Finance & Housing Committee 2/19/21

Good morning, everyone.

Today is Friday, February 19th, 2021. The Finance and Housing Committee will come to order.

My name is Teresa Mosqueda.

I'm the chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

And Council Member Gonzalez?

Present.

And Chair Gonzalez, sorry, Chair Mosqueda?

Present.

Three present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And when our other colleagues join us, we'll make sure to announce them.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us today.

This is a special time for our meeting.

We usually meet on Tuesdays, the first and third week of the month.

And we had a holiday this week, which was just a Friday.

Very happy to see all of you.

Glad it's sunny outside.

And I hope everyone is healthy, still staying at home if you possibly can, and socially distancing.

We have a full agenda today.

I will read through it very quickly.

First, we have the appointment of Rita Howard to the Seattle Housing Authority.

I see you on the line, Rita.

Thanks for being with us.

The appointments of Jamie Marsh, Munira Muhammad, to the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

And the appointments of Steve Marchese as the Director of the Office of Labor Standards.

The last two items are a resolution on the capital projects watch list.

My understanding is that we will just be discussing that today to give our colleagues who are outside of this committee a chance to also review it as we'd like to consider any amendments at our next meeting.

And lastly, we will have a briefing from Director Noble and our team from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, our incredible federal lobbying partners and central staff on the federal funding for COVID relief.

That's the agenda.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

We do have a few folks signed up for public comment today.

I appreciate your time this morning.

We're going to endeavor to get through everyone on our list.

here at the sign or when you hear the notice that says that you have been unmuted, that is your cue to hit star six to unmute yourself.

When you have been unmuted, please introduce yourself and the item that you're speaking to.

Please keep your remarks today.

Focus on the items on our agenda in front of us or our committee work plan.

When you're done speaking, please do hang up on the line and listen in on the other options that are provided on today's agenda, including with our partners at Seattle Channel.

Thanks so much for streaming this live Seattle Channel.

We're going to go through everyone on our list, ideally two minutes, and we have a clock in front of me.

So I'll call the first three names and we will begin.

The first three speakers are Victor Liu, Chris Woodward, and Jesse Rawlins.

Good morning, Victor.

You are up.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda and all members.

My name is Victor Liu.

For this contact, I use she, him, his pronouns.

I'm from Asian Counseling and Referral ACRF.

The item that I would like to discuss with the council members today is the ACRS Guest Care Program.

As some of you may have heard that Guest Care Program is a program that focuses on assisting unsheltered individuals with mental health and substance use disorder issues.

ACRS Guest Care Program focuses on Chinatown International District and Pioneer Square.

The majority of our clients are BIPOC individuals.

In a short period of time since our implementation in early November, we have served unduplicated, 66 unduplicated individuals, of which I mentioned 100% of the clients have substance use disorder issues.

And I really urge the council members to maintain the funding and safety net for Just Care program that is in partnership with Public Defender Association, Evergreen Treatment Services, which as well as Truth Theatre Club.

With this program, I would just share very quickly that it is a very ACS is unique in a sense that we're a licensed behavioral health provider.

We can also provide a client with primary care, medical care, as well as special care.

And the cost saving per client on average, we are saving at least $22,600 per client per year.

And I had shared that information with council members, Theresa Mosqueda, before, and I'm happy to email it to all council members if it's helpful.

And I just want to reiterate that if this program is not maintained and sustained, The clients that we had assisted with our partners, they would all end up being traumatized, going back to the hospital, and possibly going back to the jail.

And then the encampments that we had assisted to reduce were likely increased.

It's just very inhumane to do during the pandemic time.

And I hope you will consider this request.

Thank you.

Thank you, Victor.

Perfect timing.

And please do send that to all of our council colleagues at the committee.

That would be wonderful.

The next person is Chris.

Good morning, Chris.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Chris Woodward.

I'm the business development director with the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

The Alliance for Pioneer Square is a 501c3 nonprofit that serves the Pioneer Square neighborhood through business development, marketing, communications, public realm, advocacy, and leadership.

Our stakeholders include all who work, live, and do business in Pioneer Square.

I'm here today to voice support for the Public Defender Association's Just Care Program.

The Just Care Program has had a profoundly positive impact on the Pioneer Square community during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Due to the pandemic, some shelters in Pioneer Square closed or de-intensified, causing many who shelter there to spill out into our neighborhood streets.

Without congregate shelters, these folks are surviving on our streets, sidewalks, and public spaces.

The Just Care Program offers one tool among many in the city's toolkit to transition at-risk folks to a healthier environment.

The Just Care Program is not only beneficial for the individual's well-being, but for the well-being of the neighborhood overall, including residents, visitors, and business owners.

As Pioneer Square reels from the impact from the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital that the Just Care program continues to operate to ensure our neighborhood progresses toward recovery.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for your time this morning.

The next person is Jesse Rollins.

Jesse, it would be great to hear from you.

We always appreciate hearing a friendly voice that used to be with us on council, but it doesn't look like you're with us.

So if you come back in, we will be happy to get back to you.

The next three speakers are Lily Nguyen, Martin Lawson, and Dominique Davis.

Good morning, Lily.

Good morning, everybody.

My name is Lily Nguyen, and I use she, her, hers pronouns I work for the Just Care Program and I am the program coordinator.

We started during the pandemic and enrolled our first client on November 4th.

Now we serve 66 unduplicated clients that have chronic mental and substance use illnesses.

Our clients we serve are mostly black indigenous people of color, and they were located at the International District in Pioneer Square.

Since the start of our program, we have reduced COVID-19 exposure, less tents on the streets, and impacted the lives of every individual we've taken in.

Clients here have engaged in counseling, treatment, report using drugs less, improved in mental health, reconnected with family, got their basic needs met, worked on ID replacements, employment, and there had been zero 911 calls.

I would like the city and mayor to maintain funding for Just Care.

Otherwise, the clients that we serve now will end up back at the neighborhood that they came from, and if they go back, there will be more law enforcement involvement, hospital visits, potential COVID outbreaks, and even death.

It would continue a perpetuating cycle.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time this morning.

The next person is Martin.

Good morning, Martin.

And Martin, if you're there, just star six on your end to unmute.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great.

Thank you very much, Martin.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Martin Lawson, and I am a longtime resident of Seattle.

In my youth, I struggled personally with homelessness and addiction for 10 years in the 90s.

And I personally, like I said, I personally know how addiction and homelessness can affect every part of your being.

I currently support the Just Care effort as a member of the WDC safety team.

And in this role, I'm able to support a non-police safety engagement model as individuals are given housing and support in their effort to transition out of homelessness and addiction.

The Just Care program reduces incarceration rates and issues of COVID exposure and other health risks that threatened this population and the larger Seattle population indirectly.

I strongly encourage the council to continue funding this Just Care program because it is doing wonderful work.

And it's almost impossible to quantify the positive things that this program is doing behind the scenes.

In my role as the WDC safety team, I'm having conversations with the clients of this program daily, and they're just sharing how helpful this program has been to them on a personal note.

And so, like I said, I strongly encourage the continued support of this program.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time today.

The next speaker is Dominique.

Good morning, Dominique.

Hello, my name is Dominic Davis.

I'm one of the co-founders of WDC Community Safety Team.

I don't want to try to repeat whatever you guys already heard.

I want to try to go in a different direction, but I am going to say WDC has been providing safety in the community of the hotels that these participants are staying in.

We have built relationships with the participants.

We have built relationships with the hotel staff.

We have built relationships with just care staff.

And that's what community safety is all about.

Community safety is about relationships, being proactive and preventive and not reactive.

Because when you build the relationships and an issue happens, we're able to step in and use those relationships to leverage those connections we've already made to de-escalate things.

And that's what's been happening.

That's why the police hasn't been able, they haven't had to call the police.

The police hasn't had to come engage with anybody since we've been doing this work.

That's one thing.

Another thing is I feel like it's kind of crazy that we have to have this conversation to try to convince people to pour resources behind housing people, behind dealing with people's mental health, behind having case management to deal with any kind of drug addiction, or any kind of thing that people are dealing with.

And like, literally, if this funding doesn't come down the pipe, they're going to be back out in the street.

And then we're going to have another bigger problem.

And so we're always talking about what community safety looks like.

Just Cares has provided a model for us to emulate and grow.

This conversation should not be around whether we put resources behind it.

This conversation should be around how do we get more resources and grow this program to be bigger and expanded because it has answers in it.

And we're always looking for answers.

We have the bucket of mental health, the bucket of the housing issues, the bucket of the drug addiction issues, and millions of dollars get poured into these different buckets.

Well, here you have an answer where all the buckets could be answered at one time.

It's time for us to start thinking bigger and start thinking outside the box and start putting resources into the answers that already exist in our community and trying to come up with new stuff.

It's something that works, and we need to deal with it, and we need to support it.

We need to put finances behind it.

We need to put more people behind it.

And one more thing I'll say when I end here is that everybody that's been hired on WDC staff are people of color.

We have 13 employees that are employed through WDC.

We want to raise that to 50 employees or to 100 employees and have a bunch of hotels going and get everybody off the streets.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your time this morning and those examples.

The next three speakers are Anne Johnson, Lisa Nitze, and Kirby Vasquez.

Good morning, Anne.

Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to speak today.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Just Care Program as we are in support of it.

I do represent a small hotel in downtown Seattle that, as many of you know, has faced tremendous challenges during this pandemic.

Just to give you a snapshot, this past year, our hotel closed for 65 days last spring, and our restaurant has closed now three times.

During this pandemic, we have furloughed and laid off over 50 employees who have not only been our colleagues, but our close friends.

As a leader in hospitality for over 17 years, I have never experienced anything like what the pandemic has done to our field.

When PDA first approached us with this opportunity, there was hesitancy on our part, as this was truly a pivot from the day-to-day hospitality businesses we're used to doing.

As we learned more about the program and the support that PDA and ACRS would provide, we knew we had to answer the calling to help support the crisis happening within our city.

We've now been in partnership for five months, and we absolutely would make the same decision again if presented with it.

There has certainly been challenges, but with PDA and ACRS's support, we have been able to work through them.

We've also had the opportunity to bring back 16 additional staff members to help support the day-to-day operation.

As of today, we now have 25 staff members working at the hotel.

Our team provides housing, security, meals, maintenance, housekeeping, and so much more.

What has been so amazing to watch is also the bonds that our team has created with some of the participants on property.

These types of interactions happen frequently with all of our team members, and it gives us the motivation to continue the work.

I cannot express enough how valuable the partnership with PDA and ACRS is to our success here at the hotel and with our business.

It is a true partnership and one that we are hoping to continue in 2021. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And good morning, Lisa.

You are up next.

Hi, I'm Lisa Nitza with Nitza Stegen.

We are a real estate developer and have properties in many parts of the city, including in Pioneer Square, and have gotten to know the Just Care team and program well because of its work in Pioneer Square and the CID.

Just Care has made a demonstrable difference in Pioneer Square.

I'm part of a group that we started called the Second Avenue Extension Safety and Security Group of property owners and businesses that are operating in Pioneer Square.

And due to COVID, the amount of safety and security concerns and issues just escalated enormously.

as well as the tragic situation of more and more people that were living unsheltered in tents on the sidewalks.

Our group is made up of businesses, property owners, government, both city and county, and service organizations.

And we've been working together with Just Care on how together we can be not only getting people that are living unsheltered into temporary lodging and getting the services they need, but also realizing the other elements necessary for a thriving community, which is small businesses being able to operate because there's access to them on the sidewalks or in public spaces.

And an increase in perception of and a feeling of safety and security amongst residents, employers, employees, and visitors.

Just Care is very impressive in that it has a social impact framework.

It is looking to social impact metrics and intended outcome.

It's reporting out on those things, so the money is very well spent, and the metrics show that the results are there.

So I'm just asking that you please consider continuing.

Thank you, Lisa.

I think we got most of it.

If there was anything else, please do email us.

The last person on this list is Kirby, and then we have about five more folks.

Kirby, good morning.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Kirby, and I am an employee with the REACH LEAD program.

I've worked closely with the Just Cares project by screening and helping our homeless community move into adequate shelter.

The Just Care participants are extremely vulnerable, with about 70% being BIPOC.

Due to the shelters closing, this community has had to move onto the streets and are living in unfit conditions.

Additionally, and living conditions means that they are at a heightened risk to contract and spread COVID-19.

However, what other options do they have?

They are unable to go to shelters.

The Just Cares program has placed a majority of them in hotels, and I've visited them in these hotels and can attest to the stability and basic needs this is providing as a first step.

Many have joined our intensive case management, and once they've been provided an opportunity to stabilize, they are in a safe space to start tackling their long-term goals.

This Just Cares program is ending on March 15th, and we need a continuation plan to help our community recover.

Above all our homeless community needs to know that Seattle isn't turning their back on them.

Shelter is a basic need and especially essential during a world health crisis.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

And the last five people we have signed up are Adam Hassan Tia Petrovich Gigi Hung Derek Lum and Eleanor Hamburger.

Good morning Adam.

It is your turn.

Adam as I look for you on my screen just remember star six to unmute as well.

Looks like you're still muted on my end.

There we go.

Good morning.

Oh sorry about that.

Yeah this is Adam Hassan.

I'm the Director of Real Estate for Samus Land Company and the Samus Foundation.

And we own 11 buildings in Pioneer Square.

Calling in to support bridge funding for the Just Cares program.

We've seen a tremendous impact.

You know over 100 about 130 people who were living unsheltered at extreme exposure to COVID-19 are now in a safe clean warm place with wraparound services.

And because the congregate shelter is not available if they if they didn't have this option they would be forced back on the streets of the Chinatown ID and Pioneer Square.

And the impact for our retailers our tenants is is really profound.

Prior to COVID we had 32 retailers operating in Pioneer Square in our buildings.

Most of them small businesses and right now over half of them are not going to reopen.

The ones that are still there are struggling to survive.

And having a healthy and safe sidewalk atmosphere is their number one concern.

So we really hope that the Finance and Housing Committee approves coverage funding for the Just Cares program and and seeks federal reimbursement.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The next person is Tia.

Good morning, Tia.

Good morning, and thanks for this opportunity, everyone.

Today, I'd like to address my commentary towards support from the Pioneer Square for the Just Care program.

I'd like to talk about numbers and finances.

I lived in Pioneer Square for 30 years.

I chair the residence council.

Seattle ranks number three behind New York and Los Angeles for homeless populations in major cities.

And I don't think that's a list anyone wants to be on.

The good news, Seattle ranks number one for how we compassionately care for our unhoused, and we keep trying to solve the situation in dignified ways.

More numbers and costs.

I talk about this issue because I've heard that people say, well, Just Care has an expensive price tag.

For you and me, let's say we have to go to rehab.

We don't have insurance.

The monthly cost of inpatient safe bed, drug, mental health treatment, meals, access to a doctor is between $14,000 and $27,000 a month per person.

These are costs that we pay to help our loved ones recover, come back to us if we don't have insurance.

And that's just you and me.

Just Care's costs are averaging $10,000 a month per individual.

I believe Seattle's getting a bargain here.

Just Care is working.

We are seeing unhoused Pioneer Square people accepting help with compassionate and dignified ways in their approach.

I'm watching this daily on the street.

This is the first program I've seen in 30 years that is showing hope.

So please find a way to keep this funded, whether it's through FEMA dollars or another way.

This is a below-market price tag.

It can save lives, and it is saving lives.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The next person is Gigi.

Good morning, Gigi.

Good morning.

This is Gigi Juan, a recovery counselor at Just Care Programs.

Prior to this, I've worked in homeless shelter for a few years, and I can truthfully say being at Just Care in this hotel setting is the first time I feel this hopeful.

At your regular shelter, you see most people deteriorating rapidly day by day.

They're fighting for a bath, fighting for a space to breathe.

There's no room for anything beyond survival life.

At Just Care, I see the exact opposite.

We do not even need to make it a requirement for a resident to meet with us for mental health or substance use counseling.

More than half of our residents are engaging with us in a level that we have never seen.

So many people report a decrease in substance use.

So many people's mental health improved drastically and are ready to contribute back to the society.

We're talking about changing someone's life for the better on a permanent level just by providing a hotel room and a sense of belonging.

We have reduced hospital and legal involvement, but most importantly, we reduce people who will die from homelessness without this.

I urge the city to maintain the founding as we know.

It is not only safer for our health neighbors, but it's also safer for everyone in the city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And Derek, good morning, Derek.

Hi there, everyone.

My name is Derek Lum.

I'm calling representing Interim CDA.

I'm testifying today in support of the Just Cares program and the positive effects it's had on the Chinatown International District community.

Just as you all are probably aware of, our Chinatown community was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 virus, the related economic downturn, and the related encampments have been well documented.

However, the Just Cares program came to our aid and engaged our neighborhood and listened to our concerns and found hotel shelter for more than half of the homeless accountant that was in our neighborhood.

And we're very grateful for that.

And we were, you know, we were very concerned because of our elders and our small businesses about these accountants and just that assistance Just Trans provided was immensely beneficial.

And so we support the FEMA dollars or any other dollars that can be had for Just Cares to continue and even maybe expand.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And the last person present is Eleanor Hamburger.

Good morning, Eleanor.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda and Council Members.

I'm Eleanor Hamburger and I'm speaking today to the appointment of Stephen Marchese to the Director of the Office of Labor Standards.

I just wanted to express my excitement and welcome to Steve to join our community.

I think he's going to be a great addition at the Office of Labor Standards.

I've known him for 30 years and have watched his career dedicated to public service and to access to justice.

And I think he will bring to the Office of Labor Standards strong skills, community building skills, and tremendous experience.

So I wanted to voice my support and excitement that he'll be joining our community.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

It's great to hear your voice.

Haven't seen you in a while.

Appreciate you calling in.

Folks, that's everybody that we have listed for public comment today.

So with that, we will close public comment for this morning, February 19th, and move on to the first item of business.

Before we do, I want to welcome Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much, Council Member, for joining us.

And let's continue.

Oh, Council Member Lewis, I see you.

I see Council Member Strauss, Council President Gonzales.

We have good company here today.

Thanks, everyone.

Madam Clerk, please go ahead.

Agenda Item 1, Appointment 1785. Appointment of Rita Howard as member of Seattle Housing Authority Board for a term to March 20, 2023. For briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

And good morning.

Rod Bronson is with us from the Seattle Housing Authority, the Director of Housing Operations.

Great to see you this morning.

We also saw Rita.

Thank you, Rita, for waiting.

It's been great to See you on the screen.

Wish we could be in person.

Very excited about this appointment and all of the work that SHA continues to do, not only to house folks, but I know you're doing a lot of work right now to help vaccinate your members.

So, Rod, I'll turn it over to you if you'd like to offer some opening comments, either about what SHA has been up to, and if you have any opening comments about Rita, that'd be wonderful, and then Rita will turn it over to you.

Great, great.

Thank you very much for doing that.

So very briefly, we have just been very, very busy with the vaccination, most recently on the COVID response at SHA.

We are making it possible with partnership with the city of Seattle and getting on-site vaccinations done for our residents.

And it's just been great and tremendous.

So we're going to just keep pushing as far and as fast as we possibly can go.

So thank you guys for your cooperative help and your great team.

It's working really, really well for our residents.

In particular, our residents of color and our residents of age who we're focusing on.

But this morning, I'd like to thank you for allowing me to come and introduce Rita Howard to you and your committee.

for consideration as a resident board commissioner for the Seattle Housing Authority.

Again, my name is Rod Brandon, Director of Operations for Seattle Housing Authority.

Rita come to us originally from Cleveland, Ohio via Rhode Island and finally landed here in Seattle where she's been a resident for the last 35 years.

What brought Rita here was a continuation of her professional career.

She is a professional technical writer and researcher, and she wanted to continue that here in the Northwest, so we're very fortunate.

Rita is also a mother of a daughter, and she has very strong ties to her immediate community where she resides, as well as the extended community.

She cares deeply about our community and the issues that Seattle Housing Authority continues to face in this region.

One of many reasons why we would like for her to serve on our board as a commissioner, as a resident commissioner here at the Seattle Housing Authority.

So thank you again for introducing.

I'd like to introduce her to you.

So appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for being with us today, Miss Howard.

It's wonderful to hear your background.

I also see from the materials that the office sent to us that you have extensive work in voter registration and served as a cross neighborhood liaison for Seattle Parks.

So very much a core component of our community and keeping folks healthy and connected.

Look forward to hearing more from you about your interest in serving and what you are interested in accomplishing during your tenure.

Oh, Rita, if you could just unmute for us real quick.

The challenges of Zoom is always something.

Yes, there we go.

I'm unmuted now.

Well, good morning, everyone.

And thank you for considering me for this position.

As Rod has said, I have lived in Seattle for about 30 years and am deeply connected to the greater Seattle community.

I think that what I bring to the board would bring to the commissioner position is an ability to listen, and then also an ability to speak up clearly, concisely, from a place of wisdom and caring about the community.

So I'm very excited about the possibility of being able to forward the ability of Seattle to welcome and house safely and comfortably a wide range of people from various income levels, particularly those who are low income.

Um, I am a resident of the, um, of one of the Seattle senior, uh, uh, residencies.

Um, and so I wouldn't am particularly interested in how people age in place and, uh, how it is that we keep people of senior people, uh, in, adequate housing and that is both safe and affordable.

So I'm really excited about doing this work and I hope you'll consider me.

We're really excited about you wanting to continue to do the work and officially serve on the board.

Looking at our tiles here, is there anyone who has a question for Ms. Howard?

Okay.

I think, um, You have impressed everyone already with your comments this morning with Rod's introduction.

and with the materials that we've received.

So it doesn't look like there's any questions.

I guess one thing that I would be interested in is, you know, having the experience of being in the buildings.

Are there certain things that you would like to see us think about as creative opportunities to get folks to re-engage in community once there is herd immunity and there's vaccines?

Are there strategies that you'd like to see us think about across the city that could potentially involve parks and small businesses and things like that?

I'm happy to take any advice from you at this point.

And I'm happy to think about those questions for some time and also look at them in the context of what SHA is doing and what they have planned.

Off the top of my head, I can't offer anything.

But I'm sure that there will be opportunities to contribute to substantive, constructive, answers to that question.

One of the things I think I bring to any organization is an ability to think creatively and to be responsible in executing the duties that are assigned to me in terms of making things happen.

I love it.

I love that answer.

Thank you.

And we'll look forward to those creative conversations and ideas to come.

At this point, I'm going to go ahead and move the committee recommends passage of the appointment of Rita Howard to the Seattle Housing Authority Board.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council President.

It has been moved and seconded.

Is there any additional comments or questions?

Seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the appointment?

Oval?

Yes.

Gonzalez?

Yes.

Lewis?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

And Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

It is unanimous, Ms. Howard.

Thank you very much for your interest.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation will be sent to the March 1st full board, I mean, full council meeting for a final vote.

You are not required to be there.

We will absolutely sing your praises when we talk about your appointment and our recommendation to the full council.

And once again, thank you, and thank you, Mr. Brandon, for your time this morning as well.

Thank you.

Well, thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

All right, Madam Clerk, let's move on to items two and three.

Can you please read into the record items two and three?

Agenda items two and three, appointments 1786 and 1787, appointment of Jamie Marsh as member of Sweden Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board for term to August 31st, 2021, and appointment of Marina Muhammad as member of Sweden Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board for term to August 31st, 2023, both for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Excellent, thank you very much, and good morning, everyone.

I'm happy to have Alyssa Patrick with the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment with us, and also to have Jamie Marsh as one of the appointees.

I believe that the other appointee, Marina Muhammad, is not with us today, but we will be talking about her incredible resume as we consider her appointment.

So at this time, why don't I go ahead and turn it over to you, Alyssa, if you'd like to talk a little bit more about what the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Tax Force has been up to, the advisory committee, the appointments in front of us.

Yes, thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

I'm happy to be here today.

And yeah, my name is Alyssa and I use she her pronouns and I work for the I'm on the food policy and program team at the Offices of Sustainability and Environment.

And I'm here today on behalf of my colleague Bridget, who is the primary staff liaison for the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

The advisory board was established by the same ordinance that created the beverage tax and the role of the board is to develop recommendations for the mayor and city council on the programs and services to support with beverage tax revenue that align with the ordinance priorities of food access, child health and development, and prenatal to five services.

The board consists of 11 members who are residents of the city of Seattle or work within the boundaries of the city of Seattle.

And to give you a little bit of an idea of the work that they've been doing lately, um, the, the first body of work they've been working on is, is continuing to provide input to the department of neighborhoods and the department of education and early learning on the design of two new community grant programs that are funded by the sweetened beverage tax.

These grant programs were established by the city in response to the board's recommendations for more investments in community led and community identified priorities and projects.

The RFPs for these grant programs are on track to be released later this year.

And the board is providing recommendations on equitable grant-making processes.

The board's second body of work is to organize itself to make annual budget recommendations.

Their goal is to develop and transmit budget recommendations to the mayor by the end of June or early July in advance of when the mayor releases the proposed budget.

The board will develop its approach to budget recommendations in the next couple of months.

And today, I'm very happy to introduce the two appointees, one who is here, Jeme Marsh.

And it's my pleasure to introduce Jeme, who is originally from Spokane and specializes in community organizing, organizational development, assessment, and policy advocacy.

For over 15 years, they applied this skill set to build community, shift power, and drive policy change, particularly with and for queer and trans people of color.

Jamay is an alum of the University of Michigan and University of Washington Schools of Social Work, where they deepened their passion for cultivating creative spaces that center radical joy and healing, as well as fostering sustained partnerships between school systems and the community at large.

Currently, Jamay serves as executive director of Feast, a nonprofit that's doing great work centering youth as leaders working towards school food systems change in Seattle and South King County.

Our offices had the pleasure of working with FEAST in many capacities, and they really do remarkable work centering young people's voices who are really leaders in our community.

J'May also centers youth power and racial justice via representation on the City of Seattle Environmental Justice Committee, the King County Children and Youth Advisory Board, and Seattle Art Museum's Education and Community Engagement Committee.

And before I turn it over to Jeme, I also am going to introduce Munira, who is not able to be with us today.

Munira is the Executive Director of the East African Community Services.

She brings to this executive role more than 17 years of experience in the nonprofit sector with specific expertise in early childhood, equity-centered organizational development, and business management.

Munira likes to say that she hails from Somali by way of North Dakota.

She unapologetically embraces her refugee and immigrant roots.

She notes that her unwavering commitment to issues of anti-racism, equity, and economic justice for East African immigrant and refugee communities were framed in personal, lived experience as the other.

In addition to her expertise in early childhood, Munira is also passionate about food justice and health equity.

For example, drawing connections between the lack of healthy quality food in BIPOC neighborhoods and chronic disease and health disparities in Black and immigrant communities compelled Munira to launch Healthy Food Now and Fitness for Life, two programs designed to educate youth on the danger of sugary beverages, fast food, and the lack of exercise.

Munir will bring professional and personal experiences and expertise with early learning, health equity, and immigrant and refugee affairs to her role on the board.

With that, I turn it over to committee for discussion, and to Jeme, I believe, yeah.

Good morning, Jemay.

It's wonderful to see you in person via this Zoom tile in front of me.

Wish we could see you in real life, but thank you for joining us today.

Look forward to hearing more from you about the work that you've done and your interest in serving on the Community Advisory Board.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that introduction.

Again, my name is Jeme Marsh.

I use they them pronouns.

And generally, I have a broad background in higher education and doing health equity work over the past 15 years, as you heard, particularly in the diversity, equity and inclusion lens.

And throughout my career, whether in a health or educational setting, my priority is always amplifying youth voices and experiences, particularly of youth of color and youth who identify in the queer and trans spectrum.

I bring a racial equity and justice lens to strengthening community health systems and policy analysis, and I intend to bring perspectives on how to best serve and engage low income youth and colors, youth of color and families through this sweetened beverage tax funded programs.

I'm really passionate about changing systems and policies that have intentional or unintentional negative impacts.

For example, how can we look at using sweetened beverage tax funds for programs that benefit low income people and communities of color who are most impacted by the tax.

I care deeply about communities that experience environmental racism and food apartheid.

And I say food apartheid and not food desert because I understand and see that racism is embedded in the foundations of our institutions and community designs, and that lack of resources is not accidental or a natural occurrence, as the word desert might suggest.

I believe that everyone, especially low income communities of color, should have equitable access to fresh, affordable, and culturally relevant food.

And I think that the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board is one strong avenue to advocate for putting resources back into these communities that have been disproportionately taxed and disinvested in.

Okay, I am going to make a note to continue to say food apartheid instead of food desert because that is a fabulous and accurate frame.

And I will make sure to add that to the language that we use as well.

You've already brought in horizons and just your nomination discussion today.

So I'm really excited about your continued engagement with the Sugary Sweetened Beverages Community Advisory Board.

I wanna pause to see if there's any questions or comments from our colleagues.

Okay, I am not seeing any questions for Jemay.

Also, if there's any questions that folks might have about Munira, you're welcome to also ask those of Alyssa.

Jamay, one of the things that I would love to hear your thoughts about is the potential, I'm gonna say opportunity, I'm gonna be optimistic for a moment, and think about when we rebuild the local economy and how we rebuild it in the shape and vision of our community who wants to see a more equitable economy.

Are there ideas or strategies that you're interested in exploring regarding how we open up more access to healthy food sites in the wake of the crisis and hardship that the pandemic has created.

And any thoughts that you think that the board, the community advisory board should be potentially looking at as you embark in this recovery effort that should never go back to the way things were?

Absolutely.

I, I think this is a very complex answer but I think that it definitely starts with listening to communities and trying to create opportunities to hear folks that have been marginalized or maybe don't have as much access to show up in spaces like this.

And that's something that I like to consider myself or act as a bridge to bringing in those voices and through my work with my organization doing food distribution, we've learned that, you know, all these systems that are happening in response to covert or new and people are trying their best but sometimes The access is still not there or not.

It's not always meeting everyone's needs.

So to get a really complex and nuanced picture of what the community needs actually are, I think is really important.

Because we've seen that there's greater need for like delivering food to people's homes and things like that.

people can't always just like show up somewhere at a specific time for all sorts of factors.

And another thing that I think is important is really prioritizing the needs and engaging the voices of these small business owners, POC business owners.

A lot of the things that we've seen with food is like a lot of these big companies and corporations are benefiting from this pandemic right now because people people are limited in where they can shop.

And I remember back like when there was, you know, a lot of shortages, it kind of pushed people to go to some of these larger stores.

And so, you know, through my organization, we've been trying to put money back into communities hands to purchase food or deliver food that comes from some of these smaller grocers and some of these mom and pops and like helping to keep putting money back into these communities so that we're not always having to go outside of our communities to find the resources that we need.

But I think that, you know, any process should begin with a solid community assessment and some deep listening and finding ways to, you know, transcend some of the barriers that we know that exist in terms of people having access to spaces where they can be heard and be heard by people in positions of power.

Well, that's a fantastic answer.

And I know we will very much look forward to learning from you and your service on the board.

especially as we consider these various issues and the opportunity potentially for federal dollars, which we'll be talking about here soon.

My understanding is that, you know, Phoenix has actually initiated a partnership with folks on the ground for getting more local farms, restaurants and food entrepreneurs dollars right now to invest directly into the food apartheid areas.

And that might be an interesting thing for us to quickly follow up on as well.

So I look forward to having your service there.

And also really appreciate Munira's interest in serving.

Please pass on our appreciation.

for Munira's interest in serving on the board as well.

And really appreciate the unapologetically embracing her roots in the refugee and immigrant community, especially as we think about who's most impacted by the crisis that COVID is only making worse in many of our communities.

So with that, I move the committee recommends passage of the appointment of Jamay Marsh and Munira Mohamed to the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold.

Any additional further comments or questions?

Hearing none, it is unanimous.

I'm so sorry.

Let me actually take the vote.

So it's official.

Sorry about that, Jamay.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the of the appointments to the sweetened beverage tax community advisory board.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Gonzalez?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

And Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor and none opposed.

Excellent.

Now it's unanimous.

The appointments are confirmed.

We are going to make sure that the committee recommendation is sent to the March 1st Seattle City Council meeting for a final vote.

Again, you don't have to be there in person, but we will make sure to talk about your great answers here today.

And all council colleagues will have the materials that were submitted to this committee.

Thank you very much.

Thank you also, Alyssa, for your time today.

and please pass on our appreciation to the CAB for their extensive and amazing work over the last few years.

Look forward to hearing more from you, Jemay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, wonderful.

Thank you, colleagues.

We are going to move on to item number four, our last appointment of the day.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item number four into the record?

Agenda item four, Appointment 1779, Appointment of Stephen Marchese as Director, Office of Labor Standards for Briefing, Discussion, and Possible Vote.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

And welcome, Deputy Mayor Sixkiller.

I appreciate you being with us.

I know you've been with us this morning and happy to have you here.

Acting Director Steve Marchese, thank you so much for your time this morning.

I will turn it over to Deputy Mayor for a short introduction, but wanted to say how much I appreciated having the opportunity to meet with you.

I know that you will be making the rounds and meeting with other council members that you might not have had the chance to meet with yet.

I gotta say it was great to hear from our old friend Ellie Hamburger this morning, excited to know that you've known each other for quite a while, and really appreciate all of the comments that you have put in the extensive question and answer document that we sent around.

Our council questionnaire is very informative to our discussions, especially your answers around your childhood experience and how that work has reflected back in your career and your commitment to social justice, workers' rights.

And I really appreciate that you have led the efforts to see labor standards in your answers you've led with an effort to see labor standards implementation in a post-COVID world.

I think that's really important and we'll talk more about that.

And I do want to note, while your questions were greatly appreciated, we have not yet even submitted the longest question and answer packet yet.

I believe that the longest one came from the Office of Economic Development.

So we are still not first, but we appreciate your extensive answers to that because I know it was probably time-consuming and very much appreciated.

So Deputy Mayor Sixkiller, I'll turn it over to you, and we will then turn it over to the appointee.

All right, thank you, council member.

Good morning, council members.

I'm delighted to be able to zoom in today and introduce Steve Marchese.

Mayor Durkin was so excited to nominate him to be our city's next director of the Office of Labor Standards.

He will be joining us with over 20 years of public service experience, which we think will just be such a tremendous value add and help him in his transition to the city.

Director Marchese moved to Seattle recently from St. Paul, so I feel like we've all started to get to know him and the snow he brought with him this past weekend, but we're going to try to see past that as he moves into this new role.

But most recently, Steve served as the public service director for the Minnesota State Bar Association, leading efforts to link pro bono legal services to organizations that serve the public.

He also served as the director of the St. Paul School Board, And in that role, developed and sustained a strong relationship with the community, employees, leadership, labor representatives, and of course, elected officials all in service for bringing high quality education and ensuring a respectful and equitable work environment for district staff and students.

As an attorney, Steve has represented both employees and employers in employment discrimination, labor retentions, and other areas of civil litigation.

And as an attorney commissioner on the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, has firsthand experience developing policy on civil rights and hearing complaints.

Director Marchese's legal background and extensive leadership and coalition building expertise makes him an excellent choice to further build upon our city's work to create a better economy and economic opportunity for workers and businesses alike.

I think as you all know, we put our applicants through a pretty robust selection process.

Steve went through that with flying colors.

That included engagement from other cabinet members as well as OLS staff, RSGAI change team, representatives from the OLS Advisory Board, the Mayor's Small Business Advisory Council, and of course, our local labor partners.

Steve is committed to building relationships within our business and labor community and working with city departments and external partners and council to continue to make Seattle a place for working people to grow and thrive.

We're very excited that he's willing to join us here and welcome him to Pacific Northwest and appreciate very much the council scheduling time today to allow him to be before your committee.

Thank you, council member.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And I will also echo my appreciation for the mayor's office and the robust process that you went through for engaging stakeholders in the interview process.

We know that you have been pulling together folks to do a lot of recruitment of candidates.

And so I think it speaks volumes to the nomination in front of us that Mr. Marcus, who was selected.

I also want to thank the folks who provided feedback on the questionnaire that I noted, specifically Sejal Parikh, my chief of staff, who helped coordinate the various questions and responses.

She selected, I'm sorry, she requested feedback from various boards and commissions, as well as labor and business partners, and had the opportunity to have a few conversations with folks from Minneapolis and Minnesota as well.

I appreciate all of the work that went into the background to get you here in front of us, Mr. McCarthy.

So please go ahead without further ado.

Yeah, thank you so much Council Member Mosqueda and thank you Council Members for the opportunity to meet you virtually.

I wish we were able to do this in person and it's great to be here.

Thank you for Deputy Mayor Sixkiller for the introduction and for the opportunity to talk with you today.

I'm excited to be here with you.

I'm excited to be here in Seattle, our new home, and to be able to talk about the Office of Labor Standards and my interest in being the director of the Office of Labor Standards.

I'm excited to have the support of the mayor and have gone through this process with you.

And I'm happy to answer questions from the council members about my background, my interests, any of the issues that you see raised in the questionnaire.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

We do have quite a bit of background material for us.

I think I'll start with a question here just to get us started.

So I mentioned that we did our own extensive outreach to various community partners, probably no surprise if you know our office.

And we had the opportunity to connect with various labor unions in Minnesota to see what they thought about the potential appointment and to ask some questions of them.

And they actually turned it back around and offered to ask a question of you that I thought was very informative.

They asked us to consider how you, They asked us to pass along and love to hear your answer.

How do you see the role changing from your previous job?

And how do you see new challenges that are in front of us at this point in a post-COVID world?

Given that you will have this position, what are some of the more immediate things that you would like to do?

Great question again for them sending that in.

Yeah, thank you and I'm glad to hear that you were able to reach out to my comrades in the twin cities in Minnesota.

I've had good relationships with folks there for many years and I've been pleased to have many of their many of the organization support as a elected official endorsements from labor councils and union union members in Saint Paul.

This is a different role than what I've been doing in Saint Paul.

As a school board member, I am one of the seven official representatives of the district.

And so my responsibility is to represent the district and the community and labor negotiations, but also in policymaking.

And so I've had a governance role, and that includes oversight of policies and negotiations with bargaining units.

That's a very different role than I have here, although I see how I've been able to, in St. Paul, incorporate some of the principles around labor standards into my work there.

And one of the things that I think I talked about in the questionnaire response was our decision prior to even St. Paul having a minimum wage ordinance to decide to make sure that all of our employees and all of our bargaining units were able to make and get to a $15 an hour minimum.

and did that as part of district policy, as part of our labor negotiations.

And we're able to do that with some of the lowest paid members of our staff community.

And I'm excited that we were able to do that as part of our district board policy and as a collective.

In this role, I think, as Labor Standards Director, we know that the community is, the community of workers is struggling to be able to make a living.

to be able to work in the community and be able to secure the opportunity to have good benefits and good wages to organize collectively.

Work now is done in a lot of different ways than they were before.

In other words, people are in homes, they're in cars, they're in different places and spaces that's challenged for organizing.

That really means that it's important for a regulator like the Office of Labor Standards to really step in and set and help with the assistance of council and the mayor's office baseline protections for our workers.

Unlike being a board member where I can say as one of seven We are going to do this as a collective, as a board, as an entity for all of our workers for St. Paul Public Schools.

This office is dealing with thousands of workers throughout the city.

It's also dealing with employers who are coming from many different circumstances.

Many of them are struggling at this time with the economic downturn as a result of COVID and are trying very hard to maintain their businesses, and particularly with BIPOC and women-owned businesses, small businesses that do not have the kinds of infrastructure that we have at a school district with a general counsel's office and people available.

You know, we need to think about how we can educate community members who are in business particularly those BIPOC businesses that don't have support otherwise, about the obligations under the ordinances, provide them information and technical support.

And I'm excited to think about how we can do those in the kinds of creative ways that OLS has been doing them and expand them and make them even more valuable to the community.

Excellent.

I'm not seeing a hand.

Is there any other questions for Mr. Markizzi?

and do tell me if I'm pronouncing your last name correctly.

You are right, it's Marchese.

Marchese.

Thank you, yep.

It's that Italian C-H, that kind of.

Excellent, thank you.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead, Vice Chair.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate your willingness to serve the city of Seattle and our workforce in this really important department that I think is critical to the ability of Seattle to live its values and stand up for workers and really work to be a leader among other jurisdictions throughout the country and lift the standards for everyone.

one city at a time if that's what we have to do.

In that area, one of the things that I have been very concerned about is as we have worked really hard in conjunction with workers, with the traditional workforce to raise the standards, we have seen a proliferation of jobs that do not benefit from those standards.

And there's been, I think, a strategic and intentional growth of gig workers and contract workers, generally speaking.

So as we, you know, pass laws like paid sick and safe leave or secure scheduling, increase the minimum wage, you see this increase in an unregulated workforce.

And I think it's really incumbent on us as a city to address that.

Madam Chair Mosqueda has done really great work with some segments of that workforce, whether or not it's domestic workers or transportation network company drivers.

And I really appreciate her leadership in doing that work in a sort of a segment by segment-by-segment basis, but I'm also really interested in doing some overarching work for benefit folks who are potentially not in a traditional employer-employee relationship, so that some basic requirements be be regulated across different work sectors.

And Labor Standards Advisory Council has made some, I think, some really good recommendations that I'm really interested in.

are focused on really some transparency and disclosure requirements during the contracting process or the hiring process, regardless of what you want to call it.

It's, I think, really a hiring process.

But I'm interested to know if you have some thoughts about what, at a minimum, should be disclosed when somebody is entering into an agreement with somebody who is essentially an employer to fulfill workplace obligations.

Thank you so much Council Member Herbold for the question and this is incredibly timely right now particularly as we're looking at recovery and COVID and the experiences that we've had over the last year but it also goes back to changes that have been going on in the labor market for a long time now.

the rise of subcontracting and gig working, and the fact that they are not formal employer-employee relationships is huge because you do have a significant and growing section of the labor market.

And a section of the labor market that, by the way, is very, very much made up of BIPOC community members, new arrivals, folks who are looking to make a living.

And these are ways and arrangements that are being created.

And the law treats them as if they were just sort of equally positioned bargainers who can sort of come up with a contract for the purposes of the services of the worker.

That isn't necessarily a circumstance when you think of who is involved in the contracting relationship.

Large corporations have a lot more power and authority and ability to set standards and put them into the contracting arrangement and avoid responsibility for the kinds of protections that we want to see workers have under state and local law.

And so, you know, I think we need to think about if we're going to rely on the fact that, and acknowledge actually, because we really can't stop it, that a significant part of the population is now coming into labor relationships constructed by contract, that the fundamentals of good contracting need to apply.

We need to think about how clear that information is made available to the employee, or I'll put that in quote, the worker, how the worker who is going to be giving their services and selling their services to the other contracting entity, what they should know.

They should know about rate of pay.

They should know about how it's calculated.

They should know about scheduling.

They should know about expenses and the way that those expenses are going to be born and and have an ability to understand clearly what is going to be in and what is not going to be in that contract, what they're going to be provided and what they're going to be expected to provide.

They should know about scheduling.

They should know about the opportunity to change or alter the contract.

They should know these things in ways that are also done so that the prospective worker can actually understand them so that they're in language-specific ways, that workers understand that this is different than other kinds of employer opportunities, employee opportunities, so that they can evaluate that.

And then they can also understand where they're going to be on the hook for changes.

So I think there are the principles that the advisory commission came up with are really helpful.

I think it's important that we don't necessarily Hide behind the contracting relationship as a way to avoid making sure that the standards that we hope to see as a collective that us Council members that we as an office that our community wants to see for all workers.

are somehow or another avoided because that arrangement legally doesn't sit within the traditional parameters of employment and labor law.

And I think we use the standards of good contracting and clarity and intentionality in making sure that we make that possible for contracting arrangements involving employment.

Thank you very much, Vice Chair Hurdle.

Thank you very much for that answer.

Follow-up questions?

Any additional questions?

Thank you so much for your response.

Thank you for becoming familiarized with the recommendations of the Labor Standard Advisory Council, and I really look forward to working with you on advancing this policy.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I do, too.

Thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

I'm not seeing a hand.

I do have a follow up question that's related.

You talked quite a bit about the the topic that Vice Chair Herbold has referred to in questions five and seven.

And I think that You know, one of the things that we are interested in is making sure that the approach to businesses and small businesses, including workplaces that are, you know, hard to reach workers.

I say that because, you know, cars are workplaces, homes are workplaces for many of these folks who are working in gig work or independent contractor work.

We want to make sure that we're doing outreach to employers and employees or hiring entities and the individual doing the work.

But one of the questions in response to question seven, you note that your approach would be a both and with business and workers as opposed to either or.

I think that this is good.

We've all been looking at ways to find win-wins and philosophically, wondering if you believe that OLS is a workers' rights and advocacy department or a department that is intended to build bridges between workers and small businesses.

Because unfortunately, there are times where we can't necessarily do both.

We do need to pick a lane to make sure that there is really adherence to those standards that were put out.

And I bring this up because we had some early situations where we were relying heavily on education, education, education, and some of those employers weren't doing the changes that were needed.

So I really appreciate the work that the office has done to do a both and in many cases, but recognize that we need to be an enforcement agency too.

So how do you balance that?

Well, there's no question in my mind that the whole entire purpose for the office and the ordinances is to benefit and set standards for workers.

So we start from the presumption that we are here to ensure standards and make sure that we are enforcing those standards on behalf of workers.

These are the fundamental purposes.

That's the fundamental purpose for the ordinances that you and your colleagues have passed.

It's the purpose of our work as a baseline.

Now, I completely see that, you know, there's obviously a need to do the education work to help employers comply, to make sure that they understand in the obligations that they have, that they've done in language appropriate and culturally appropriate ways.

But the ultimate responsibility for enforcing and ensuring adherence is coming back to this office.

And this office needs to be solid in the way that it does that.

It needs to be clear.

It needs to be effective.

It needs to be seen as an honest broker.

and doing that work, but it needs to start from the presumption that we are here to make sure that workers are protected.

And the education efforts that we have are in service to ensuring that happening.

Why?

Because we cannot have our staff everywhere around the city.

So we also need to, you know, be relying on building relationships, which with the office has done a very good job of and it works closely with community based organizations in the worker community labor unions, our COEF grantees, members on the LSAC and the Domestic Workers Standards Board.

who provide information.

I think those are the key kind of relationships that we use to get information out to the worker community, but also use that to feedback information to our staff.

That also gives us an opportunity as an office to do investigations that are outside of just the sole complaint-based method.

We can think about patterns that we're seeing from industries and places where we can see that there may be not as many formal complaints, but we know that compliance is not where we want it to be.

And that allows our office to use much more directed investigation and strategic enforcement tools to be able to do that.

So those are remedies, those are techniques that we can use.

to advance this work that's part of the mission of this office.

That's not incompatible with working with employers.

We have a desire to see employers do good work with their employees.

That's the fundamental thing we want to see.

Hopefully we don't have to get involved in those relationships and they happen to do them on their own.

We also know that doesn't happen all the time.

So that's why we exist.

I do love hearing that phrase, directed investigations.

I know that that's an efficient way for both the department and for various sectors to have the type of outreach, education and enforcement focus that we need.

Council Member Herbold, is there something else to add, please?

I did.

Your line of questioning, Madam Chair, reminded me of another question I wanted to ask related to a recent report on secure scheduling.

I don't know, Director Marchese, if you've had a chance to it's a second year report out of the city auditor's office.

And whereas it shows some increased gains over the first year report, it does still have a pretty, I think, high rate of noncompliance being experienced by workers.

We still see About 50 percent of those employees surveyed experiencing last-minute shift changes without pay, 32 percent of workers experiencing co-opening shifts without pay, and 14 percent experiencing canceled shifts without pay.

I'm wondering if you've had a chance to review this audit yet, if you have thoughts about how we can use strategic investigation principles, including directed investigation, to see that we have more gains for workers in this area.

Yeah, thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I did see it come across the email a couple of days ago, so I haven't had a chance to fully digest the findings in the audit, and I have time set up next week with staff to be able to do that more fully.

But I think on the question, just some kind of high level thoughts about this.

You know, I think it's important to think about this as that the work that ordinances are doing and secure scheduling obviously is one of the ones that we're looking at closely.

This is culture change within the community and within the businesses that are impacted by this.

What we're trying to do is shift the norm.

That takes time.

I think it's important that part of that public education is to help shift those norms to educate businesses about the requirements and educate more importantly workers about what they have a right to ask for.

People who are doing the kinds of work that may often end up being and not high noncompliance industries, maybe ones that they don't know that they actually don't have to worry about.

They shouldn't have to worry about last minute changes.

Why?

Because that's been course of dealing for many, many years.

And so if we're going to change the norms, we need to be able to get that information out clearly to the community of workers and employers.

We also need to get that feedback mechanism from the workers to be able to say, this is something that we are not seeing and we have issues.

I think the audit's really helpful.

An audit will be helpful to help us think about where are some specific kinds of industries or places where we need to think more about test driving to see are we getting what we need in those places, in those workplaces?

And if not, how can we then take the opportunity to use directed investigation to inquire more, to solicit information?

Are there employers who repeatedly use noncompliance?

And therefore we're hearing maybe not necessarily from the workers for a variety of reasons.

Maybe they don't know.

Maybe they don't want to let us know.

Maybe they're concerned about their safety or of their jobs, for example.

And we also should look at the kinds of industries and the places where that happens more frequently than others so that we can use audit findings like this to help guide the ways that our enforcement team can then use its efforts to be able to open up investigations and see what's going on and how it's going to be handled.

I think it's hard to think about 100%.

We'd love 100% compliance.

I think we'd love 100% in a lot of things.

But I think what we want to see is over the course of time, a higher rate of compliance and less concern that people are getting bumped off of their regular work schedules and needing to seek redress.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Great question, Vice Chair Hurdle.

Colleagues, I am not seeing any additional questions or comments at this time.

Mr. Marchesi, I know that you do have other meetings to have with council members, and perhaps we can have you back into this committee pending any final confirmation to hear more about the answers to the questions that Council Member Herbold has asked and mine as we think about how the world evolves in a post-COVID world.

Deputy Mayor, did you have anything else you'd like to add?

Okay, thank you for being with us as well.

And Mr. McKissick, anything else that you'd like to add before we consider your nomination?

Sure, I just, again, I wanna thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, Chair, and the other council members for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I wanna thank the mayor's office for nominating me to this position and selecting me for this opportunity.

I'm excited to get busy.

I'm already now in my end of my third week.

I'm learning a lot about the office.

There's a terrific staff.

They've been working hard.

I want to be able to help them do their best work and I want to be part of the work of the city to really strengthen the protections for our workers and help work with you and others in our community to make this the kind of city and workplace that works for everyone.

So thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you very much.

And we also appreciate that the more robust engagement process that the council had requested two or three years ago was followed.

So I think that that's why there was a little bit of ease with making sure that you could get out here and start your position soon.

And I know that I'm impressed.

I appreciate your answers here today and that there will be an evolving conversation as the world continues to respond to the changing dynamics in our local economies and across the nation.

Thank you for your time today and for being with us and for your robust answers to the questionnaire.

So we'll make sure to pass along that questionnaire to all of our council colleagues on the full council.

I've already received it.

And if they have any additional questions before the first, we'll make sure to let you know.

At this time, I'd like to move the committee recommends passage of the appointment of Steven Marchese as director of the office of labor standards.

Is there a second?

Second.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the appointment?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Gonzalez?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

And Chair Mosqueda?

Yes.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation will be sent to the March 1st full council meeting for a final vote.

Interim Director Marchesi, you do not have to be there, but you are welcome.

You know, if you'd like to come and make a few comments before the full committee, we would more than welcome that.

The Council President is on the line double checking that process-wise, that would make sense because we are remote and it is strange.

Madam President, anything?

Yeah, we usually do require department directors to make an appearance.

So we will, we will put you on the agenda.

And we will suspend the rules and allow you to address members of the viewing public and the full council for a few minutes in in the in follow up to a vote of your confirmation.

Thank you so much.

Even better.

So we will look forward to seeing you on March 1st and congratulations on the vote from this committee.

Thank you for being here with us today and thank you very much, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we'll see you soon.

Thank you.

Council colleagues and Interim Director Dan Eater, I wanted to see if we might be able to switch the agenda today to have item number six instead of item number five next.

We do have some guests with us from Washington, D.C., and I know that there's a short timeline to have them present with us until 1130, so if it's okay, Interim Director Eater, I think we'll go ahead and go to item number six.

Again, item number five was the Capital Projects Watch List, and it was for briefing and discussion today, no vote.

We will have opportunity to have that discussion again on March 2nd and look forward to getting folks amendments if there are any and we'll have more of an in-depth discussion.

If we can get to that item today before we adjourn, we'll absolutely do that, but let's go ahead.

I'm seeing nods.

Thank you very much, Director Eder.

I'm seeing nods, so we'll go ahead to item number 6 first.

Madam Clerk, could you please read into the record item number 6?

Agenda item 6, federal funding for COVID relief for briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much.

Very excited for this conversation.

I know that this is a point in time assessment of what you could potentially expect.

We will have folks introduce themselves very briefly, but I believe we have Director Ben Noble, the City Budgets Office, Ali Panucci and Jeff Sims from Council Central staff, Sierra, Howard Brown and Leslie Polner with us.

Thank you very much for being with us, our federal lobbyists and partners in D.C.

who represent the city well in the halls of Congress and virtually now.

Is there anybody else that I missed in terms of presenters for today's meeting?

OK, wonderful.

So I'm going to turn it over, I believe, first to To Director Noble, I see you're off mute.

That may mean that you are going first.

Wonderful seeing nods from folks on the line here.

And Director Noble, we appreciate your willingness to pull together this presentation and the large amount of folks who are here to present for the committee's benefit of knowing what is in play.

We know that there's multiple funding streams that many people have asked questions about.

There's the rental assistance, homelessness assistance fund around $23 million.

There's food assistance funds that we're hearing about from the FEED Act.

There's the ongoing CARES Act funding and FEMA dollars that look to be shaping up, which we'll have a robust presentation from today.

And we know that there's continuing COVID relief fund dollars as well.

So lots of conversations about potential dollars, but this is an opportunity for us to really understand if there is additional money coming, if there's carryover dollars, and what we could potentially expect in terms of a timeline.

Director Noble, I'll turn it over to you.

And thank you very much again for being here.

Thank you.

You have summed this up well and said much of what I was going to say.

But so the goal today is to give you an update on goings on in D.C.

Leslie Polnar from Holland Knight.

Sarah will have a good deal of presentation to give you an update on the proposed $1.9 trillion relief package that is being debated in Congress now.

and promises to provide significant new resources to the city.

I'm going to again follow on to talk a little bit more about the resources that we have available to us now, including the resources that were allocated to us last year, what of those remain and our process around allocating them and also around around FEMA reimbursement.

So, Without further ado, let me have Leslie and Sierra at least introduce themselves, because once you put up the PowerPoint, people's faces will disappear in lieu of voices.

So let's do that, and then I'll share my screen and put up the PowerPoint that provides the narrative.

I'll start.

Thanks, Ben.

This is Sierra Hallett-Brown.

I'm the Director of Federal Affairs for our Office of Intergovernmental Relations here at the city, and on our federal team as well in D.C.

is Leslie Palmer.

So I'll have Leslie introduce herself.

Great, thanks so much, Sarah, Leslie, Palmer.

I'm the co-chair of the local government group with Holland and Knight, and I have the honor of representing the city of Seattle in Washington, DC.

Nice to see you today.

And with that, I'm going to grab the screen here and begin this presentation.

Sorry, I think this will work.

Can you all see that now?

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

Great.

I'll give you one second.

So just, again, just quickly on that outline, again, I'm going to start with Leslie Polner, and I'll talk a little bit about some of our existing resources, including the Coronavirus Relief Fund.

Those are the significant federal dollars that were awarded last year, some about the FEMA reimbursement process, some ongoing funding decisions that we have made on the executive side to sustain some of our existing activities, and then talk a little bit about next steps.

So without further ado, I'm going to turn this over to Leslie.

And Leslie, I will pay attention here, but if I miss, just give me a verbal clue and I'll move the slide.

That sounds great.

Thanks, Ben.

Thanks a lot.

Well, so when I was last before city council, we talked about the fact that President Biden had proposed a $1.9 trillion American rescue plan.

And as you know from updates before, The Congress has decided to use a process known as budget reconciliation to get this plan through, just given the political realities of the very slim majority the Democrats have in the House and basically the tie in the Senate.

And so on February 5th, the House and Senate started the budget reconciliation process.

They took the first step and they passed a budget resolution.

Next slide, please.

And so the budget resolution provided instructions to the 12 different House committees to draft and report legislation, largely sticking with the $1.9 trillion plan that President Biden had proposed.

And again, the budget reconciliation process is this really arcane process, but it essentially allows Congress to bypass the 60 vote threshold that's needed to get anything passed in the Senate.

And so it has certain parameters that are very narrow that I will not bore you with the details of.

But when the bill gets to the Senate, there is something called the Byrd rule, which essentially allows senators to block provisions of the reconciliation bill that are deemed extraneous to the measure.

That is my favorite term.

It's called giving the bill a Byrd bath.

And so certain pieces that I'll talk about in a moment that the House has passed may fall out when this bill gets to the Senate.

Next slide, please.

So as I mentioned, in early February, House and Senate adopted a budget resolution kicking off this process.

Last week, House committees marked up their various portions of the bill.

largely staying with the president's plan.

Republicans offered a number of amendments.

They were all rejected.

And so next week on Monday, the House Budget Committee is going to meet and they will reassemble the bill, put all the pieces together.

And then on February 26, the House is slated to vote on the reconciliation package.

It will then move to the Senate Um, the Senate then will, as I mentioned before, they'll go through, they'll take out things that they think are extraneous.

They have decided actually, because they are trying to move with with a lot of speed that they are going to bypass the committee process.

So any changes to the bill are just going to come through amendments on the House floor.

That in turn will then necessitate the bill to go back to the House for final vote.

And they are targeting March 14. to get the bill signed into law, because that is when the current round of pandemic unemployment insurance benefits expire.

Next slide, please.

So again, just outlining the process, as I said before, the tentative date for final passage in the House is February 26. And again, they're aiming to pass the bill before March 14. Next slide.

So, a highlights from from the bill, you know, this is really this this bill is really tremendous in December as as I think we had highlighted before, you know, that 900Billion dollar package while very important and providing some very important benefits for individuals was not particularly helpful to the city.

and city programs.

There was some funding, of course, for housing, some additional nutrition assistance, but really no direct funding for states and locals, and limited amounts in PPP and in FEMA reimbursement, et cetera.

This bill is really the bill that I think we had hoped for.

It's a really important bill.

I'm going to put a huge caveat to think about with this piece of legislation, which is this is very likely the very last coronavirus release bill that happens in this Congress.

And even if there were to ever be another bill, it would not look like this.

This has been such a heavy lift to get this through.

Budget reconciliation is a process that can only be used on a very, very limited basis.

They may have one other bite at the apple this year that they're gonna use for infrastructure, but you will not see a bill like this again.

So these dollars are sacred dollars that are coming to the city and really, really important to think about how we spend them because I don't think we're gonna see them again.

Next slide, please.

So, you know, from my perspective, one of the most important and valuable pieces of this legislation is that it includes 350 billion dollars in direct funding for state and local governments.

The funding that is going for for cities and counties is 130 billion dollars divided evenly.

They are using a modified CDBG formula to distribute these dollars.

And let me just be really clear, these are not CDBG dollars, but they are using a modified CDBG formula to distribute these dollars.

And the house has tried to make these dollars very flexible.

They can be used to replace lost revenue dating back to the date that they put it, I believe it was January 27, 2020. And again, this is money that will come directly to the city.

Next slide.

There's also just a wide range of needs that they're covering through this bill.

So $25 billion in emergency rental assistance, $10 billion for homeowner assistance, $5 billion for homelessness funding, additional funding for PPE.

Next slide, please.

And then, of course, there's the $1,400 for qualifying individuals.

They are working to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. Let me just flag that this is very likely a provision that may come out in the, quote, unquote, birdbath that the Senate will give this bill.

You've already had two very moderate Democrats, Kristen Sinema from Arizona, Joe Manchin from West Virginia, say that they are uncomfortable with including this in the coronavirus relief bill.

There's also been questions raised as to whether or not this actually fits in the reconciliation process.

So this is a piece that may in fact come out.

It extends the temporary federal unemployment benefits, however, through August 29th, 2021, and it increases those benefits from the current $300, additional $300 to $400.

Next slide, please.

And then again, there's additional 46 billion for testing, $14 billion for vaccines, $100 million for environmental justice grants, $4.5 billion for LIHEAP, an additional $500 million to help folks during the pandemic with payments for drinking water, $7.6 billion for broadband connectivity.

Next slide.

And then, of course, $130 billion for K-12 schools to help with reopening, $40 billion for higher education, $39 billion for the child care development block grant program, an additional $5 billion for food assistance.

Next slide.

It does stay with the, it extends the 15% increase in SNAP benefits through September 30th.

Next slide.

And then, There's an additional $7.25 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program.

There's an additional $1.25 billion in additional funding for arts organizations, the Shuttered Live Venue or the Save Our Stages Program.

There is a new program being created, a $25 billion program specifically for restaurant grants that's going to be distributed through SBA.

An additional $30 billion for transit.

An additional $8 billion for airports.

There's also $3 billion that's going to the Economic Development Administration, of which $450 million is specifically reserved for communities whose economies depend on travel, tourism, and outdoor recreation.

And then there's an additional $50 billion for FEMA.

And then, you know, a number of programs to support veterans as well.

Next slide.

Great.

Given that Leslie's time is limited, I thought it might be useful for council members to ask questions about this portion of the presentation before moving on to the rest, but also defer to your judgment on that point.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Ciara, is there anything else to add to this portion before we take questions?

Okay, wonderful.

Leslie, I was going to make some comments at the beginning.

We are incredibly lucky to have you in the halls of Congress, and I know that you are doing everything you can to work remotely during these times.

But we are very lucky in the city of Seattle to have your representation.

So thank you for your time today and for this presentation.

Colleagues, are there questions for Leslie and Sierra on this portion?

Okay.

Council President, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Leslie, on a couple of slides back, maybe it was slide 14, if we can go back to that.

This one, yes, 14. So on the $25 billion in restaurant grants to be distributed in a new small business administration program, can you talk a little bit more about that?

And in particular, I'm interested in getting an understanding of how those, how those dollars are getting directly into cities, sort of what's the connectivity there, and what is the grant dollars, what are they designed to do in terms of supports for restaurants?

And which restaurants are the funds being focused and targeted towards?

Yeah, at the risk of being a little bit wonky here, I'm going to actually have a quick summary of the programs.

If it's OK, I'm going to just read that out and then I'm happy to answer additional questions, but so it's $25 billion for a new program at the SBA offering assistance to restaurants and other food and drinking establishments.

5 billion of this amount is set aside for businesses with less than $500,000 in 2019 revenue.

And then grants are available for up to $10 million per entity with a limitation of 5 million per physical location.

And then entities are limited to 20 locations.

So I think they're really trying to avoid the cheesecake factories of the world getting grants from this.

It talks a little bit about how exactly how you would calculate revenue.

And it also mentions that during the first 21 days, applications from restaurants owned and operated and controlled by women veterans or socially and economically disadvantaged individuals will receive priority.

Um, so again, trying to avoid a run just by the very, you know, the largest chains, the largest, most established restaurants and grants may be used for a wide variety of expenses.

And, and in terms of the connectivity, like how did the funds, what's, is it, do we have any sense of like the, I understand it's through the SBA.

So I'm assuming it'll be through the regional, um, SBA.

And do you have to, Do people need to go through an application process?

My understanding, and again, some of this will get fleshed out through guidance, but that this may end up being a lot like the PPP program.

So similar process for applying for those funds.

OK. which may not be heartening.

Yeah, I mean, the PPP program did inspire a lot of confidence, particularly amongst our restaurant groups.

And I had heard a lot of concerns from some, you know, chef owners of restaurants that the PPP program was so dependent on large financial institutions.

that, you know, they were a lot of folks that I talked to, you know, express concerns about just being outright denied and having to then scramble to find an institution that would be willing to, you know, be a guarantor or an administrator.

So I would just like to get a better sense of how we're going to avoid some of those challenges and barriers or if they're thinking about how to avoid those challenges and barriers.

And if not, then there's an opportunity for the city to think about how to do some gap, you know, gap funding or support through our Office of Economic Development and otherwise to sort of make sure people aren't going to miss out on the opportunity to access necessary funds for folks in the restaurant industry.

Let us get more information on that, on the distribution mechanism, and circle back on that.

Happy to do that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council President.

And I included in the chat, Council President Gonzalez, just the actual section as it's written right now.

And as Leslie said, still subject to passage and amendments on the Senate side.

Great.

And for the viewing public, that's section 6003, Restaurant Revitalization Fund.

So it's all available publicly, and people can look that up as well.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I have a question about on the slide, I'm sorry I don't have the slide number, but the slide that described the allocation of funds for states in D.C.

as compared to local governments and what the formula is.

And specifically, it looks like there is a bucket of funding of upwards of $45 billion for municipalities with populations of at least 50,000, and that apparently they're using a modified CDBG formula to determine of that $46 billion for those cities of populations of 50,000 or more.

They're applying that formula.

Do we have a, and if you covered this, I apologize, do we have sort of a guesstimate?

I mean, if the formula is known and we know what the total amount is for cities of our size, do we have a guesstimate of what Seattle might be seeing?

Yeah, so, um, the house oversight committee released estimated allocations and again, this is really preliminary subject to change, depending on what happens in the Senate.

Seattle would be estimated to receive 221Million.

Okay, thank you.

And then just 1 other.

question on slide that addresses the funding for testing and vaccine.

I'm just wondering, does the $46 billion for testing and $14 billion for vaccine include any funds that would allow the city to cover our own costs of administering tests and vaccines?

Or would those would reimbursing ourselves for those costs have to come out of the separate city allocation that we just discussed?

Yeah, at this point, those dollars are really largely being distributed in the same way that they were through the December package.

So primarily coming through the state and county.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I know that there's ongoing conversations with our folks and our friends at King County who have really stepped up and provided some key services.

You know, folks probably, you know, just harken back to the I just want to say thank you to all of our partners.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

I know we have a lot of work to do.

and the hoped for process before we wrap up.

But Leslie, do you have any sense of, for our region, what the amount might be for our King County partners as well?

I don't have that right at my fingertips right now, but that is something I can easily track down and circle back on.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And we really appreciate the work that King County has been doing, especially on covid relief, direct assistance for vaccines and and testing.

And also the way that operationally we've all had to step up in this region.

So I think that'll be part of the conversation going forward.

Is there a chance that we might be able to ask you about the The issue of the city and others across the nation stepping up to provide relief, it would have been irresponsible for us not to have acted before this administration came in.

And so there's many areas where we have stepped up to provide assistance.

Is any of the funds that are being made available now, do they need to be additive or is there a way for us to also recognize that with additional federal support perhaps that allows the city, if it's COVID relief directed, to use those new federal funds so that city resources can actually be preserved for some of the things that they were originally intended for.

So one of the uses that's specified, you know, the House has really broad uses that are specified for that direct local funding.

One of them is to replace lost revenue.

And so go, and the deadlines, the timeline for that is they date it back to January 27th, 2020. Wow.

That's great.

I'll just throw out, you know, the other piece on that is they have not specified an end date for when the funds need to be expended by.

That is something that you could easily see the Senate changing to put additional guardrails on the funding.

Similarly, the date for lost revenue replacement could change, but lost revenue is one of the explicit uses that's identified in the legislation.

I'm really glad to hear that.

Thank you.

Do we know what resources are available by fund to support any long-term, like do we have to have any dollar amounts already specified to then be able to use these?

There's no matching requirements.

No.

Other questions from folks for Leslie?

I do have some more questions, Director Noble.

These might be more appropriate for your half of the presentation as they relate to our city resources and what we expect to do with some of the expenses we've already put forward.

But just so I'm clear, Leslie, you mentioned some initial funding was provided for rental assistance and for homelessness assistance, for food assistance, and we see much of that I'm just wondering if there's any current limitations on how those similar concepts reflected in the $1.9 trillion package.

There's not any current limitations on how the new package could correspond with or layer on top of existing funds that we either have or are planning to get out the door?

but as currently contemplated, I have not seen requirements of like, you must have expended so much funds, you know, in order to be eligible for this.

I haven't seen anything like that.

Okay.

The only place I could see that being an issue is on the FEMA dollars.

Typically, FEMA is sort of the last dollar in, so they would generally anticipate us to use other federal resources ahead of that, and that's been sort of our approach to date.

But again, obviously, that would be to bury the lead at some level.

The story here is that there is significant federal resource in all likelihood headed our way, and that detail is to be resolved if they stay on timeline by the middle of next month.

Can I ask about that, maybe in light of some of the changes that we've seen lately?

I mean, if that was the past practice of FEMA, do we have reason to be more optimistic that there's greater flexibility or understanding for local jurisdictions at this point?

Is that part of the conversation that you're hearing in D.C.?

Yeah, I mean, I think you've seen the Biden administration really making an effort to try to make FEMA a little more useful.

Let me just say that You know, I work with a number of cities across the country, and everybody is experiencing significant challenges with FEMA.

It is just an incredibly confusing, cumbersome process that, quite frankly, like, I don't think anybody ever contemplated its use for a national disaster of this magnitude and scale.

And so, you know, it's just, it's an incredibly unwieldy process that is just, You know, it's just really difficult.

I do know even some communities that have foregone going after FEMA because they've gotten so frustrated with the process.

That's obviously a heavy drain on local resources.

But again, I just want to underscore, it's a really challenging process.

I think the administration is doing what they can to try to make that process easier.

But even that is slow going.

Okay, wonderful.

And then I think this is pretty specific to a certain executive order.

And I hope it's okay if I tag this question on if you have another second.

The Biden administration last week, I think, signed the executive order that increased the cost share for FEMA assistance, including emergency food deliveries, making them 100% reimbursable.

I'm wondering if we know if any of the funding, when that funding might be available to be dispersed to city governments or if that's already begun, any updates that we might be able to pass on to folks who are working on, for example, the community kitchen program and trying to make sure that more of our small businesses and local food banks have access to the food assistance.

So I don't have any updates on that, but I know Ben is going to talk a little bit about the FEMA reimbursement process overall.

So what we don't know, we know some on that front, but full information to follow the executive order was very high level.

So we're awaiting, if you will, bureaucratic direction from FEMA.

But one thing that has been clarified very clearly is that paperwork that had been filed under the 75% reimbursement rate, the previous reimbursement rate, is just going to be automatically converted, if you will, to the 100% reimbursement rate.

So we don't have to resubmit.

We don't have, you know, there's no additional paperwork required, that they will, once they start to cut checks, they will cut them at the 100% rate.

And for folks for whom they've already cut checks, they will provide the additional resource.

Timing on all of that is, as Leslie described, one of the real challenges in dealing with FEMA.

I'll speak in a few moments that the cash flow issue there for us is not a significant one.

So that, I mean, obviously we'd like to get repaid sooner than later, but not a critical issue for us at this stage.

That's great.

I'm glad to hear that you don't have to apply again for the hundred percent.

And I think that's a strong indication that this administration is moving in quickly and in a way that's common sense as we try to respond to this crisis.

Okay, so more to come on the expectation for the timeline for FEMA reimbursement.

I do just want to sort of make like a general statement and ask if this is accurate.

We had previously heard that FEMA reimbursement timeline was around three year reimbursement, which is incredibly cumbersome to local jurisdictions.

But we also have heard recently at the regional policy committee last week from the King County budget director.

they've already received funding from the first half of 2020. So six months compared to three years.

Any other indication that FEMA reimbursement will be coming in as quickly as six months or any hints on how quickly jurisdictions might be able to expect that reimbursement?

I can perhaps comment.

I think the three-year figure was thrown out as kind of a worst-case scenario.

There have been examples, again, for individual disasters.

One has to remember, as Leslie has pointed out, that the FEMA reimbursement process is really built more around storms and earthquakes, if you will.

So I did follow up with the county.

They were actually pleasantly surprised to have received a check when they when they did so they didn't anticipate payment as quickly as they had they had they had initially filed in August, there is a.

There are different strategies around how to sort of time your submittals.

Again, classically, you would time your submittal after the disaster recovery work was completed.

That's obviously not the scenario we're in.

So, we've made some submittals in October, and they're being processed now.

King County made some initial submissions in August and then received payment before the end of last year.

So if we were on six months, we would be getting a check in a couple of months.

described expedited payment.

I think one thing to consider is that both in terms of the CRF dollar, the Coronavirus Relief Fund, the CRF dollars we received last year, and the dollars that Leslie was describing that are being made available to local governments in the new package, part of that, I think, is to manage the cash flow associated with the FEMA reimbursement process.

Again, not a challenge for us, but for other jurisdictions who might have tighter finances.

I mean, we did get $130 million check from the federal government, I'm going to say, in March of last year.

And depending how this bill proceeds in DC, we might well be getting a check in excess of that in the relative near future.

But that can very quickly address cash flow needs, if you will.

And again, we don't, and the level of the FEMA dollar is not an issue for us in particular.

Anyway, there are some other things that may cause us some cash flow challenges we can talk about.

But that's, I think, part of why those dollars are so critical to local governments is to support the expenditures on an initial basis while they wait for reimbursement.

I was just going to, you know, just in terms of contextual awareness, too, and just to flag a hopeful note here, which is, you know, part of this is, you know, both what I mentioned before, FEMA was never really anticipated for something, for a crisis of this magnitude.

Also, you know, we've got the double whammy of just going through a presidential transition.

It's hard to believe in coronavirus time.

We've only been five weeks into the new administration, and of course, the FEMA administrator has not been even confirmed yet.

The hopeful note that I will sound is that, you know, President Biden has nominated Dan Criswell, who was from New York City and was their emergency management director there.

And so this is somebody that very well understands the needs of cities that, you know, the city of Seattle through participation in the big city emergency managers association has a connection to.

And so I'm really hopeful that once we have somebody in place who really understands the impact of these kinds of delays, that we're going to see some positive change.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Herbold, did you have another question?

Are we starting to go into this line of discussion around FEMA reimbursement, or I think There are some slides that give some detail.

I'm just wondering whether or not I should ask some questions now or wait until we get to the slides in the presentation.

Our friend Leslie has four more minutes, I believe.

So if you want to ask to tee it up just to see if she has anything to add before we get there.

Oh, no.

These are FEMA reimbursement questions for the city in future slides.

OK.

Let's hold it then.

Yeah.

OK.

OK.

Leslie, with that, I don't think that there's any more questions for you.

Just check in my screen here.

I'm not seeing any additional hands.

Any last comments from your end or things that we should be looking for over the next few weeks here?

No, except it is so delightful to be in front of you versus it was three months ago.

I feel like we are on a hopeful path here and right after this, we'll be pivoting to infrastructure and appropriations.

And so hopefully I'll be back in front of you with some more good news.

Excellent.

Well, we appreciate good news after a few years of really tough times from the federal administration.

I'm sure it makes your life and work life much, much better.

So thanks again for all the work there.

And Sierra, will you be sticking with us as well?

I'm going to go dark, but I'll be on.

OK.

Leslie, great to see you.

Thanks so much for all you do.

Thank you, Leslie.

Without further ado, Ben, let's get into the rest of these slides.

Sounds good.

So what I wanted to do then was to update more about the existing federal funding and how we have used it, and then also loop back to talk about next steps, given the information that we've just all heard from Leslie Pollner.

So one big source of federal funding we got last year was obviously the Coronavirus Relief Fund.

There was a total of just over $130 million there.

Just wanted to highlight where we stood on that and some of the opportunities that remain actually on this front now.

So as indicated here, we spent about 103, well, exactly, 103.4 million spent last year.

That leaves about 28 million.

We will be bringing, there is, When you approve that, the allocation of those resources, it included language that allowed those resources to be carried forward into this year, into 2021. If dollars weren't fully spent, they would be available to access this year.

So there's about 10 million left, a variety of purposes there, really across the board, food, shelter, PPE for city employees, and elements of that are included in that carried forward.

There were purposely reserves of 17, just over $17 million that were held.

Again, that was part of our overall allocation process.

And they were principally held to cover the FEMA match.

So we were responsible for a 25% local match.

We were also holding a reserve, and I'll highlight this point in a moment, to cover the risk that FEMA might reject some share of what we submitted as reimbursable costs.

There are two risks there.

One is that they would deem an expense not being categorically eligible for whatever reason.

We don't think that would happen because we've been careful to seek guidance.

There's also the issues of documentation and the way resources are procured.

So, but the bottom line is it's likely that I think we want to hold some reserve for some of that risk, but don't need one reserve as large as this.

So a share of these resources are available.

The rules on the CRF changed late last year.

So originally it had to be fully expended by the end of 2020. We now have through the end of 2021. So again, those resources will be available to us as we think about allocating both the existing resources and the new resources that may be coming.

So that's the CRF resource.

So just so I'm clear on that last slide, that's about $27 million that we can anticipate to be carried over into 2021 for CRF, end of year spend required.

But there's $28 million to be carried forward, approximately $11 allocated for specific relief efforts, and then just over $17 million that we had been holding in a reserve that I think is entirely appropriate now for us to revisit, given the changing rules on FEMA reimbursement.

OK.

And if others are familiar with this, I just want to to have a little bit more clarity, 11 allocated specifically for relief in what categories?

And then Council Member Lewis has a question.

So I have notes on this.

I don't, yeah, let me, let me get back.

Sorry, one moment.

I don't want to try to do too many things here at the same time.

One second.

I will try to share the right piece again.

So it's a variety of uses, including food, some aspects of shelter, PPE for city employees, a variety of things.

We had braided funding sources in different ways as part of the allocations last year.

I can get you the details.

I have them on a different screen, but trying to share screens and look back to my notes is not possible at the same time.

The 28 million that you mentioned, 17 in reserves, 11 dedicated right now, that's in addition to the 23 million for rental assistance that we'll be talking about shortly.

Absolutely, yes.

Sorry, now I understand your question better.

That's exactly, exactly correct.

Councilmember, oh, it was a separate question, but thank you on that first question.

Councilmember Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

So I want to dig in just a little bit more, Director Noble, on the $17 million held in reserve.

Just to clarify, is it because we've already received some FEMA reimbursement that we'd be comfortable getting into that now?

Or is it because we have new guidance giving a little more confidence?

It's primarily the shift from 75% to 100% reimbursement.

So we were using that reserve as our local share.

We didn't know what level of FEMA funding we would take advantage of.

So it turns out it's actually somewhat smaller than we anticipated because, and we'll get to this in a moment, because other governments the state and the county stepped up to some areas where we thought we might be direct players.

And under the FEMA rules, if you will, our authority to engage is really an allocated or delegated authority from those entities.

So, but the bottom line is, the reason is that we've gone from 75% reimbursement to 100% reimbursement.

So we likely don't need that 25, but we don't need that 25% share.

But my only caveat there is there is always some risk on FEMA reimbursement.

So we may wanna hold some reserve.

So I'm not sure we're gonna wanna liquidate the full 17 million, but the only risk that we'll face now, it's not a risk.

We don't have the local match issue.

The only issue we'll have is a risk of denial.

And again, we're being careful about that.

So don't think that's a significant risk.

Sure.

But just to follow up on that then.

So like when we talk about potentially reducing that reserve level, like how much how much slack is that new information from the federal government putting into that?

Like, are we talking about drawing it down?

you know, by 25% or by half or like...

Again, we haven't...

That's just what I'm trying to understand.

Yeah, no, no, it's a fair question.

I don't have a precise answer for you, because again, what we know about the shift from 75% to 100% is in an executive order at a very high level without the detailed follow-up.

It does specifically reference retroactive, so it will in theory, apply to the expenditures we've had over the past year.

So my guess is a reserve of $5 million or a little bit less could be sufficient.

But we also need to think about looking forward as well.

And once we get some additional clarity about the federal resources that are in the new bill, we'll have a better sense of what dollars will get spent directly from those resources versus what we may want to draw upon for FEMA going forward.

It's, as you can tell, a complicated story.

So you're saying we'd want to hang on to at least five of that 17 million as a reserve to hedge against possibly not getting some FEMA reimbursement?

That is my best guess.

As I sit here today, I hadn't thought through it before you asked the question, but yeah, as I sit here today, yes.

Okay, that's good to know.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that question, Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Herbold's up next.

I just want to confirm, this is five million that you're talking about out of FEMA reimbursable dollars, but there's still 40 million in our reserves at the City General Fund, correct?

Yeah, so let me be very clear.

This reserve is not one of our formal, this is not neither the emergency reserve account nor the revenue stabilization account.

These were CRF dollars that we chose not to spend and not to appropriate to specific COVID relief because we wanted to hold them, anticipating that we might need them to, again, to address FEMA issues one way or the other.

and perhaps to hedge our bets that there might be some other need we hadn't fully anticipated.

So this was a reserve within the CRF spending, CRF resource.

It is entirely separate from our formal emergency sub fund and revenue stabilization account, the rainy day fund.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I appreciate the focus on the question of what's remaining, but when I go to the top part of the slide, which is the focus on what has been spent in 2020, about $103 million.

Of that $103 million, what percentage are we going to be seeking FEMA reimbursement for?

None of this spending, right, because this is federal money, so you can't get, right, so, and in fact, in some ways, it's the opposite.

We need to be spending these dollars before we dip into the FEMA.

I wasn't sure what the source was for this fund, and you had referenced earlier that it was a bunch of different sources, so it wasn't clear to me that this is all federal dollars, which, of course, we can't ask the federal government to reimburse us for money that they've given us.

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, I appreciate that question.

And Director Noble, I know you have a few more slides, but this slide is very helpful as it relates to CRF.

And forgive me if this question you're going to get to later, but do we have a very similar slide where we can see what the city's, what resources are available by fund in the city cash pool related to existing FEMA dollars?

like.

Chair Mosqueda, I did have also a follow-up.

I think it's in that same line of questioning.

Please go ahead.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess what I'm seeking, and I think perhaps, Madam Chair, you are as well, is an understanding of for 2020, what is the total number of dollars that we are seeking reimbursement for to FEMA.

I seem to recall that in a budget presentation during the rebalancing discussions in June, the number that was discussed at the time was about $35 million, but I've looked and I can't find sort of, I mean, and that was June.

I don't know what assumptions were made after June.

So just trying to get a sense of what is the total number of dollars that we're seeking FEMA reimbursement for for 2020.

If I'm right, let me move on to the next couple of slides, because that leads to those exact answers in that discussion.

OK.

That sounds great, Ben, because I think that the three questions are what Councilmember Herbold asked.

What's the total amount of FEMA reimbursable expenses that have already been incurred?

Then what is the current amount that we've submitted for reimbursement?

And then finally, what's the timeline requested for those reimbursements?

I just sort of delineated the questions in that sequence so that maybe we can hear those answers directly.

Yeah, I'm gonna stick to my slideshow a little bit, but I'm only, it is one bullet detour before we get back to those answers.

So let's talk about premium reimbursement and for the title of the slide, the actions to date.

The next slide, we'll talk a little bit about where we think we are headed.

So just one point I wanted to make before talking about our actual spend and the reimbursement process, and it's one that I made earlier.

It's important to understand that we, the city, under the FEMA process, we're not the designated lead for many of, for what's fundamentally a public health, a public health emergency.

It is, in fact, the public health entity, King County Public, Seattle, King County, Seattle Public Health, or what their official title is.

So that hasn't precluded us in any way from being actively involved, but it has meant that we needed to work closely with King County and King County Public Health to be designated and also with the state to be designated as an entity that is working in some sense for them or in close coordination at a minimum to address the emergency.

So we have such agreements to cover our role on shelter, on vaccinations and on testing, just as examples also on food, just to be sort of belt and suspenders on that one.

So that's what's allowed us to use FEMA resources for that set of activities.

In terms of FEMA resource for the PPE, for Seattle firefighters and police officers and the like, and some of the direct stuff that we're doing, we are the lead entity, but for the most significant forms of relief, we are not, and we've been in partnership with others.

And I think that's relevant because when we had reported to you in June and I went back and looked at that very same presentation, Council Member Hurwold, we were projecting that we might have FEMA reimbursable costs as much as $45 million, which, again, at the 75% rate would have had us seeking reimbursements in the order of magnitude of $30 to $35 million.

As it turns out, other entities have stepped up to be particularly the natural lead entities, either King County or the state, in several of those areas.

So our FEMA spend, if you will, has been smaller.

So in total, we're expecting to submit for FEMA reimbursement of about $15 million for 2020 expenditures.

So that's the total.

Now, mind you, expenditures are continuing into 2021, so that won't be the final total by any means.

So it's about 15 total.

We have submitted approximately $5 million and are preparing documentation for the remainder.

And in terms of when we expect to be paid, our initial submittals went in in October.

I certainly don't expect it before six months.

Hard to know.

I mean, again, they're talking expedited.

But we really don't have a good basis for giving you an estimate.

We know the county got paid within about six months.

We know that in previous situations, FEMA reimbursement has taken more than a year.

So that's on a timing what we know.

And as I mentioned, I'm not particularly concerned about this from a cash flow perspective.

Again, given the order, not small amounts of money, but given the scale relative to our overall budget, not a significant challenge.

Timing on some other revenue streams may raise issues that we need to bring to you later, but these expenditures are not significant.

And again, if the It's the infusion of federal dollars that Leslie Pullman was describing is forthcoming that will go a long way to addressing any cash flow concerns.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just getting back into that, Director Noble, now that we have a change in federal policy, we have a more proactive federal administration on confronting this emergency through partnership with cities.

We have very visible need in our community for all sorts of things that are FEMA reimbursable.

I want to ask a question going back to that CRF money reserve that that has sort of been our hedge against potential FEMA non reimbursement.

Is that CRF money in any way limited?

Talking about sort of these time frames of FEMA reimbursement timelines.

And I mean to say, like if the city were to front the money through some other mechanism to pay for things that we think under the new guidance is FEMA reimbursable.

Could we hold that CRF money in reserve for as long as it takes to get the FEMA reimbursement?

Or does that money somehow like turn into a pumpkin at some point and we can't use it if we haven't spent it?

I was going to use the pumpkin reference myself.

My understanding is the end of 2021, which might be a challenge relative to the FEMA timelines.

I will say that I'm going to be a little bit careful here because we can probably get creative enough so that we could find a way to hold a reserve that is more flexible dollars that we could carry beyond the end of 2021, if you will, deploying the CRF dollars to support some other activity, freeing up resources that could then become that reserve, and if you will, a time-free reserve or a time-less reserve, so no pumpkins.

HAB-Danny Teodoru, COB.: : Right.

So, okay, because I just wanted to understand that it sounds like the timeline and hanging on to that CRF money was more designed for for reimbursement for HAB-Danny Teodoru, COB.: : Feedback if if if

Let me be even, again, these are maybe the sort of the dark arts on the budgeting side.

If the time constraint on 2020 for CRF had not been lifted, we would have found a way to fully expend the CRF.

There was some good deal of flexibility in terms of the CRF was not technically available for revenue replacement, but it did allow some very flexible uses.

So we would have found a way to spend it, We would have then have, by using it to pay for some other costs and held this reserve as a different funding source, if you will.

And we could still do that again if that's ultimately what strategically makes sense.

So yeah, I wouldn't, the time bounds on the CRF I don't see as a significant constraint.

There are currently no time bounds, as Leslie Polliner described, on the new federal dollars, which will be an opportunity, and I think one, and I mentioned this in this bullet going forward, that for us to think about the timeline for the use of those resources.

Obviously, there's a huge need immediately, but at the same time, if we're setting up systems that are designed to provide assistance over time, we'll have to think about how they might ultimately be phased out and over what timeframes.

All right.

So you can be super nimble.

Appreciate that, Claire.

And that's great.

I don't have any other line.

Councilmember Lewis.

Council Vice Chair Herbold, any additional follow-ups you have?

$15 million in FEMA reimbursement.

I'm just putting together a couple of different pieces of information, and in doing so, it makes me feel like, yes, it's true, we don't have a cash flow problem, but is that because, I mean, not that I would want a cash flow problem, but I feel like because we've not been aggressive in doing things for our community that we then could get FEMA reimbursement for, based on this belief that reimbursement would take three years, we've We've gone to a situation where, and I appreciate there's other partners that have stepped forward in taking the lead on things that we thought we were gonna be needing FEMA reimbursement for, but it seems to me like that should have been an opportunity to say, okay, well, they're gonna do that.

What's the other thing that we can do?

And I think maybe one thing that might help me get some perspective that I might be lacking right now is some sort of a, If there are materials that FEMA is putting out about its reimbursement to other cities across the country, just maybe doing a reality check and see what kind of reimbursement that other jurisdictions across the country are getting.

I'd be happy to find out what we can about that.

I mean, at a high level, The concerns of cash flow, I certainly have not put any constraints on the use of FEMA dollars in my bureaucratic role, if you will, over a cash flow concern.

That's not been the consideration.

It instead has to do with eligibility, with the capacity overall to deliver services, and again, our role relative to others.

but happy to provide that additional information.

And I'm candidly curious myself, but yeah, so we'll get that.

Thank you so much.

All right, great.

We have about 10 more minutes, and I know we do want to get at the looking forward and unanswered questions.

Yeah, go ahead.

Real quick, so appreciate that you said we've already submitted for $5 million.

You will be submitting for $10 million more that you submitted that initial reimbursement in October.

The last question is, you said soon.

When will we be submitting for the remaining $10 million?

You said soon.

Do you have a date that we can continue to track with you?

I don't have a date, I will work to get you one, but one of the things that I wanted to mention, and I'm going to move ahead the slide, and it's actually covered in the last bullet.

We have been stepping up in the vaccination space of late, and that has been proven to be very complex in terms of contracting, again, one of the, and I mentioned this on this page as well, one of the, as, and Leslie did a very good job describing this, FEMA's a pretty arcane bureaucratic process.

Key to achieving reimbursement is procuring and documenting very carefully.

So the team that had been working to submit on 2020 had been distracted for good aim to making sure we do the vaccine work, which potentially, you know, the mass vaccination site overall effort could be well north of 50 million, 60 million of cash flow of cash paid out.

So the bottom line, we want to make sure we do that right.

And further bottom line, we need additional resource to work on the FEMA processing and we're going to use authority for temporary employees and move forward to bring on some folks.

So again, the step up on vaccination has been a significant distraction and we need to make sure we are being smart about this.

So I wanted to let you know that that is a decision made just recently and effort underway to make that happen.

So just again, looking forward, as we are discussing FEMA's up to reimbursement to 100% and retroactively.

I don't want to put too much emphasis on this, but we are waiting for the clear guidance from the agency itself.

The executive order is, again, a very high level.

That's what President Biden had signed.

So we're looking forward to that to make sure we fully understand it.

As I mentioned, as we were talking about this too, I think we'll still have some reserve for just The risk of denial, but again, we're trying to be very careful.

So we don't end up in a situation where either we spent on things that weren't eligible, or that we aren't in a position to document or.

Appropriately, and haven't done I want to be sure we've done the procurement appropriately.

So another big point, and this is going to only happen in the last few weeks and is really a game changer in terms of the work we can do on planning looking forward, is that FEMA has announced that the reimbursement eligibility will extend at least through the end of September.

Previously, we've been going three months at a time, and that obviously made it very hard to think about standing up something that would take a little while to do and that would ideally operate for some amount of time.

So, we now have an opportunity for some longer-term planning.

Once we get the additional information about other federal money, we'll be in a position to figure out how to mix the two streams, if you will, or the multiple streams.

Those are big pieces that are different, and again, that we are looking forward to.

So at the same time, knowing what we know about, well, if vaccine distribution continues apace, we have, it's not unreasonable to think that the FEMA eligibility might actually end at the end of September as well.

So it is definitely time limited.

But through September is a huge, huge advantage in terms of planning that we just didn't have as recently as a couple weeks ago.

I appreciate that there's a sincere interest in making sure that we do get 100% of the reimbursement.

Even 75% would have been great, but 100% fantastic.

I guess I'm concerned, though, about a delay.

Are places like Los Angeles and San Francisco waiting for that final guidance from FEMA, or are they moving forward, like the headlines say, regarding hoteling folks?

with 100% of federal funds as we saw from the articles out of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

It doesn't seem like they're waiting.

Yeah, no, that's, I do want to imply that that's holding us back.

I fully expect that going forward it will be 100% reimbursement.

I just, there's just some details that we don't have, so that's not an issue that's holding us back in important ways.

It's just, I want to make sure as we ultimately develop an overall strategy that we specifically understand it, whether it's truly all expenses that are going to be 100% or whether there are any limitations there.

Okay, I'll just flag for me, and I have not had the chance to talk with you about this before, but my concern when I hear that is that I am hoping we are assuming that 100 percent of federal funds will come and that we are acting now to implement various strategies.

It does seem like other jurisdictions are acting now with with broad assumptions that they are gonna get reimbursed because without it, people are going to die.

So are you also moving forward with implementing various strategies or are you, how much of this waiting for the federal guidance is holding back planning at least?

It's not significantly holding back planning.

Again, I think the bigger issues going forward will be to understand how the direct aid, actually that's, since I'm waiting for the next slide, so I'll move on, is to understand, I mean, how the direct aid that is likely to be in this 1.9, well, you'll see how big it is in the next federal relief package, how that funding will interact with the FEMA resources.

But again, what we know is that there's going to be significant resource available to us.

We expect it to be resolved for Leslie's timeline by the middle of next month.

So there is no reason for us to be waiting to find out exactly how much, but before we can make any final decisions, we will need to know how much is to be funded from a direct allocation, how much might be funded via FEMA or some other source.

So we are working to think about ways to extend and scale up, recognizing that there are additional resources and flexible ones headed our way by just highlighting that there are some specifics that we do not have in hand yet, most specifically the details of that bill.

All right, let's go to your last slide.

I do have 1 question on the last slide as well.

And I want to make sure you get folks out on time.

Yeah, so just real quick.

So, again, as identified, we don't as we look forward and again, what we see here is is is new opportunity and thankfully.

So so significant new resources as Leslie described some of it in a, you know.

Block grant sort of small b small g to the city for very flexible purposes But then is but notably additional resources specifically targeting targeting food and homelessness and various other Aspects so want to understand better with how much money those are who they're going to so in the past a lot of that kind of the more targeted funding has been provided at the state or the county level and So if that's the case, I want to see where we can fill in and are needed to fill in the service gaps.

Again, as I was describing a little bit, additional guidance on FEMA will be helpful.

I would note that we're, Leslie Pollner noted that revenue replacement is one of the eligible uses of the new federal dollars that we anticipate.

We will be developing a revenue forecast over the course of March to be available early April that could reveal that we might have some revenue replacement needs for this year that we hadn't anticipated, or alternatively, that there are additional resources.

We haven't done the forecast, so I don't know which way.

It's going.

It is my sort of pessimistic nature in the role.

I would note that the revenue update we gave you beginning of November was closer to the high watermark in terms of overall thinking about the economy.

So the resurgence of COVID over the holiday period has had some economic impact.

But we'll wait to see what the revenue forecast shows.

And then I just, last note is that there are some other small-scale dollars that we're working on that will be part of an overall strategy.

So the bottom line is that we're very soon to know a good deal more about the resources we have, and we need then to move very quickly to develop an overall and comprehensive proposal about how to use those resources, the new resources, and then the remaining resources that we highlighted as well.

we appreciate your time.

Are there any follow-up questions for Ben on these last two slides?

Okay.

Council Member Herbold?

I'm having a hard time formulating my question.

I'm so sorry.

Do you want me to ask mine?

I have one question, too, if you want a second.

Go ahead.

Are you sure?

Okay.

Just very briefly on the last bullet of your last slide there.

Where did it go?

Related to the $23 million.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Okay, I don't see it on the slide, but.

You know, you say that the $23 million for rental assistance is coming soon.

We got this package in December 2020. Are there delays that we need to know about and how soon can we expect that?

I think with April 1st being a critical date for when rental assistance should be in hand, given all of the concerns that we have about eviction prevention and the moratorium there, can we anticipate receiving something to be able to be implemented before April 1st?

Yes, legislation is, I don't know exactly where it is in this development cycle, but as I said, I don't think, I think next week is too soon for me to commit, but potentially as early as the week following.

So share the urgency.

And I apologize, I'd forgotten about this slide.

The point of this that I wanted to mention is that there is uncertainty here on the funding side, but consistent with your observations about what was happening in Los Angeles, I wanted to let you know that we are not holding back.

So HSD was looking at resources running out for some of the extended food bank and food delivery contracts.

We are going to, using their existing budget authority for 2021, they're going to continue that work.

That's about a half a million dollars a month to extend those contracts.

ultimately will need additional funding.

We see where it's going to come from now.

So that's an existing program that we will continue.

OSC, looking at a couple hundred thousand dollars of additional Costs related to the fact that our grocery vouchers are being used at a higher rate than they had been early on.

So we'll cover that from existing budget authority.

The, the hotel and work and expect some announcement on progress here next week.

That's going to cost us a little more than we had anticipated.

We have existing authority will budget authority.

We can use to cover that expense.

So again, that max vaccination is going forward as well.

And then, yes, there's $23 million.

That was part of the $900 million package that was passed late last year from the federal government.

There's a direct $23 million for us for rental assistance and legislation to follow shortly.

Again, if not next week, week following, I expect.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, follow-up?

Yeah, so the question of whether or not we're leaving FEMA dollars on the table is a question that looms large in my mind.

And Director Noble, I am not in any way suggesting that you are putting up any bureaucratic hurdles because of concerns about cash flow.

I just feel like For instance, in June, we anticipated spending that would require us to seek about $35 million in FEMA reimbursement.

We had other partners who took the lead on a number of elements, and now it's like $15 million.

It would be useful, I think, for us all to be aware when things like that change so that we can all collectively say, Oh, well, we were thinking of seeking up to $35 million in FEMA reimbursement.

We don't need to right now based on other people coming forward, other jurisdictions coming forward and fulfilling that need, there's great need in our community.

What other things can we do to meet those needs?

And I'm hoping that moving forward, we can be more nimble when our assumptions around FEMA reimbursement aren't realized.

specific to this particular moment in time, I appreciate that it's important for us to think about sort of an overall plan for addressing community needs and which of those needs that we might want to address will be reimbursable.

But we, in this moment in time, we heard from folks in public comment today that A program that operates in two Seattle neighborhoods is going to stop operating on the 15th of March.

This is a program that has been funded for the first six months to the tune of $6.5 million from King County.

Some people have described it as a King County program.

I don't see it as a King County program.

We've agreed that homelessness is a regional challenge.

King County, again, even though these are two Seattle neighborhoods, contributed to the support of this program through CARES Act funding.

And I feel really strongly that if we don't want this program to stop operating on the 15th of March, that we need to look at how we can use FEMA dollars to continue this funding.

It's my understanding that the county doesn't feel that it can because there is no additional CARES Act funding, and that from their understanding of the restrictions around FEMA, that since these locations are in Seattle, that they will not be able to get FEMA reimbursement through King County for these locations.

So I just feel like we need to be acting in a way that is more nimble and more creative and, you know, Again, I'm not suggesting that you're putting up bureaucratic hurdles, but I feel like we are still, as a city, responding sort of bureaucratically to the great need that there is out there.

Councilmember Herbold, I appreciate that and also appreciate the public testimony from this morning.

I do want to note that your points are very well taken, and I think that there is an opportunity as we look at 2021, the funding on the horizon.

the potential for vaccine distribution, all of the folks who are looking at us both as the city and the county to come up with solutions so that people can open back up and open back up safely, have access to that rental assistance we talked about before the April 1st date.

And we know that the funding that's been provided for both food security, housing assistance, and then this $1.9 trillion package that we have heard from Leslie about will be a huge opportunity for us to come together that we are going to continue to have ongoing operational costs.

If there is the ability for us to get anywhere near the 221 million that Leslie noted and recognizing we will continue to have ongoing operational costs from the funding we have already put forward and that we see really being redirected to COVID relief.

I think there is a huge I'm very interested in working with the mayor to come up with a resolution first from counsel that we submit to the mayor's office as it relates to funding priorities.

And what I'm very interested in doing with all of you is to have a resolution that frames up the discussion about these potential dollars.

The available funds that we will have in front of us and the ability to make sure that we have our sort of marker on where I know that councilmember Lewis has a comment but I wanted to flag for our colleagues here We want to make sure there is no additional delays and get a and to make sure that we have that in hand for discussion with all of your input by the March 2nd meeting.

I think that this will be an opportunity for us to show how we can be a good partner with King County, especially as I mentioned before, and you've just commented on, they've really stepped up and stood in to provide direct services to our residents here in the Seattle area as well, and we know that that's part of the model given public health's role.

I know we are over time.

We will continue to wrap this

This is just a technical clarification and it builds a little bit off of what Councilmember Furbold said.

But Director Noble, if you could maybe summarize just one more time as well.

Because it's related to King County's authority and what King County can pay for and what they can't pay for.

So related to the FEMA reimbursement.

What are those those guardrails like?

Is it can King County only do FEMA reimbursable expenses in the communities where they have policing powers.

So like, you know, unincorporated King County.

And is that the hurdle in why they might not be able to pursue certain FEMA reimbursement avenues that we at the city can?

Could you maybe cover that a little bit?

Purely like a technical question.

And I don't, understood, and I do not pretend to be a FEMA expert by any means.

But no, it's not with, public health is in many aspects the lead agency from FEMA's perspective, because this is a public health emergency.

So they are determining the appropriate response and then That's a little simplistic, but and then and so they have authority across the entire county and they can delegate a role for others to assist them in responding.

And we have worked to do work with the county public health to do to have that exactly that happened.

Similarly, at the for vaccinations, as I understand it, more of a state level issue.

And again, the delegation has occurred so that we're directly involved as well.

So So that's essentially the path.

Did you have any other responses to?

Oh, so sorry, Council Member Lewis.

Just building on that though, Director Noble, for like for homelessness then, like is that a function public health is delegated to constituent cities?

Go ahead.

The key issue on homelessness is the public health risk associated with congregate versus non congregate housing.

Right.

So public health has deemed that that non congregate arrangement is the appropriate one currently.

And then we have partnered with the county to given that direction and that from public health, we are then in a position to submit the costs, for instance, of moving our existing shelters to non-congregate settings.

Those additional expenses are then FEMA eligible, if you will, waive the public health letter as part of our submission.

And similarly, in terms of establishing new non-congregate shelters, that's the same basic idea.

And just at a high level in response, I don't have the details of the Just Cares program, so I can't speak to that.

In terms of the FEMA resource, just to highlight the point that I made earlier, that having a planning window now that is at least to the end of September gives us more opportunity to deploy those dollars strategically.

What kind of expenses are eligible?

Again, I prefer the fact that the procurement process is a critical one.

And also, with the infusion of federal dollars, we're anticipating whether FEMA or some other funding source is actually the best one to apply to different funding needs.

It's something we'll have a better opportunity to explore, if you will, as we'll have new and potentially more flexible resources available as well.

I apologize to the Council President.

She has her hand raised and I didn't see it.

Council President, thank you for waiting.

Oh, no worries.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to just make a quick comment.

It actually is good timing because it dovetails off of what Director Noble just said, which I think was providing a response of sorts to Vice Chair Herbold's line of questioning.

I just wanted to make sure that as we're looking at this issue of FEMA reimbursement, that we are taking sort of the opportunity to look at the whole system, right?

So sort of systemically, What do we want to fund with these FEMA reimbursement dollars?

Or what do we hope to be able to implement now, plan and implement for now that we think will allow us to get maximum reimbursement from these FEMA dollars?

And so I guess I heard a lot of public testimony this morning, or yes, this morning, about the specific program.

And I think that there's obviously a lot of, sounds like a lot of broad support for that program in this particular neighborhood, but I want to make sure that We're not making these decisions based on one singular program, but instead looking at sort of a spectrum of interventions that are going to be necessary, of which this program is part of that spectrum and that stream of interventions.

But I want to make sure that we are really taking a step back, if you will, and look at it from that 30,000 foot level and really making sure that with this very unique historic opportunity to get up to 100% FEMA reimbursement that we're not making decisions based on a singular program's need but on the needs of the system as a whole for so long as this pandemic exists and for so long as public health is directing us, frankly, to stand up non-congregate shelters in order to meet the ongoing needs of people experiencing homelessness.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

Director Noble, any comments on that?

It makes sense to me as well.

OK, great.

I do want to reiterate the points that Vice Chair Herbold also made.

And I think that there is, as you've heard from I think every council member who's spoken today, a sincere interest in making sure that we're not delaying, that we are acting now, that we are assuming 100% reimbursement, and that we are really making sure that there is an understanding that the types of programs that the Council President just spoke to and the example of Just Cares is a way for us to prevent further spread of COVID and prevent death and illness in our community at large.

So I look forward to following up on the Vice Chair's comments as well, specific to that program, because I think we do need answers, especially now that we have seen we are expecting $35 million to be spent.

If only 15 has been spent, it seems like we have a sense of urgency to get these extra federally reimbursable dollars out the door, especially when there's a huge need and we want to be a good partner with King County.

I really appreciate the Council President's comments as well that we need to be looking at the outcomes that we'd like to see, and that's, I think, going to be part of our broader spending discussion.

But I think there's a lot of concern on my end that We're not potentially moving as fast as I see some of these other jurisdictions moving as it relates to the unsheltered population.

And if you have any comments on that or want to push back, you're welcome to do so.

But I think that's one of the things that we're going to be looking to try to address very quickly with these additional federal dollars and rental assistance dollars to prevent more folks from falling into homelessness.

OK.

I'm not hearing additional comments.

Director Noble, anything else in wrapping up?

No, I appreciate the opportunity.

And again, really excited about going forward here.

We're going to have some significant resource to apply to these very difficult problems.

Lots of reasons to be optimistic, yeah.

I look forward to working with you as well, Director Noble, and thanks to our colleagues for this robust conversation.

We're about 20 minutes over, so I thank you for your extra time today.

If folks are able to join us again on March 2nd at 9.30, we will have a discussion that was delayed today on the Capital Projects Watch List, and thanks to Director Eder for being available to walk us through that.

Look forward to hearing any additions that you all may have, and Customer Hurdle, did you have anything on that piece?

Okay, great.

I want to make sure we'll get a chance to hear from Councilmember Herbold who will help lead those efforts on greater transparency for that watch list next time as well.

So if you do have any edits or items that you'd like to see added, please let my office know because we'd like to make sure to tee up any amendments in advance.

And we will continue this conversation around federal relief, making sure that we get these dollars in hand out in community.

and working in good partnership with our regional partners as well.

Thanks for your extra time today folks.

Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Thank you Madam Clerk.

Thanks.

Thanks Amelia for clerking today as well.

We really appreciate you stepping in.

Bye everyone.