please present on amendment one.

and private housing funders to modify the funding policies to support the development of housing with enhanced green building and labor standards.

This recognizes the requirements included in this resolution that any new housing is meeting those labor standards and has enhanced green building.

the city is committed to working with the city to improve the green building standards, but if that increases the cost of development, it may make it difficult for those projects to compete for funding that could help leverage the city's investment.

This is a commitment that the city will continue to work with those funders to ensure that these projects will be competitive.

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1 for consideration as presented on the agenda and described by central staff.

Council colleagues, let me just give you a little bit of background here.

I know this is just the beginning and we're still in the whereas sections, but I just want to thank the folks from labor, from housing, and from the environmental justice groups who've reached out, we know the single most important thing that we can do to combat climate change is to invest in affordable housing near transit jobs and services.

Because as more people get displaced from the city, one of the biggest, actually the biggest emitters of carbon emission is commuting into the city.

We are creating situations where people are having to commute hours in and we're the third largest city in the nation to have a mega commuter status Meaning that more and more workers and community members are getting pushed further and further out of the city.

So we're really excited that this proposal in the underlying bill and the resolutions that we're talking about, sorry, the language that we're talking about today, emphasize funding for infrastructure, maintenance, retrofitting, energy efficiency updates for deep green affordable housing.

And in working with climate activists, labor activists, housing partners, we've now included language in here that can be really directed at trying to build additional affordable housing with green standards, using strong labor standards, and to move us to a fossil-free new world.

We know when we include labor and green building standards together, the return on investment is much higher in terms of climate resilience and economic resilience for our workers.

And this is a benefit that sometimes comes with added cost to building the actual housing.

And we want to make sure that we are able to access and leverage all funding options to make sure that we can build projects, meet our green standard needs.

And that as we build, the additional cost is not sort of used as a penalty against those housing developers for all of the good work that they're doing to include labor standards and green building standards.

So this amendment acknowledges that the city has an opportunity to work with our public and private partners to align housing funding priorities to support these important benefits to our communities.

And I'm really excited about the partnership that we've had working with the building developers and the nonprofit building developers, labor advocates, and environmental justice advocates as we crafted this amendment here.

Looking forward to your support so we can create more high-performing buildings that are able to compete for financing and meet our housing and green standards.

Any additional comments?

Okay.

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on amendment number one?

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Council Colleagues.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Could we please have central staff walk us through the next amendment, amendment number two.

Thank you.

Amendment two, sponsored by Chair Mosqueda.

Excuse me, I scrolled down too far on my own notes.

would add language, and this is the amendment I just described previously, that would add language related to the equitable development initiatives role in the community fund that would fall under the housing and services funding category to state the expectation that the office of housing will work with the equitable development initiative staff team and seek input from the permanent equitable development initiative advisory committee in administering those funds, excuse me. and then within the equitable development category, it would add additional criteria for allocating those funds to include prioritizing projects that are sponsored by organizations with diverse community representation on their boards.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

As sponsor of Amendment 2, I'd like to move to amend Resolution 31957 as presented on Amendment 2 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt amendment two as presented on the agenda and described by central staff.

Council colleagues, I'll offer just a few comments on this.

These amendments here are really intended to strengthen participation of black, indigenous, and people of color community members in the equitable development process by embedding the EDI advisory board in the project selection process and ensuring that projects who apply for funding are also walking the walk with diverse board representation of BIPOC communities on their boards.

I want to thank Puget Sound SAGE for their work on this amendment with us and for drawing our attention to the details to help us strengthen the amendments and the elements of this plan, this amendment specifically being one of those efforts.

Any additional comments on this?

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I do want to also thank the folks at Puget Sound SAGE and South Core.

We've been in a lot of conversations over the last several days about this fund in particular, and I do think it's important to acknowledge that this amendment makes it very clear that the intention is for some of these funds to be used in partnership between OH and the EDI team at the Office of Planning and Community Development, and that we expect that the Sorry, I'm tired.

I'm sure we're all really tired.

The EDI advisory board play an important part in this conversation and the decision-making about how these projects get allocated, how the funding for these projects get allocated.

The advisory board itself is in an interim stage right now, so we are expecting that we will be able to seat a permanent advisory board soon so that we can make sure, especially as this bill passes and gets implemented and we have substantially more money available for EDI, that the advisory board is in place and has had an opportunity to be working together.

so that as they start making those decisions, there is that familiarity with the process and with the kind of work that's happening.

So I wanna thank the chair for including this clarification in the bill and look forward to supporting it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As a huge proponent of ADI, I know we'll be talking about that later today as well.

I want to say thank you, and Councilmember Herbold, I just wanted to address also your question earlier, and for the viewing public, Amendment 2 relates to the issue that you were raising earlier and is also supported and has been crafted with SAGE, so thank you for flagging that.

Any additional comments?

Seeing and hearing none, I'll go ahead and ask Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on Amendment Number 2?

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Let's go ahead and move on to the next amendment.

Amendment number three.

Thank you, Allie.

Thank you.

Amendment number three, sponsored by Chair Mosqueda and Council Member Morales.

is related to the proposed investments in the Green New Deal spending category.

This would add language stating the expectation that those investments will be informed by the members of the to be established Green New Deal Oversight Board and other stakeholders representing communities harmed by the economic, racial, and environmental injustice, and workers who may be displaced by these spending plan investments.

In addition, it adds language prioritizing funding areas, including transitioning single and multi-family housing from use of natural gas or electricity, and other strategies to improve energy efficiency and housing, investing in job training programs to equip workers to thrive in a green economy, as well as providing funding for outreach, education, and technical assistance to be provided by community-based organizations to support low-income, low-wage communities, people of color, and immigrant and refugees, and limited English proficiency communities, and provides funding to support the implementation of the Green New Deal Oversight Board, including staffing costs and board member compensation.

Thank you very much.

Let's get this amendment in front of us.

I move to amend Resolution 31957 as presented in Amendment 3 on the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 3 as presented on the agenda and described by central staff.

I, along with Council Member Morales, are sponsors of this amendment.

I'm going to turn to Council Member Morales first, if you'd like to speak to this, and then I'll happily follow you.

Sure, I'll be brief.

I just want to acknowledge that part of the importance about this is really pushing to actually seat the Green New Deal oversight board to make sure that we get the OAC staff person on who was supposed to support that board.

If we're going to be moving on our climate goals in the city and follow through with the Green New Deal resolution, then we need to get this board seated.

These are intended to be members of the community, folks representing black and brown communities, so that we hear directly from them about what economic justice and climate justice looks like, and for their leadership to be included as we're having conversations about what the investment priorities should be related to how we reach our climate goals.

I look forward to supporting this.

I want to thank Chair Mosqueda for the language and all of the work around making sure that workers and how we think about implementing particularly green building practices in our housing strategies is included and how we make sure that workers are part of that just transition as well are all important factors here and I look forward to supporting it.

Thank you.

I think it's a great compliment to the language that's included in the underlying resolution for your consideration.

This lifts up and enhances the green new deal elements.

But this proposal here, the amendment in amendment three was really driven by a broad coalition of labor, environmental justice groups, community-based organizations, focused on equity.

They all came together with priorities that they had originally, you know, thought about together as a sort of a blue-green equity table.

And they brought us some priorities, spending priorities, to invest in retrofits and weatherization, to help low-income homeowners who are hardest hit by climate change and transitions in their communities, to make sure that we can transition to greener energy efficiency, like away from oil and gas, and make the necessary retrofits for electricity bills to remain affordable.

The amendment in front of us recognizes that the role of the Green New Deal Oversight Committee in making recommendations is critical and that funding has been stalled on this in addition to appointments.

So we are lifting up the Green New Deal Oversight Board by ensuring that there's funding so the group can get stood up.

And the advocates really wanted to make sure that we were protecting and lifting up the role of the Green New Deal Oversight Board but that we also continued the work while that board was being stood up to make sure that it had adequate staffing and momentum so that it can be successful.

So in that spirit, the proposed amendment here also funds the staffing and compensation for the Green New Deal Oversight Board members to make sure that it's permanent, that it provides funding for the body to make sure that there are things like childcare and transit options The proposal includes a strong language around outreach and partnership with community-based organizations who serve communities most impacted by climate change, especially BIPOC communities.

It contains worker retraining dollars to ensure a just transition for workers to thrive in the green new economy, and includes training programs that are focused on creating pathways to good jobs, including for local Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities.

I would love to have all of your support on this.

and make sure that we can move forward with some of those commitments with secure funding.

Council Colleagues, additional comments?

Council Member Sawant, please.

I know this was a big part of what you've also been raising over the last few months.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I, of course, will be supporting this amendment, as you just alluded to, Council Member Mosqueda.

Originally from the concepts incorporated into the Amazon tax legislation that the grassroots tax Amazon movement fought for and the language that was arrived at through the democratically organized action conferences that organizations like 350 and also the urban native activist community through Mazaska Talks was involved.

In and in the beginning of the year when we when our movement had our first tax Amazon action conference at Washington Hall attended by hundreds it was it was at that very meeting that activists brought up the need specifically to fund transition of homes from heating oil and fat gas to clean energy.

as home heating pollution accounts for 15% of the city's pollution output.

And I'm really glad to see that the movement demand is being, you know, that it's being amplified in this amendment along with the emphasis on just transition for all affected workers and standing in solidarity with the labor movement and the emphasis on prioritizing Green New Deal work in communities of color, and all marginalized communities, including immigrant, refugee, and limited English proficiency communities.

I will also note that this is for and 2022 funding onwards.

So as far as the question of getting the dollars to staff the green new deal oversight board, that is absolutely important.

In addition to this amendment for the next 18 months, the green new deal oversight board needs to be funded.

And I really hope that the council members who vote yes on this amendment will also support the amendment that is coming from my office to fund the green new deal oversight board right now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Swan.

Any additional comments on this item?

Seeing and hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on amendment number three?

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries, and the amendment is adopted.

Thanks, Council Colleagues.

Central Staff, let's go ahead and walk through the next amendment.

Amendment four, sponsored by Chair Mosqueda, would modify the details under the economic revitalization spending category to be more specific about the proposed investments in businesses, workforce development, and business districts to include, for example, programs that retrain workers who are transitioning to a new profession, identifies criteria to be considered for prioritizing these investments, specifies that this funding can be used for outreach and education to ensure that businesses understand what the criteria is and can be competitive in the application process, and connects these investments with related strategies under the Green New Deal spending category.

It also corrects attachment one, labeling this investment category as economic revitalization.

Thank you very much.

I would like to move to amend Resolution 31957 as presented on Amendment 4 on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1 as presented on the agenda and described by central staff as the sponsor of this amendment.

I'll speak briefly to this.

Really, Council Colleagues, this is a collaborative effort as well to try to provide clarification on what we mean when we talk about economic revitalization.

This is really about emphasizing what this pot of money was intended to do, to ensure that we have equity, equity in economic recovery that centers our recovery on the values that I know we share, prioritizing small business, especially women and minority owned businesses, ensuring workers have a just transition, whether that's a just transition to green new jobs or just transition in a post COVID world, if they are seeking new employment because of the changes in local economy.

It's about centering Green New Deal principles and ensuring equity values, including investments in BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and other historically marginalized communities.

The economic revitalization bucket is focused on two main items.

First, on workers who are displaced from their jobs due to crises, environmental, emerging needs, COVID, and others, so that they have the opportunity to engage in a just transition, including training and maintaining pay and benefit standards.

Second, it's about ensuring small business support, in particular, prioritizing small businesses and nonprofits who have strong labor standards, businesses from marginalized communities, and those who've experienced hardship due to COVID, and those that have models that support goals to eliminate climate pollution.

And I think that that is in line with many of the amendments we've already talked about today and will talk about it, because we know that we want to move forward not in just creating survival from this crisis, but in creating a new thriving local and more equitable economy on the horizon.

So I really appreciate all of the feedback that went into this from businesses, from labor, from environmental justice groups, from immigrant rights groups, as we talked about what it actually means to have economic revitalization in this bucket.

I thought this clarification would be very helpful.

Any additional comments or questions on this amendment?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on amendment number four?

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.