Council Briefing 3/25/2024

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is March 25th, 2024. The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.02.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Nine present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of March 18th will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

We don't have any presentations or proclamations before us today, but we will go into executive session at the close of today's briefing.

All right.

At tomorrow's City Council meeting, the consent agenda will include the weekly payment of bills ordinance, as well as eight appointments, all coming from the Sustainability City Light Arts and Culture Committee.

We'll have 11 items on the introduction and referral calendar, including the bill payment ordinance and six appointments to the city's LGBTQ Commission and the Community Involvement Commission.

Tomorrow's IRC will also include four ordinances relating to city employment, authorizing the execution of a collective bargaining agreement between the city and several unions, in addition to wage increases for nonrepresented employees.

and adjusting the pay zone structures for 2023 and 2024 for the city's discretionary pay programs.

The only item on tomorrow's full agenda is a bill from my committee, Council Bill 120747, which allows the city to accept funding from the State Department of Commerce to go to the Wing Luke Museum to help pay for repairs to windows that were damaged last fall.

And then finally, at tomorrow's city council meeting, I'll also be making a motion again for unanimous consent, so it's not a roll call vote, to officially make the standing committee and external committee resolutions the city's work program for purposes of the council rules.

And so in years past, we'd be finalizing a work program at about this point.

Okay, so about three months in.

And that's a very time consuming process.

And so this year we passed resolutions in January that described the work of each committee.

So my motion will be to officially recognize the work described in those resolutions as the committee's work plan.

So I'll be putting that forward at the end in other business tomorrow.

And so if you're seeing a theme here, what I'm trying to do under my presidency is to focus staff time on mission critical work by eliminating unnecessary busy work.

And I'm doing this with the consent of, or in some cases, the request from council and executive staff themselves.

So that's what's going on there.

Okay, moving right along, we will have our preview of city council actions, council and regional committees.

And the roll call this week begins with council member Rivera.

Take it away.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Well, I continue to meet with constituents from the district.

I also met last week with Chief Scoggins just to hear a bit about the fire department and what they're working on and just ways to continue to collaborate with city departments on behalf of the constituents this week.

In that vein, this week I'll be meeting with the UCT.

I'm going to be doing a ride-along in the district to learn more about their work.

specific to the D4.

And then also this week in the committee that I chair, the Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee, we'll be receiving an overview briefing from Director Chappell of the Department of Education and Early Learning, some overview on the work that they do in general and some of the investments that they make under the Families Education Preschool Promise Levy.

So thank you, Council Member Saka.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

All right, so at the March 19th Transportation Committee meeting, we heard from members of the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee, the co-chairs, and their thoughts on the current and future levy.

Thoughts on the current overall initial assessment of the performance and directionally, at least at a high level where the committee would like to see the future, the framework for the future levy.

We also had a very thoughtful and interesting presentation from SDOT about prioritization and funding for new sidewalks.

I know, colleagues, that is an issue that's near and dear to many of you.

I think all of you in certain material respects, given that we have a 27% missing sidewalk gap in Seattle and a huge opportunity.

And under the current level of construction, it would take over 400 years to fill that gap.

And so I know, you know, having had conversations with you all and hearing you all and many of your constituents, to be honest, you know, as chair of this committee, you know, it is a very important, urgent issue.

An opportunity presents a great opportunity for us to act and make meaningful progress.

Let's see, we also started our, continued our discussion, rather, on the Seattle transportation plan, and heard from central staff's perspective what's going on there.

And...

Good sort of friendly reminder, colleagues, if you have any amendments to the Seattle transportation legislation, please work directly with me, my office, and our central staff on the exact wording so we can address your concerns in the committee instead of bringing it to full council.

And we're going to be moving that forward.

And as I understand it, the mayor's office is going to be transmitting the The renewal levy package, or at least the initial sort of framework for what that is intended to look like a week from tomorrow.

So and then last Thursday, I also had a terrific briefing with the mayor's office about the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Those events are coming to Seattle.

Everyone's gonna benefit.

It's important, even though it's a little over two years away, it is important for us to plan now, which the city is already underway, has been planning.

And so I'm interested in making sure, not just because a lot of the core games and operations are gonna be in my district, but a lot of areas and neighborhoods across the city and indeed across the region are going to see impacts of the FIFA World Cup and also benefit from it as well.

So people are going to be coming from all over the world for the World Cup.

And they're not just going to be coming to Seattle.

They're going to be going to Kent and Bellevue and Bellingham and all over.

So definitely interested in making sure that is a successful and safe, wonderful, welcoming event Really exciting for our communities here.

And then also note that we have a planned levy oversight committee that was scheduled for April 2nd, first Tuesday of the month.

But because of the anticipated pending announcement of the draft levy proposal from the mayor's office, that is going to be rescheduled for the following Tuesday, April 9th.

to give the body some more time to review it before it can be discussed in more fulsome detail.

Speaking of which, my staff has been circulating dates for the Select Transportation Committee to consider the levy legislation.

So please let me know if you have any questions on that.

And that said, that's all from my perspective.

I welcome any comments, questions from my colleagues.

And if not, Madam President, I yield to Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council Member Sacco.

And we don't have to wait for the World Cup to have a one Seattle Cup since West Seattle Junction now has a USL team.

Colleagues, the report from the Ballard FC Open Cup game last week is that the ref made a bad call in the 88th minute.

gave the free kick to Spokane that we should have had, and then let extra play run for six minutes, even though she called it for four.

Spokane scored in the 95th minute.

There's the report from Memorial Stadium.

Colleagues, this year Ballard FC is playing at Memorial, which is closer to the rest of Seattle.

So anytime you'd like to go, I'd love to go with you.

In work that is here in City Hall, our next Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governance Committee will be on Wednesday, Nope, will be this March, hang on just a second here while I get my dates correctly.

It is next week.

My apologies, it is April 3rd, where we will be hearing the quarter one grants acceptance ordinance, which accepts and appropriates external grants.

We had a great committee meeting last week, did not hear any questions.

It is a pretty straightforward bill.

If you do have amendments, Please have them submitted by this Wednesday and let my office know as well.

On April 3rd, we may be hearing from Tribal Relations Director Tim Raynon regarding the Tribal Nations Summit recap.

We're still making sure that he's ready to go.

If not, we'll schedule it on another day.

Again, this was the first City of Seattle Tribal Nations Summit that took place on May 2nd of last year.

And it was the first time in Seattle's history that the city has convened an official government-to-government meeting between city elected leaders and senior officials and elected officials from multiple federally recognized tribes in the state of Washington.

Council President, we should be sending you the dates regarding select committees identified this week, and so we'll be following up with you to understand next steps.

My staff will then send out an email to all council members.

They are all at the same time that my committee is held, Any other select committees that we'll be having this year, just again, functionally financed native communities and select committee operate the same way except for voting because I invite everyone to attend every meeting.

The bills that we will be voting on specifically in select are the carry forward and the supplemental budget this summer.

in finance native communities, the voting items are mostly leases, so just for your awareness.

The select committee, budget committee meetings we will propose contain our package of briefings and presentations that investigate, examine, and review our budget so that you and we all are ready for the budget to be transmitted this spring, or fall, excuse me.

External committees, tomorrow I am attending the Debt Management Policy Advisory Committee meeting, immediately following full council.

I'm participating in the Seattle City Employee Retirement Systems Investment Committee this Thursday, and then the Sound Transit Board meeting after that.

Council President, thank you for the extra week regarding work plans.

Last week when you were talking, you said the word resolution and work plan, and in my mind, I thought we had done exactly what you just described, which was not have a resolution for a work plan.

That's why I got confused.

Thank you for the week's patience.

No problem.

I appreciate that.

In harder news, colleagues, I'll share my land use and transportation policy advisor, Naomi Lewis is moving on from my office.

When we hired Naomi, we hired her as a long range planner.

Because that's what she did into our land use committee clerk position.

When I transferred out of the land use committee chair role, Naomi, candidly, and I checked with her that I could say this, started looking at other jurisdictions to work in within the land use space.

Because that's what she, just colleagues, the AICP, which is the accreditation test and certificate for planners, she took without...

and only missed it by three points.

So we know that she will pass it when she takes it again this May.

And so I knew that it was only a matter of time before my office lost her, whether we liked it or not.

She's been incredible.

Just wanted to say thanks.

Council Member Morales, do I see you have a hand?

Sure.

Well, I was going to say this in my piece, but I will say now that I'm excited to be welcoming Naomi to my office to serve in a similar capacity.

And she'll be our land use committee clerk starting Wednesday.

There you have it.

That's my report.

Sorry, I didn't mean to catch you off guard.

That's okay.

Seeing no questions, I'll pass it off to Council Member Wu.

Council Member Wu.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Okay, I'm going to go over last week's highlights in the public safety arena.

We attended the East Precinct Advisory Council meeting about the violence near Garfield High School.

We also attended a briefing from the Regional Policy Committee on the Emerging Crisis Care Implementation Plan.

In terms of housing, we met with Sharon Lee from the Low Income Housing Institute and also engaged with the community at Cleveland High School to hear feedback on the proposed comprehensive plan.

in economic development and culture, met with a delegation from the Washington State Sino-U.S.

Trade Alliance, also met with Theater Puget Sound, as well as Pacific Northwest Ballet, and learned about their current projects and challenges this year ahead.

Also, this weekend, attended the Refugee Artisan Initiative Gala with Councilmember Moore, and with Councilmember Morales, we attended the Wing Luke Gala as well.

Within the City of Seattle, we met with the Seattle City Light Review Panel, and we continue to have meet and greets and briefings throughout the city, this week in particular with hearing examiner Ryan Vancil, who briefed us on their work.

This week, we had an introductory meeting with the Indigenous Advisory Council, and our office will continue to attend the Comprehensive Plan Community Meetings.

This week, it's held at Nathan Hale High School in District 5. That's tomorrow.

at 6 p.m.

This week, we're also meeting with the representatives of Puget Sound Energy to discuss priorities on climate policy.

And this Friday, I'm excited to join Mayor Harrell, Councilmember Strauss, Seattle State Light Interim General Manager Don Lindell, and others for a meeting with the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe and the Soxsualt Indian Tribe to discuss Skagit River hydroelectric project.

And if there are no further questions, I will pass this to Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Council Member Wu.

Last week, we had our fourth public safety meeting.

We held it at Seattle College with the mayor's office and also SPD representatives.

As you all know, we've been very aggressive scheduling our public safety meetings around the area office, which have been extremely important with all of the public safety that have been going around our city.

Last week, we also had a meeting of the Regional Transit Committee.

I was there with Council Member Saka.

The main topic was the rapid ride and how we are identifying which neighborhoods should receive rapid rides.

We got an update on the G line and the new lines that are coming down the pipeline in Seattle.

We also attended the Board of Health meeting.

That was with Council Member Kettle and Council President Nelson.

We talked about the fentanyl crisis, very concerned around the rate at which it's expanding and the health crisis that we're in.

There's a sense of urgency and definitely looking forward to hearing about the measurable goals, about the health and public safety issues that are going on in our city, particularly with the health crisis with fentanyl.

So we should hear a part two coming up next month and dive a little bit deeper than we did this meeting, which was very, very surface level.

On Wednesday, the 27th at 2 p.m., we have our Parks Utilities Transportation Committee.

Last time, we went over the process of surveillance impact report.

This week, we are going over SPD's hostage negotiation throw phone and SPD Call Yo software.

SPD is currently using this and They are going to go over this with us to discuss how they use it and the impact report as well.

I also wanted to note and probably some people also have seen in the news about parents reacting to our Seattle Parks and some miscommunication about our specialized programs for our youth with disabilities.

I spoke to Superintendent Diaz.

That is not the case.

There has nothing that has been made final that will impact that program.

I've spoken to parents.

And so that's something that we're going to be looking at very carefully as we should continue to be investing in youth in our city, especially the specialized programs, how much they mean to people and their impact.

So I don't have any other questions.

anything else to report.

If there's no questions, I will pass it on to Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Moving on, yes, King County Board of Health meeting, very good, pretty much setting, as mentioned, but also setting out the annual plan for 2024 last week.

Also last week, met with Seattle Navy League, just a quick meeting.

I just want to highlight that because Fleet Week will be coming up, and I will be your guide to all things Navy this summer, fellow council members here on the dais, so...

an early invitation to get a little Navy.

Sorry, Council Member Saka.

Maybe there's an air show down in the cord.

I won't hold it against you.

We all know Air Force is better, but yeah.

I like and respect our Navy service members as well.

Well, I appreciate that.

And as chair of the Public Safety Committee, I attended the Seattle Police Foundation's awards ceremony.

Congratulations to all the awardees from that night.

Also very important on the arts and culture front, attended a very important meeting with Theater Puget Sound down in Seattle Center.

Very important due to the challenges as the arts and culture community is looking to transition out of the post-pandemic, you know, from the pandemic period and into this new post-pandemic period, which is not the same as it was prior, and the challenges in terms of the economic viability of groups, particularly groups like Theatre Puget Sound, which is not a standalone, but actually helps many, many arts and culture organizations, help give them the ability to, you know, to...

to rehearse and all the like and give them a space.

An arts for space is really important for them.

And so I just bring that up because the arts and culture community, the ecosystem is so important.

And it's a good reminder that a lot of these are nonprofits, but nonprofits also have to make payroll too, and they're needing of our support.

So I just wanted to highlight the theater, Puget Sound.

And finally from last week, we had our first District 7 Neighborhood Council, which had community councils from Magnolia, Queen Anne, East Lake, South Lake Union, Belltown, also Uptown Alliance, other groups as well.

representing various elements of District 7. Fantastic meeting.

And it was kind of a setup meeting, but we also had a prompt asking about transportation.

So we got a great amount of input on the concerns related to transportation, which is being packaged up for Chair Saka of the Transportation Committee for your essay, but also for Estat and the executive, I think would be very important.

And then also back into the community in District 7. For this week, tomorrow, we have our Public Safety Committee meeting, our fourth, and this will feature the Seattle Municipal Court and the City Attorney's Office, so it's law-based, with Presiding Judge Chess and City Attorney Davison attending.

Later in the week, on Thursday, we have the PSRC, the Puget Sound Regional Council, a monthly executive board meeting, and on Friday, with Chief Diaz and City Attorney Davison attending.

And Director Kim, the Domestic Violence Prevention Council on Friday.

So that's what's coming up.

And that's all from District 7. No questions?

Is there a question?

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Just a comment, actually, that Theater of Puget Sound gets a grant from the city.

The city supports so many of our cultural organizations via the CARE program at the Office of Arts and Culture.

which I know is under the purview of the committee that Council Member Wu chairs, but I encourage you to reach out to the Office of Arts and Culture and get more information, but they're in the middle of a three-year grant from a really great program that the Office of Arts and Culture administers to support art organizations in town, particularly post-pandemic, but the the CARE program has been in existence since before the pandemic.

That's true.

I just wanted to give some information on that.

Highlighting the background of my colleague, Council Member Rivera, I wasn't thinking about that in terms of your former life, but yes, very important point to make, and thank you.

With that note, I hand over to Council Member Moore.

Quickly, if I may.

So, love all that.

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

And yes, I'll go to an air show at McCord with you, no problem.

Yes, yes.

Just want to offer some friendly translation services.

Colleagues here, Councilmember Kettle said, you know, I learned some transportation priorities.

And for your SA, quote, unquote, SA, as the chair of the Transportation Committee, what our colleague, what our esteemed colleague meant there was, you know, military jargon translation.

SA means situational awareness.

Oh.

So for your situational awareness is what he was referring to.

I use a lot of those, frankly, I think they're cool, military jargon and acronym.

So Council Member Kettle, I invite you to help translate for me if I share something that isn't necessarily in the civilian, is common in the civilian world.

Will do.

Council Member Moore.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Please translate any legalese you may throw out there.

Thank you.

Well, I'd just like to note my son is serving in the Army, so we have all of the military services pretty much represented here.

But I served in the Peace Corps, which is also another great way to serve our country as well.

Anyway, to that, I would say last week I had the privilege of attending a roll call at the North Precinct with Councilmember Rivera.

and we had a good conversation.

We were attending the retirement after 29 years of service of one of the officers, so we were sad to see him go, but certainly wished him well after serving our city for 29 years.

I also had the privilege of attending the Refugee Artisan Initiative Gala with Councilmember Wu, and that was amazing.

Food was all hand-prepared by two of the refugee women who work in the Artisan Initiative, both from Pakistan, and it was beautifully prepared.

And it was a real pleasure to be there.

I also was able to attend the...

Empty Bowls Fundraiser is part of the North Seattle Helpline, which provides both food bank services as well as social services and homelessness prevention services.

They do an amazing job for our community in the North End.

So this week, we will be having the Housing and Human Services Committee on Wednesday at 9.30.

We have two items on the agenda.

The first is an appointment to the LGBTQ Commission for a possible vote.

And then we will also be having an update from the King County Regional Housing Authority for a briefing and discussion, excuse me, Homelessness Authority for briefing and discussion.

My staff have sent out an email last week inviting non-committee members, non-committee council members to attend.

So please just give us a heads up if you will be attending.

And if there are no other questions, I will turn it over to Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Bring this a little closer.

Okay, good afternoon, colleagues.

Last week, the Land Use Committee met.

We heard presentations from the Planning Commission.

I invited them to come and share some of the issue briefs that they prepared in 2022 as the comprehensive plan process was beginning.

So I would encourage my colleagues to review those briefs.

We do have them linked in the land use committee agenda from last week, and they are very helpful to sort of set the stage for the conversations we'll be having.

And I would also encourage everybody to read the comprehensive plan itself.

It's thrilling.

I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm working on it.

We also had, sorry, lost my place.

We also had a briefing from Lish Whitson on the Connected Communities legislation.

Council Member Strauss indicated that he will be bringing some amendments.

I'd encourage all committee members to talk to Lish if there are other amendments being contemplated.

The next Land Use Committee meeting is April 3rd.

And I am still working on the agenda for that.

So I will probably be prepared to report on that next week.

Last week, I met with city attorney Davison and her team to discuss the issue of vacant buildings and how to increase enforcement to require property owners to secure their buildings when they're left vacant.

I'm glad to be in conversation with Council Member Kettle in this discussion and look forward to working together to find a resolution.

We're coming at it from two different angles, obviously public safety and the authority that the fire department may have, as well as looking at SDCI and what existing legislation or authority our different departments have.

This week I met with the Port of Seattle and the Northwest Seaport Alliance to discuss their priorities for this year, and also met with the Crescent Collaborative, which is a group of organizations working to support equitable and sustainable community development in neighborhoods that are adjacent to downtown.

This group came together out of the development that happened several years ago around Yesler Terrace.

So some of the organizations that work in those communities are still working together to make sure that that those assorted neighborhoods get the attention that they need.

I'll also be meeting this week, I'll be attending the Growth Management Policy Committee with PSRC.

I'll be attending the Habitat for Humanity Luncheon on Wednesday.

And I will also be meeting with Chief Seattle Club and with Senator Murray's office this week.

Last week I had in-district office hours.

I heard a lot about different parks related issues, golf course, greenbelt space.

So I'll be following up with our parks department on several of those issues.

And then I've also had folks come from outside of District 2 but who had questions about different zoning issues.

So we had folks from South Park and from the Central District come asking questions about some of the upzoning that's happened and how they're impacted by it.

So we'll be following up on some of those issues.

This weekend I attended the Wing Luke Gala.

My team attended the Recreating Henderson Street event down in Rainier Beach.

Neighbors down there have been working closely with SDOT to imagine Henderson Street, which is a very busy corridor between the light rail and the lake.

And there are three different schools on Henderson Street, so it's really important that safety is a priority and making sure that we slow down cars because there's a lot of very young kids who walk up and down Henderson to get to and from school.

And yesterday, I was excited to join our neighbors here at City Hall to celebrate Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year.

It was a really incredible event.

I have to say, I'm just learning about this holiday, but we had, it wasn't just in Bertha Night Landis, the entire lobby was full of people music and food and dancing and really beautiful celebration, celebrating spring and welcoming in their new year.

So I was excited to get to participate in that.

And then finally, as Council Member Strauss mentioned, this week we'll be welcoming Naomi Lewis onto my team.

I'm thrilled to have another planner in the office, especially one who's already been serving the land use chair.

Naomi will be starting on Wednesday.

Friday is the last day for Imani Carey on my team.

Imani is off to graduate school.

Yay for her.

Imani started as an intern in my office in 2021 and quickly became a permanent member of our team.

I will really miss her, but I'm very excited for her next chapter and look forward to welcoming Naomi.

That is all I have, Council President.

I'll hand it over to you.

Okay, seeing no questions, just a second here.

All right, as I already noted, the bill on tomorrow's agenda for the City Council meeting is Council Bill, let's see, pulling it up, Council Bill 120747 from the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee unanimously passed.

And this will be in this regards the accepting of the funds to help defray the costs of the Wing Luke.

So that's the item on tomorrow's agenda.

Passed out a committee unanimously.

The next meeting of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development meeting is this Wednesday, March 28th, 2 o'clock, and there are three items on the agenda.

The first is a briefing of the current app based worker minimum payment regulation, which is which was adopted in 2022 and went into effect in January, followed by a presentation of a proposal that was brought forward by drivers and with feedback from network companies to resolve the catastrophic impact on drivers, restaurants, and customers that we've been hearing about since implementation.

So that is finally coming to the committee.

There will not be a copy of the legislation, but the main elements of the proposal will be explained.

And spoiler alert, recent reporting aside, the proposal requires that drivers are paid at least Seattle's minimum wage per hour plus a per mile amount.

So you'll hear more about that this Thursday.

And I'm putting it on the agenda first.

because I don't want people who come here to give public comment about this I don't want them to have to wait around for this item on the agenda, and everybody here is welcome to join as well.

I might have to hustle conversation along because we have two other fairly dense items on the agenda, but that's my reasoning for putting this first on the agenda.

Next up for item two, the Seattle Department of Human Resources is returning to committee for an in-depth discussion on how position classification changes requested by departments are made.

by Central HR.

And Julie Dingley of the City Budget Office will be joining to address the fiscal impacts of these changes that are granted throughout the year outside the regular mid-year supplemental and fall budget processes.

So just for example, in 2023, out of 570 position change requests, requested by departments.

530 were granted, and most of them are small.

Some have positive budgetary impacts, some negative, meaning some add, some subtract money from the department budgets.

But all told, in last year, they totaled about an increase of about $3 million, according to central staff's estimates.

So again, these changes were not approved by council, and I want to know how they're made.

uh, because they do impact, although they often use existing funding in departments, they, nevertheless, they are baked into the base of the department budgets for the following years as an ongoing expense.

So, they will be here to provide a little bit more information about that and that our following meeting in, um, in the Gade Committee, we will, um, and this is in part preparation for the quarterly employment ordinance where some reclassification, uh, reclassifications are actually voted out of committee and you'll understand the difference.

All right, so that's the second item.

And then finally, we'll have a deep dive presentation from the Office of Economic Development on downtown activation plan implementation for 2024. So again, meaty topics all and please prepare for a long meeting committee members.

All right, so what I did last week.

On Thursday, I attended the Board of Health meeting as council members Hollingsworth and Kettle already mentioned.

And I noted last week in briefings that I was really looking forward to the first of two presentations on the county's opioid crisis response because I had requested that to be added to our 2024 work plan.

And it ended up being a joint presentation from the Behavioral Health and Recovery Division of the Department of Community and Human Services and the Seattle King County Public Health.

And I was a little bit disappointed with its lack of specificity in terms of budget allocations by agency or program.

In part, that's because as the work plan was being prepared for a vote, I explicitly asked twice for a work item on public health's opioid on public health's work plan to include opioid crisis response.

But the presentation was titled King County Overdose Response.

So there is a difference.

And that's the way I see it.

The latter refers to things that keep people from dying.

And I'm sure that Mr. Feingood would agree with that.

And that includes things like Narcan, which absolutely necessary.

I'm not criticizing that, but I am eager to learn more about what we're doing to keep people from overdosing in the first place.

And again, this was just the first of two presentations.

And perhaps there will be time to ask some questions about these things, or they will answer some questions that we didn't really have time to discuss at the meeting at the next presentation.

So I'm looking forward to that.

But for all of you who might be new here, it's no secret that I believe that the current approach of just Meeting people where they're at is just inadequate considering fentanyl's lethality.

So that is why I'm really focused on this issue.

And just as an aside, I rushed here today from a discussion sponsored by the Community Development Roundtable.

It was a moderated discussion by my friend A.P.

Hurd between Chief Amy Smith and Dr. Kaylin Fockele of Harborview Emergency Room.

talking a lot about different responses to overdose, but also how to move beyond responding and what different treatment modalities might look like and how the care department is well suited to take on some of this work and what more we need to do.

All right, and then finally, so back to Thursday of last week.

That evening, I joined council members Katalin Woot at the Seattle Police Department Awards Ceremony, and that was sponsored by the Seattle Police Foundation.

And I learned a lot about the day-to-day of our civilian and uniformed police first responders, because this wasn't just for uniformed folks.

It was also for, well, anybody who works within the Seattle Police Department.

It was really interesting because when they were giving out these awards, they told stories about why they were, what the people did to deserve these awards.

And so that is interesting.

That was a little glimpse into the day-to-day and the really hard work that they're all doing.

And I have to say that many people came up afterwards and thanked me for coming.

And I'm sure you two got the same kind of thanks, right?

And a lot of people in command staff and the rank and file also remarked on how great it was to see members of council, my colleagues, attending roll call and going on ride-alongs.

So just wanted to let you know that it's being noticed and appreciated.

All right, that's all I've got to talk about right now in my committee report.

Does anybody have anything else they'd like to mention?

Just please do keep us posted on your meetings related to the fentanyl crisis because it is something that we are all interested in across the dais here and it is something that we're going to have to figure out a way to address as you've so aptly discussed, not just today, but at other councils.

At nauseam all the time.

Yeah, but I agree.

So please do keep us posted.

And if there's an opportunity to bring a presentation before all of us, I would welcome it.

Ah, okay.

Just as a thought.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay, if there's no further business, we'll move into the executive session.

Hearing no further business, we'll now move into an executive session.

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

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

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorneys as authorized by law.

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

I expect the executive session to end by four o'clock.

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

At the conclusion of this executive session, the council briefing meeting will automatically adjourn.

The next regularly scheduled briefing meeting is on April 1st.

For real, you guys.

2024 at 2 o'clock.

The council is now in executive session.

Council members, please log on to the executive session Zoom meeting at your desks.