Seattle City Council Briefing 9/18/23

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Monday, September 18th.

The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.03.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Musqueda.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

And Council President Juarez.

Present.

Eight to present.

Thank you.

Moving on to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of September 11th will be adopted.

Not seeing or hearing objection, the minutes are adopted.

Let me go right into the President's Report.

Today, we will meet this year's 2023 Get Engaged appointees to the boards and commissions.

The Get Engaged program is a partnership with the YMCA to encourage young people to get involved in civic issues in their community.

We will meet in here from the get engaged nominees as our 1st, as our 1st item on today's agenda, a money vendor from the YMCA and chase Monroe from the mayor's office.

We'll be here to give a very brief overview of the program.

Glad to have you, Imani and Chase.

There's Imani.

Oh, there's Chase.

Good to see you guys.

We will then have an opportunity to consider the National Diaper Need Awareness Week proclamation.

And thank you, Council Member Herboldt, you bring it every year.

We appreciate it.

She'll be speaking to that.

We will have individual reports, of course, from council members.

And today, we would normally start with Council Member Sawant, but she is absent today, or excused today.

And instead, we will start with Council Member Strauss, we do not have an executive session scheduled for today on tomorrow's agenda.

The consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills as well as each of the 18 get engaged appointees that we will meet today.

The consent calendar will also include 2 appointees unanimously recommended by the economic development technology and city light committee to the Seattle.

Music commission and I believe council member Nelson will share that with us.

We'll take 1 vote on all items on the consent calendar.

And as, you know, unless, of course, the council member wants an item removed.

Um, there are 7 items under committee reports on the agenda tomorrow.

The 1st item is council bill 120645. It is regarding the public use of controlled substances.

It was recommended for approval by the public safety and human services committee on September 12th by vote of 4 to 1. Our standard practice has been to have divided committee reports appear on the 2nd, full council meeting agenda.

Which would have been September 26, however, in consultation with the chair of public safety, that would be customer her bolt.

We determined that due to the time sensitive nature of the bill, it would be added to tomorrow's September 19th agenda.

Thank you customer herbal for working with our office on that.

We anticipate that there will be many there will be amendments.

So please watch out for those amendments in advance of tomorrow's meeting.

Item 2 is the 3rd quarter employment ordinance that makes position adjustments position adjustments.

2, 3rd vote of the council is required for the approval.

Let's see, I think that's my item.

It is my address that tomorrow item 3 is consideration of the collective bargaining agreement with the United Association of journeymen and apprentices of the plumbing and pipe fitting industry local 32. I will be speaking to that item as well.

So I will be speaking to items 2 and 3. Um, moving on items, 4, 5, and 6 were unanimously recommended by the economic development technology and city light committee.

They include approval of the renewal of the Ballard business improvement area.

The BIA that's item 4 as well as the approval of a change in the Seattle tourism improvement area.

Stevia levy.

And item 5, that's item 5, that item 6 is a resolution documenting City Lights compliance with the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 as amended by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. We'll hear more about that from Council Member Nelson.

Finally, the finance and housing committee unanimously recommended a resolution approving the Seattle office of housing use of funds for services for residents of Yesler Terrace.

Thank you.

And she will be speaking to that item as well.

As, you know, every week, all of this information for tomorrow's agenda is available online before we begin our presentation.

I would like to alert my colleagues that we do not have a council briefing scheduled for next Monday, September 25th.

In addition, I'm currently considering and working with central staff and the clerks consolidating council briefings and council meetings during budget.

review to allow more time to focus on the budget as a consideration to Council Member Mosqueda.

Please stay tuned for more details on the upcoming calendar.

I want to thank the council members that graciously recommended these appointments that are coming forward.

That's council member Lewis, Nelson, Morales, Peterson, Sawant, and Strauss.

Thank you.

You submitted the names.

They came from your committee for these, from your committees for these particular positions, particularly you, Councilor Morales.

There's a lot coming out of your committee and appointments.

So thank you for that.

So, with that, I'm pleased to welcome Chase Monroe from the mayor's office and Amani Bender from the YMCA of Greater Seattle, and they will provide us with an overview of the Get Engaged program.

And again, I'm going to hand it off to them.

So go ahead.

The floor is yours.

However you want to do it.

Okay, I'll just lead us off.

Thank you, Council President Juarez and all other council members for your work on this.

And a big thanks to Bryndell on your team, Council President Juarez, and a big thanks to Tau Madsen from the clerk's office.

I'll just be quick.

I just wanna say from the mayor's office, this program aligns perfectly with some of the values that Mayor Harrell has personally around mentorship and opportunity for those who may not have the opportunity to participate in in programs like this across the city.

So really value everyone that showed up for this here today and I'll let them speak for themselves but I'll introduce Imani over at the Y who does the heavy lifting on this stuff.

So she's going to introduce these folks and you'll hear directly from them.

So glad to be here and thank you Imani.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Chase.

Good afternoon and thank you to the council for having me and the rest of our Get Engaged nominees here today.

My name is Imani Bender, and I am from the Y Social Impact Center, which is our social services branch of the Y of Greater Seattle.

The Y has been partnering with the City of Seattle since 2001 on the Get Engaged program.

So placing young adults on city boards and commissions for a year-long term.

So that's been over 20 years now.

And the program is really a civic engagement program that's dedicated to cultivating our next generation of leaders and advocating for the influence of young voices and perspectives in city affairs.

The Y's role in this program is really to handle recruiting, and so we connect all of the applicants to the boards and commissions in the interview process, which we also participate in.

And we also, at the Y, lead monthly meetings at which the Get Engaged commissioners have the opportunity to collaborate and really just support each other through this new experience, sharing ideas and strategies to help them along the way.

So this is a program that's intended to reach young adults.

So our outreach process really involved connecting with local colleges, youth service agencies, and community spaces that are frequented by young people.

And in addition to that, as the Y is committed to racial justice, equity, and diversity, as are, of course, the city and the boards and commissions who are participating in the program.

We made sure to call upon our vast community network to encourage youth from BIPOC and LGBTQ communities to apply.

I think we were very successful in that effort in reaching those communities.

And of course, the outreach effort was also supported by the liaisons from the participating boards and commissions.

I could not have done it without them.

They really advertised the opportunity to community partners of their own and so many others at the city who really helped get the word out.

We appreciate all the support there.

There are 21 open Get Engaged seats on 20 participating boards and commissions, and 18 of those nominations will be presented today.

So we'll have the last three that are planned for consideration a little bit later in the year.

So with that said, I will get started presenting our 2023-2024 Get Engaged nominations.

I had the opportunity to meet all of these young adults during the interview process and I can say that they are truly an impressive, impressive group.

They're students and young professionals who are extremely motivated and passionate about using their voice to improve public life in Seattle.

And I think that they really represent the abundant talent and just spirit of our of our young people in our communities today.

So we have 10 of today's 18 Get Engaged nominees present and I will be reading introductions for the eight who were not able to make it.

So

Hey, before you launch in, just give me for the viewing public.

I just want to share that.

So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, we have 6 committees with 6 council members.

And so, from the committees, if I can just quickly read this, so people understand we have from the economic development technology and city light committee, which is customer Nelson.

We have folks from the land use committee that Councilmember Strauss chairs, neighborhoods, education, civil rights and culture committee, which is Councilmember Morales, the public assets committee, which is Councilmember Lewis, sustainability and renters right committee, which is Councilmember Sawant.

and Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee, Council Member Peterson.

So I'm just trying to connect the public with the committee chairs and then the folks that will be on those particular different committees, but that's where they came from.

So I just wanted to...

Councilor Peterson, you're good?

All right, just wondering.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your flow.

Go ahead.

It's all good.

Thank you.

So our first nomination is Lauren Lanham with the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners.

Lauren wasn't able to make it today, so I will be reading her introduction.

Lauren graduated from the University of Dayton with a bachelor's in pre-medicine and sustainability.

She is currently working on a master's of public health and environmental health policy, through which she has served in leadership organizations that supported local park cleanups and worked with students to provide opportunities to volunteer in the local community.

She plans to use her past experience from managing community gardens and pocket parks to serve the Board of Parks and Recreation.

In addition to this, she hopes to use these skills from her last leadership roles to connect residents to their local City of Seattle parks and to provide increasing opportunities through our city community centers to make community engagement activities more accessible.

Lauren hopes to learn more about what the great parks our city has to offer and learn how she can be a better advocate for her neighborhood and Seattle residents.

And then next up, we have Zio Alvarez with the Seattle Planning Commission.

Hi, I'm Zio Alvarez.

I live in White Center Highland Park, and I work as design staff at Element Architects in downtown Seattle.

In my day job, I work on finding resilient and sustainable ways for people to live together.

And I see the Planning Commission as a portal to creating a Seattle that's equitable, adaptable, and accessible for all.

I hope to spend my term on the Planning Commission contributing to the conversation around Seattle's future and building a foundation for a lifetime of publicly engaged design work.

And I'm really excited for this opportunity to serve my community and the city.

Thanks.

Next, we have Damarlyn Sisney for the Community Technology Advisory Board.

Yes, thank you.

So I was, hello everybody, my name is Damarlyn Sisney, but please feel free to call me Dee.

I was born and raised in Indiana and made it out four and a half years ago and definitely fully embraced the entrepreneurial spirit and have been working tirelessly to scale businesses owned by black, indigenous, and people of color in the area.

And my passion for diversity and representation was really ignited during my tenure at Amazon Web Services, where I served as an analytics and AIML specialist.

I was able to really identify a significant under-representation of our diverse partners within the business, and it spurred a action for me to conceptualize and implement Minority Partner Initiative, which was a program dedicated to educating and upscaling minority partners.

And so it was equipped with about $15 million to be able to come in and provide financial assistance, mentorships, and skill development opportunities to these underrepresented groups.

And then once I did that, I then took what I had learned there and started my own business, HOP Technical Assistance.

which is helping the overlooked prosper.

And really, we base our firm on the Small Business Digital Maturity Study by Deloitte that found that only 36% of small businesses nationwide have fully adopted digital tools and technologies.

And so we operate internationally and have six engineers on the team and empower small and underrepresented businesses with technical assistance.

And so I'm deeply passionate about ensuring that technical solutions and policies cater to the diverse needs of our community.

And so serving on the Citizens Technical Advisory Board really offers that unique platform to combine my technical expertise with my commitment to public service.

So definitely looking forward to joining the team and working with you all.

Next up, we have Emma Adkins with the Seattle Disability Commission.

Good afternoon, City Council.

Thank you for the opportunity for being here, for me being here.

My name is Emma Adkins.

I use she, her pronouns, and I'm currently living in City Council District Number 4. I work full-time at Seattle University's College of Nursing, where my job is to academically and personally support aspiring nurse practitioners.

I'm also a full-time student at SC working towards my own master's in business administration, which I'm very excited about.

I've lived with type 1 diabetes since I was about 10 years old, which has had an immense impact on my lived experience.

My interests include advocating for access to resources and services, dissolving stereotypes and stigma for people living with disabilities, and promoting legislative and policy change to promote equity for all.

I'm interested in serving on the Seattle Disability Commission so that I can engage with the advocates and leaders who participate in vital conversations and initiatives that directly impact those living with disabilities in the greater Seattle area like myself.

I hope to bring a unique perspective to the commission and learn more about what it means to be an advocate in my community.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you, Emma.

You have a fan in our office.

We're supposed to say hi to you from Layla.

So, just so, you know, please tell them.

Hello.

She told me how she told you what to say about so I just just a little inside joke Emma's good friends with Layla in our office and Layla was very proud of you.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for letting me be here.

I'm very grateful.

So, next up, we have Kade Weijer with the Community Involvement Commission.

Hi, how are you everyone?

My name is Kade Weijer and I'm the nominee to serve on the Community Involvement Commission.

I'm from Southwest Washington and Vancouver originally, and I went to UW up here and I've stayed ever since.

Currently, I work for the county and community corrections, and I also work part time as a family advocate for Mary's Place at the women's shelter in South Lake Union.

I'm hopeful to serve on the Community Involvement Commission because I value inclusivity and a passion about hearing, understanding, and championing the voices of all communities in Seattle.

And while serving on this commission, I hope to learn more about the goals of the commission as well as amplifying the voices of individuals affected by the criminal justice system who also have intersectionality with addiction, homelessness, mental health, et cetera, and trying to increase their civic engagement and knowledge of city government and kind of what's going on.

I'm super excited to get involved with the city government and just to share this passion with other people.

So thank you for having me here.

All right, next is Tyler Hall with the Pioneer Square Preservation Board.

You're on mute, Tyler.

That'll be your first job is to learn to unmute.

But not from WebEx, sure.

We still don't got that either.

It only takes three years.

So, hello, my name is Tyler Hall.

I'm a born and raised Seattleite living in Missouri and Washington and officing downtown in District 7. I work with Unico Properties as an asset manager with my day-to-day function being really kind of cheerleading and quarterbacking, trying to drive investment outcomes with the various stakeholder input from all of the parties that come into private real estate investment.

I've spent a lot of time in my personal and professional life down in Pioneer Square, and I've grown to love it as one of the most dynamic and diverse neighborhoods in Seattle.

And I see a great opportunity to get involved and learn more about the Preservation Forge's role in helping championing the cultivation and appreciation of the history and fabric of that neighborhood.

And I'm really looking forward to understanding more of the constraints and motivations of the various groups that play into all forms of rehabilitation or redevelopment in that neighborhood and understand how I can better bridge the gap from the institutional and capital communities into what ultimately drives more empathetic and thoughtful contributions and investments in the neighborhood.

All right.

Up next, we have Athena Scott with the Seattle Arts Commission.

Athena is not able to be here today, so I will read her introduction.

Athena is a copywriter with a robust creative writing practice living in the Ravenna neighborhood.

She is passionate about do-it-yourself art organizing and hopes to facilitate new connections between the city and its diverse community of artists.

She has written for and edited a number of zines and small press publications, and her writing has appeared in Wallpaper and the Berkeley Fiction Review, among others.

And then after that, we have Rachel Lockerbie with the Seattle Human Rights Commission.

Thanks, Imani.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Rachel Lockerbie.

I use she, her pronouns.

And as Imani said, I've been waiting to be appointed to the Human Rights Commission.

I was born right here in Seattle.

And currently I'm entering the final year of my Master of Social Work degree at UW Seattle, with a focus on public policy and administration.

And I'm also beginning work at Partners for Our Children in their research and policy department at UW as well.

I have a background as a therapist clinically and as a community organizer and a legislative advocate, and I'm hoping to bring all of these experiences to my work on the Commission.

And during my time on the Commission, I hope to assist in recruitment, strengthening the Commission, as well as helping to establish a task force on criminal justice reform.

And I also really hope to build a bridge between my experiences in policy, grant writing, and community connection along with the commission.

Thank you.

All right, next is Amelia Osorio with the Seattle Immigrant and Refugee Commission.

Amelia is not able to be here today, so I will read her introduction.

Amelia is a junior at the University of Washington, where she studies Persian in the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures Department.

Her illustration, We Are Renton, inspired by the 87 languages spoken by students in the local school district, has been turned into a public art installation in Renton's bustling downtown area.

On the Bellevue College campus, Amelia has a mural titled Knowledge is Power, which highlights and celebrates international students at the school.

Amelia is also involved with several nonprofit organizations in Seattle that align with her goals of immigrant empowerment, which she plans to continue in her work after she graduates in 2025. She volunteers her time for PaveOn.

an organization that promotes Persian arts and culture in the greater Seattle community.

Amelia's most recent project for Pavan was illustrating the designs for the King County's library systems celebration of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year.

And then next we have Ashley Ford for the Seattle LGBTQ Commission.

Thanks, Imani.

Hi, everyone.

It's a pleasure to be here.

My name is Ashley.

I use she and they pronouns.

I live in the Lake City neighborhood and currently working in the Central District.

I work at Coyote Central.

We also have locations in Lake City, so another hub there.

Love Lake City.

I work as an alcoholic.

Go on, Lake City D5.

Yes, beautiful neighborhood.

I work professionally as a nonprofit fundraiser.

Right now at Coyote Central, we host art classes and creative courses for youth 10 through 15. Check us out if you haven't already.

I also chair the board for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network.

For fun, I play the flute.

I'm a musician.

I'm currently in the Rainbow City Band.

Seattle, the Seattle area is queer band, lots of different ensembles in the area to be a part of.

I have just a really big passion for social justice and equity.

I'm a nonprofit fundraiser because I strongly believe in the redistribution of wealth into communities that need more resources.

It's a critical, crucial time for LGBTQ people right now as we're seeing that changes in our legislature across the country.

So very honored to be a part of a group that's able to have a voice for queer people within our community.

Very honored to be here and thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you for being at Coyote North.

I've been there many times.

Thank you.

Love the place.

All right, up next we have Veronica Lamont for the Seattle Women's Commission.

Veronica is not here today, so I will go ahead and read her introduction.

Veronica Lamond is a rising 2L at the University of Washington School of Law.

She graduated from the Evergreen State College in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Law, Public Policy, and Government.

She hopes to be appointed to the Seattle Women's Commission.

If appointed, she aims to contribute her lived experience as a woman, her excitement to be a part of a vehicle for change as a Get Engaged Commissioner, and her passion for addressing issues that women face through policy reform.

One of the proudest moments of her academic career was being recognized as an exemplary intern by the Democratic Party Caucus for her dedication and assistance to Representative Jerry Paulette in signing HB 2327 into law.

The bill was otherwise known as End Past the Harasser and addressed misconduct at post-secondary educational institutions.

Additionally, she is a member of the Women's Law Caucus and the First Generation Law Students Association.

She is extremely passionate about being a proponent of change and hopes to meaningfully contribute to the Women's Commission.

She appreciates your consideration and your appointment decisions.

And next we have Ellie Davis for the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board.

Ellie was not able to make it as well, so I will go ahead and read their introduction.

Ellie is a recent graduate of the Master in Public Health program at the University of Washington and is currently working as a program manager at the institution.

Their graduate thesis explored neighborhood dynamics and its correlation with health outcomes for the people of Mexican national origin.

They have lived in multiple neighborhoods across North Seattle and currently reside in Maple Leaf.

They hope to use their lived experience in conjunction with their public health training to support inclusive and equitable infrastructure planning and policy development during their time with the Bicycle Advisory Board.

And next we have Delaney Lind for the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board.

I will go ahead and read Delaney's introduction as she was not able to make it.

Delaney Lind was raised a Washington local and is a current Olympic Hills resident.

Since earning her bachelor's in business administration at the University of Mary Washington, Delaney has progressed into the nonprofit sector as a systems specialist for donor and volunteer services at the YMCA of Greater Seattle.

She has a strong commitment to safety and a compassionate approach to community challenges that will guide her if allowed to serve as the Get Engaged member for the Pedestrian Advisory Board.

She endeavors to support Seattle neighborhoods transition towards a future that is fully walkable, accessible, and welcoming for all.

OK, and then next we have Braxton Williams for the Seattle Transit Advisory Board.

Braxton is also not able to make it, so I will be reading his introduction.

I promise it's the last one you have to hear from me for a while.

Braxton currently works in corporate strategy at Microsoft and resides in the Yesler Terrace neighborhood.

He graduated from the University of Oregon and worked in management consulting previously.

An avid transit writer, Braxton will use his experiences utilizing transit along with various sustainability and community-focused projects to further promote transit reliability, accessibility, and overall quality on the Transit Advisory Board.

Okay, and then next we have Tavo Malin for the Seattle Renters Commission.

Hi, everybody.

Thanks, Imani, for making this all happen and to the Council for giving us the time.

Yeah, my name is Tava Moline.

I moved to Seattle early last year, and I've kind of been pinging around District 4 ever since.

I'm currently residing in the Wallingford neighborhood.

I earned my degree, my bachelor's degree, from the University of Puget Sound in politics and government, and I'm currently working as a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service.

I'm excited to start working with the Renters Commission for a wide variety of reasons.

I feel like the Get Engaged, Eat, is particularly poignant because as a young person, I know that most of my peers and most of my housing options are going to be renting.

And I feel like it is a very critical place for young people to advocate for themselves, seeing as it's going to be a key piece of our economic future.

I believe the city has an increased role in managing the rent systems that exist as the housing crisis continues to unfold.

I want to make sure that renters within the city are connected to each other and connected to the resources that are available, either existing or resources that we can create, because I believe in being an informed renter.

I have had a few unfortunate experiences myself.

I've watched a lot of my community members struggle to find housing, and I've watched a lot of my community members suffer the consequences of housing that has negative health effects or negative financial effects.

So I want to make sure that the renters within the city of Seattle are well represented.

I want to use my experience advocating for others to amplify the voices that already exist within the community, find practical solutions to housing, and make sure that the city is playing the role that I believe it should in increasing accessibility and housing potential for everyone who lives here.

All right, next is Shabazz Abdulkadir for the Design Review Board.

Shabazz is not able to be here today, so I will read her introduction.

Shabazz is a Seattle native who has witnessed the city's growth over 20 years and has a passion for contributing to a safer and more resilient environment for all communities.

She has a bachelor's degree in urban planning and a minor in construction management from the University of Washington, and now works collaboratively with community business organizations to develop infrastructure projects to increase access to resources.

Shabazz brings a unique perspective to the built environments through her various experiences and knowledge.

She looks forward to learning from the brilliant minds already in this space and sees this appointment as an opportunity to be of service to the Seattle community.

And up next, we have Logan Woodyard with the Urban Forestry Commission.

Hello, City Council.

My name is Logan Woodyard.

And I am serving on the Urban Forestry Commission.

I'm from Ohio and moved to Seattle about a year ago to start my job in the timber industry.

I work for Green Diamond Resource Company.

We're a private family timberling company who owns and operates about half a million acres here in Washington.

And all you need to know is for work, I tend to look at trees at a landscape level.

So looking at hundreds, if not thousands of acres and looking at them in aggregate.

So I'm really excited to serve on the Urban Forestry Commission to kind of start looking at trees at an individual level and think about some of the societal, ecological, and community benefits that trees provide, not just carbon and fiber.

And I live in Capitol Hill currently.

And I'm really excited to start my appointment and learn a lot and sort of give back to Seattle.

And serving on the committee is kind of a way to get further integrated into Seattle and really start to make it feel more like home to kind of care about the issues that affect the city.

So thank you.

Thank you, Logan.

We will not hold it against you that you're from Ohio number 1 and you're in the right city for love of trees.

So good for you.

Councilor Strauss will probably have something to say when we wrap this up.

Welcome.

I do.

Okay, well, let's what else we got?

So, last, but obviously not least we have Jay Backman with the Seattle Design Commission.

Hello everyone.

Thanks for having me here.

My name is Jay Backman.

I use they, them, theirs pronouns, and I'm a senior transportation engineer over at the City of Bellevue.

I'm part of the Bellevue Smart Mobility Team implementing intelligent transportation systems initiatives to make our roadways safe and efficient for all modes.

I'm a born and raised Washingtonian, and I've lived in Seattle for the past 10 years.

I currently live in Seattle's Licton Springs neighborhood just north of Green Lake.

I hope to bring my years of experience designing capital projects in the private sector and foundational knowledge on how to operate and maintain traffic systems from the public sector to the design commission to help solve challenges that Seattle is facing as the region undergoes constant growth.

I'm passionate about traffic safety, multimodal infrastructure, and evaluating transport diversity, equity, and inclusion on multiple DEI committees throughout my career.

And I hope to apply my knowledge to make our public safe spaces welcoming, safe, and beneficial to peoples of all identities.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jay.

So I think, is that, Amani, you kind of went down, I was going through the list with you.

It looks like we got everyone?

Yes.

Well, I want to say a few words and then open the floor up to my colleagues.

I just wanted to just end on what Jay shared with us, and Brindell and I were just talking.

It would be wonderful if you want to check into sound transit, doing what the city of Seattle does, because every just what every 80% of the people that spoke are all issues we deal with at sound transit, whether it's mobility, biking, writing all trees, everything and no offense to sound transit and their oversight board, but oversight board, but we generally get the same people.

Nothing wrong with retired engineers.

But it would be nice to have younger folks who are engaged and moving up in their careers with a different lens and a sensibility of a different generation.

I'm old, so I'm not making fun of old people, I'm just saying.

So maybe we can work on that.

So with that, I'm gonna open the floor to my colleagues, because I think a lot of them have, or a few of them have a few things to say.

Colleagues, who would like to go first?

Council member Strauss, I'll take you up on the offer.

Council president just wanted to say to everyone, thank you for your volunteer service to our city.

I know that this is not a paid gig and it just hearing each of you speak about your background, whether you're from Indiana or Ohio, we are excited to have you here and be engaged in our city.

to help us create better policy, to help us as leaders understand the issues before you a little bit better.

And Jay, also hearing about your work over in Bellevue and transportation.

I mean, I could sit here and have a conversation with you for a couple hours, but my colleagues would be a little, yeah, I see that.

I saw that face.

They would not be so happy.

So I just am gonna take this moment to thank each of you for volunteering your time to make our city a better place.

We're so excited to have you.

Are any of my other colleagues want to share anything before we close out and move on a boat?

Well, I just want to end on the note that this is a great group.

Thank you so much.

I know how hard you work on this and we couldn't do it without you and we do it every year.

Having young people who are professionals who are working anything from banking to grad students, all of these issues that come before us.

It's really exciting to meet all of you and actually good to see you.

I know I've met you before from the North and D5.

Maybe next time we can have a breakdown of districts just because I know I have a bias.

So I've been writing down the D5 people, but it's good to also not only just have folks here who have these different professions who are in grad school, but also those of you that are renters bring a wonderful perspective that we need to hear.

And I could go on and on about the ones that are here in the notes that I took, but I just want to thank all of you as a council member Strauss pointed out.

You're volunteering, you're starting out your career in this kind of civic position and hopefully someday you will find yourself sitting where I'm sitting or some of us are sitting.

Well, not soon, but someday, hopefully.

So I want to thank you for that.

Is there any other comments before we actually go on?

Do we actually vote on this?

No, tomorrow we do, I'm sorry.

I was getting my scripts mixed up.

We will vote tomorrow.

So, Amani and Clark, we've, oh, hold on a minute.

They don't need to show up tomorrow unless they want to, or do we just say that we're just doing it all today?

No one's showing up tomorrow.

Yeah, okay, so I guess no one's showing up tomorrow.

Okay, great.

We're gonna put it on the consent calendar.

Councilor Nelson.

Simply to say thank you very much.

Normally I would, I look forward to appointments in committee just to be able to say thank you and to notice something about one's background that will help the city.

Can't do that now because there's so many wonderful people before us, but I just really want to say thank you very much, Imani, for your work on the program and for all of you.

May your experience be fruitful and look forward to future partnerships, potentially.

Thanks.

And also, thank you, Chase.

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to forget you.

Thank you.

And Mayor Harrell, who, when he was council president for four years, brought this same different group every year as well.

All right.

I do not see anyone else.

So, again, thank you, Imani.

Thank you, Chase.

And we will move on in our agenda.

And thank you all for showing up today.

And thank you, Emma.

I'll put you on the spot again.

Great to meet you.

Okay, let's move on.

Now that we've done our Get Engaged appointments, we'll do them tomorrow, but hearing from the folks in all 18 of them, let's move on to Councilor Herboldt has a proclamation for signature today, proclaiming the week of September 18th to the 24th is to be Diaper Need Awareness Week.

With that, Councilor Herboldt, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam President.

Today, I'm asking for signature on a proclamation declaring September 18th through September 21st, 2023 as Diaper Need Awareness Week.

The proclamation is supported by the Human Services Department and the mayor is concurring.

circulated this proclamation last week.

Diaper need, the condition of not being able to afford a sufficient supply of clean diapers to keep babies and toddlers clean, continues to affect Seattle families.

This proclamation highlights the negative impacts that diaper need has on the economic well-being of families.

It also makes note that Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander caregivers are more likely to experience diaper need as compared to other populations.

Through this proclamation, the city is able to demonstrate our gratitude to the community members that are tackling this issue, including members of Westside Baby, a deeper bank located in West Seattle.

At tomorrow's full council meeting, Westside Baby will join us to accept the proclamation and speak their work in supporting Seattle babies and infants.

I encourage my colleagues to share any comments at that time tomorrow and really hope we can get your signature here today.

Thank you.

Thank you customer herbal.

Are there any comments regarding customers herbal?

Who brings this every year?

Thank you.

Customer herbal regarding the proclamation for diaper need awareness week.

Okay, with that, um, madam clerk, will you please call the roll on the proclamation?

Council member Strauss?

Yes.

Council member Herbold.

Yes.

Council member Lewis.

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Eight signatures will be affixed to the proclamation.

Thank you.

All right, let's move on in our agenda here.

Uh, the roll call today.

We'll start with council member Strauss.

Then council member herbal Lewis Morales, now sent Peterson and then myself and with that council member Strauss.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

Council president.

There are no items from the land use committee.

Being heard at city council tomorrow, we did have a special land use committee this morning at 930 am and we had a few items voted out of the committee anticipated to go to next week, September 26, 2023 city council.

For final passage.

We had 1 appointment and 1 reappointment to the equitable development initiative advisory board Denise Perez Lally and reappointment of Evelyn Thomas Allen.

Very excited to have them on board and 1 appointment to the urban forestry commission.

Nathan Collins.

We had a nice meeting with Nathan this morning.

We also have Council Bill 120622, the vacant building monitoring program.

This strengthens the standards for securing vacant buildings by requiring solid corridors, stronger throw deadbolts, and in some cases, polycarbonate sheets rather than plywood.

We'll require vacant buildings to be kept graffiti free, require that any building receiving a notice of violation to enter into the building monitoring program.

rather than just those that fail to correct a notice of violation by the compliance deadline.

Just for everyone's information, in the current code, a building can just make an effort to comply with the notice of violation, and they have taken off of the vacant building monitoring program, and this has caused some issues.

This bill changes that.

This bill will also simplify the process for police and fire referrals to the vacant building monitoring.

Program as well as authorize the depart the city.

To file a property lien to collect unpaid vacant building monitoring fees and payment costs, whereas in the current code right now, it is a voluntary compliance and many of these.

Fees and fines are not being paid.

The proposed legislation will increase economic development, public safety and vibrancy.

This has been an issue that I've been working on for a few years when I asked about.

Creating a bill to support and improve the vacant building monitoring program.

I had a list of items I wanted to achieve.

They already had a bill written.

I'm very excited to have this before us and I have to say, we wouldn't be here today without the work of council member for many years working on the vacant building monitoring program.

Moving on to the next bill that came out of committee today council bill 120631 belltown zoning amendment for lodging use flexibility.

This legislation would increase the flexibility for lodging uses in the downtown mixed residential zone within the belltown neighborhood.

This legislation is part of the mayor's downtown activation plan and will encourage economic development.

Beltown comprises a mix of commercial office, residential and ground floor retail space.

Expanding hospitality use within the downtown mixed residential zone is consistent with the intent of the Seattle Comprehensive Plan, which describes the zone as predominantly residential with neighborhood serving non-residential uses.

Expanding hotel uses in the zone will contribute to enhance neighborhood vitality and increased economic development and recovery.

This legislation will treat lodging uses as the same way that residential uses are regulated in the zone.

By exempting lodging from the chargeable floor area.

All other standards, including height, bulk and scale of development in the zone will remain unchanged.

This amendment is text amendment only and no changes to zoning maps are required.

There are, I believe, 8. Parking lots empty parking lots that this bill really focuses on and 1 building that is currently under permit or design.

I'm not exactly sure where it is in the stages.

There are a total of 9 parcels and we know that when we create.

More create places for people to live or visit in downtown.

There's more economic vitality when there's more retail space on that 1st floor.

There's more vibrancy on our street.

This bill will do just that.

We also passed council bill 1, 2, 0, 6, 3 to downtown retail rezone.

This legislation would reason 11 parcels generally located around 3rd Avenue between union.

And Stewart from the downtown retail core zone to downtown mixed commercial zone, increasing the livability and vitality of the blocks that are centrally located downtown.

This does increase residential units within the center of downtown to draw more tenants.

And activate the street level retail and bring more live work play environment.

It will encourage new investment that can upgrade the physical environment as well.

Retail is different today than when the zoning was created.

We have more online shopping today, and we also need to make our zoning code meet these changing demands.

So how do we use a retail?

A zone to create a more vibrant downtown, we use this bill to create a space for more people to live, work and play on 3rd Avenue so that we can.

Improve the vitality by increasing the amount of people and types of things that you can do on 3rd Avenue.

This bill helps just that.

We also passed resolution 32097, a resolution for transportation impacts and industrial and maritime zone areas.

The purpose of this resolution is to ensure freight within the city's industrial maritime areas are supported stakeholder work group.

The stakeholder work group that led to the maritime and industrial zoning changes that we made earlier this year had a few recommendations that were transportation.

Most of the recommendations were zoning or land use related.

We took up the land use and zoning related strategies and we couldn't address the transportation strategies because the bills we had before us were land use bills.

This resolution is intended to direct the city Regarding these other strategies that we couldn't take up within the land use bills regarding transportation in these industrial maritime zoned areas.

Just 1 example here.

Deep water ports are very hard to create.

We have a deep water port that we can see from council chambers.

We also have the.

Terminus of interstate 90 only a mile or so away from the deep water port that connects our port to the heart of America and Boston.

Right?

And.

That last mile mile and a half creates a choke point.

For us to be able to get goods moving throughout our community and around America, frankly, this, this resolution helps define what are the things that we need to focus on to ensure the freight is moving freely around our city.

And from our port to the rest of the country.

Those are the items that will be coming to full council next week.

I do just want to say again, thank you to all of the land use central staff to my.

Land use clerk, Naomi Lewis, because we accomplished quite a lot in the land use committee this year.

I will admit.

Esther and Ali told me we couldn't take up this much work at the beginning of the year.

I'm not here saying that we.

We proved you wrong.

I'm just saying that everyone worked really hard and we accomplished a lot and it's something that everyone should be proud of.

We were able to increase tree protections, including the arborist registration legislation.

As I mentioned, we passed the maritime and industrial work.

We pass downtown activation plan work.

We raise the thresholds for projects downtown.

We passed equitable development zoning.

We've created pilots for mandatory housing, affordably on site performance and design review improvement pilots and many more small pieces of important legislation.

With this, we still have a few appointments to boards that come to the land use committee, including design review boards and urban forestry commissions.

I may come and request some of those appointments come straight to full council during budget season and I will work with the council president to make sure that I stay within the parameters.

Of both the budget chair and the council president's desires.

The next land use committee meeting will be a special meeting on Wednesday, November 29th, 2023 at 2 PM.

This is the next meeting after the adoption of the budget.

We will then have our regularly scheduled.

Land use committee meeting in, I believe it's December 8th.

Either December 6th or December 13th, we'll come back to you with that.

And that's.

the report from the Orientation Committee.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any questions?

Seeing none, I'm gonna pass it over to Council Member Herbold.

I kept it under 10 minutes.

All right.

Let's see.

I've got a long one, too.

Okay.

So tomorrow's full council agenda includes Council Bill 120645, passed out of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee by a four-to-one vote.

The bill incorporates state law making possession and public use of controlled substances a gross misdemeanor into the municipal code and states that diversion, treatment, and other alternatives to booking are the preferred approach.

Very, very brief description of a bill that has taken the work of a lot of us.

The bill provides guidance to officers on the course of action based on the threat of harm.

Council Member Lewis and I co-sponsored a substitute amendment the committee adopted, drafted in collaboration with the mayor's office to both address the calls for clarity in legal advice, technical issues identified by central staff, and to address non-controversial areas of agreement, all consistent with the policy intent of the original version sent by the mayor.

Given that this is new authority, it's important to have ongoing review.

The amendment establishes a Behavioral Health Advisory Committee to advise the city regarding the needs for changes in police protocol, legislation, or other policy, and provide data as recommended by the state.

Legislation also requires reporting by this committee, including the demographic and other information as recommended by the state's Substance Abuse and Recovery Services Plan.

There are four amendments proposed for tomorrow's full council meeting.

I will be proposing an amendment A with some additional technical clarifications from law.

Central staff can be available at tomorrow's meeting with the agreement, of course, with Madam President.

I really want to thank, again, everybody for all the work they've been doing, particularly central staff, Asha Bhattacharyya and Greg Doss.

This has been a joint effort and doing our very best to respond to the calls for prompt council action.

Other items, the Public Safety and Human Services Committee is not meeting this week.

The committee meets next week on Tuesday morning at 9.30 a.m.

A few departmental updates.

As relates to the Police Department, as I know we all are well aware, Navi Kandula died after being struck by a vehicle driven by an SPD officer traveling at high speed back in January.

Last Monday, SPD released body-worn video from an officer response where a SPOG leader said her life had limited value and was laughing throughout the conversation.

Video has since resulted in scores of articles worldwide and widespread anger in particular in India.

India's ambassador to the United States has actually raised the issue of this call with the Biden administration.

In response, Mayor Harrell convened a meeting over the weekend that I participated in along with Chief of Police Diaz and other leaders to meet with organizations and individuals representing the South Asian community at this meeting on Saturday.

We heard the call of community leaders for accountability, both for the officer whose actions resulted in this tragic death and the officers who spoke so callously about her death.

I also heard a call for officer training and empathy, support for Janavi's family, pedestrian safety investments, and support for additional Seattle services to our immigrant community.

I pledged at the time to work to carry forward this call to action.

Secondly, in the early evening of last Thursday, Seattle's Chinatown International District suffered yet another disgusting act of anti-Asian hate.

As many watching already know, a man yelled racial slurs and committed a terrifying act of destruction by smashing windows in the Canton Alley.

with a sledgehammer, damaging the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American experience.

Wing Luke is a historical and historic institution that makes and preserves Asian American history, serving as a important cultural purpose for not only Asian Americans in our city, but all Seattle residents and visitors.

It's not enough for us just to make calls to stop and hate.

We must actively support and Asian American communities.

I've heard calls from CID community increase staffing to reduce wait times for service.

It is an uncomfortable truth that this council has funded SPD's staffing plans and recruitment and retention efforts for goals beyond what we have been able to achieve several years now.

But We must continue to work to find new and innovative ways to retain and recruit police officers, as well as building a stronger public safety network across the board with efforts in crime prevention and mental health services.

Some news that we just recently received from the King County Prosecutor's Office is that they were able to rush file this case, which means rush filing to file the criminal case within 72 hours.

This method of filing allows the prosecutor's office to ask the court to keep the defendant in custody.

was the work of the police department that made it possible for this case to be ready for a rush filing.

The $30,000 in bail set at the first hearing is being requested to be maintained.

The defendant is in King County Jail and the next court appearance is on October 2nd.

Moving on to the Seattle Fire Department, just a quick service announcement that this week is National Falls Prevention Week.

Our department has posted a whole home safety checklist to help identify correct common hazards that lead to falls.

One in three people age 65 years and older will fall at least once a year, leading to hospitalizations and potential fatalities.

You can view the helpful information on FireLine blog.

Moving on to the Community Safety and Communication Center.

Last week, we convened our joint mayoral council committee to work on the community responders program.

This meeting that we had last week for the dispatch community responders program was to confirm that everything is on track for an October launch as planned.

And I know many of us are very excited to see this long overdue addition to our public safety network come to be.

I have regularly scheduled meetings with OPA Director Betz and the leadership of the CPC later this week.

Human Services Department.

Just want to flag, at next Tuesday's committee meeting, we'll be having a public hearing and possible vote on the Human Services Department's proposed five-year consolidated plan, the requirement of HUD, as well as legislation reappropriating nearly $7 million in CDBG underspend towards substance use and overdose treatment and services.

And this approved five-year consolidated plan must be transmitted to HUD in November, which means that Tuesday is both our first and our last chance to vote on this legislation.

Because of the expedited timeline, I have asked HSD to offer briefings to committee members ahead of time.

I hope you can take advantage of those briefings and formulate any questions or amendments well ahead of time so we can get them addressed thoroughly next week.

Thank my committee members for the willingness to do so, and reach out to either Christina Kasubas in my office, HSD, or to central staff member Jen Lebrecht with any questions.

on the Regional Committee Update Front.

Last week, I attended the Policy Coordinating Group of LEAD, Let Everyone Advance with Dignity.

At that meeting, I updated Policy Coordinating Group members on King County's bid of LEAD project management funding and our engagement with the RFP development process.

We learned as well that King County expects to announce at the end of the month who has been awarded funding for the LEAD program.

This week, as far as regional committees go, there'll be the King County Board of Health meeting, where we'll consider a resolution to urge jurisdictions within King County, their opioid settlement funding towards uses that are recommended in the required community engagement report.

This community engagement report is required by the settlement.

And to also encourage jurisdictions to align their funding with Seattle and King County so that we can all together leverage greater impact.

As far as events and community coming up this week, tomorrow morning I'll be missing the transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee to join Mayor Harrell in the Seattle Fire Department's Mobile Integrated Health Forum, chair a public update on the frontline efforts responding to overdoses and providing emergency medical care.

The pilot, Health 99, was added in July as a result of the mayor's April executive order.

The role of the Health 99 team begins once the patient is awake and stable.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for excusing me from tomorrow morning's meeting.

On Thursday afternoon, I'll be joining the Recovery Cafe for their annual fundraising lunch.

On Thursday evening, I'll be with Working Washington to celebrate their recent victories passing the Deactivations Protection Bill.

And on Saturday, I will be attending the annual Lawn Bowling fundraiser event at Jefferson Park, the Seattle-King County Coalition on Climate.

That's all I got.

Anybody have any questions or comments?

Seeing any, I will pass it on to Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold.

Starting off with a Clean City Update.

It's been a little while since we've received a Clean City Update.

Between September 2nd and September 8th of 2023, Clean City Initiative recovered 439 needles and did cleanings at 71 locations, remediating 34,100 pounds of garbage.

Moving on to library updates.

The Seattle Public Library has increased the window from 30 days to 60 days for all meeting room reservations.

During the pandemic, this window was shortened to 30 days due to the uncertain nature of the pandemic, but the library is happy to announce that as of this week, rooms can now be reserved 60 days in advance.

The Seattle Public Library's free K-12 afterschool tutoring service, Homework Help, available online at spl.org slash homeworkhelp, all one word, is now available at nine library branches.

These include the Broadview, Columbia, Douglas Truth, High Point, Lake City, Northgate, New Holly, Rainier Beach, and South Park branches.

New this fall, with homework help at the Broadview branch, that is the new branch that has been added for this service.

The library will continue to offer virtual one-on-one tutoring through tutor.com seven days a week, as well as many other programs and services to help students of all ages succeed as we go back to school this fall.

Public Assets and Homelessness Committee updates.

This Wednesday is a rather packed agenda, so committee members be ready to get a lot of our pre-budget business resolved at this Wednesday afternoon's meeting.

These include the reappointment of Philip Meng as a member of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners, the appointment hearing for Marshall Foster as Seattle Center Director, Renewing the contract with the downtown Seattle association for the operation and management.

And activation of some downtown parks.

Legislation authorizing the acquisition of property for a neighborhood park in the Westwood Highland Park, residential urban village.

Legislation authorizing Seattle public or sorry, Seattle parks and recreation to enter into an agreement with Washington State Department of ecology.

Or the US environmental protection agency to seek and accept grants for cleanup work on the Duwamish waterway park site.

Legislation authorizing the acquisition of property at the Taylor Creek headwaters to preserve the last surviving urban headwater wetland in a salmon bearing Creek.

Legislation authorizing a second amendment to an existing easement on city-owned land relating to the property known as the Egan House.

This is a historic Seattle item that we will be addressing that is on parks land, hence why it is in the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee.

And finally, legislation amending the interlocal agreement between Seattle and King County to authorize the acceptance of $12 million in King County Conservation Futures tax money for the purchase of open space in Seattle.

Because all this legislation is coming down the pipeline and because we do expect this to be a robust and packed meeting, we do want committee members to be prepared for this meeting to potentially go long so that we can resolve this entire agenda.

before we can move on to budget and make sure that parks gets all of these important pieces of business out of the way well in advance.

Madam President, I don't have any additional remarks for briefing this morning.

If colleagues have questions on my report, I will open the floor.

Seeing no questions on that report, I will pass it along to Councilmember Morales.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Lewis.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

The next meeting of the Neighborhoods, Education, Arts, and Rights Committee is this Friday at 9.30.

We do have a full agenda as well for this committee.

We will be talking about legislation that my office has been working on for almost two years now.

I've been working with OPCD, with Kito Freeman from central staff, and we'll be giving a presentation on this project.

Legislation that would create a land use bonus pilot will bring us a big step forward toward building a Seattle within reach.

When this is passed, the connected communities equitable development zoning pilot We provide bonuses for projects that are built in community preference areas.

And in areas where historic exclusionary racial covenants have applied for projects that have a minimum of 30% onsite affordability that have a ground floor retail or services.

And extra bonus would be provided for projects that build on former single family lots that have reserve a unit for the previous property owner.

So, this is a pilot that would help take down the barriers for small community and culturally based organizations who want to develop housing fight displacement of their communities.

I want to really thank OPCD for their partnership on this.

We're looking forward to that discussion.

Three other items, excuse me.

We will hear a presentation from the city auditor on workforce equity and promotions audits.

My colleagues may recall that when we heard A couple years ago, that 7 black women were suing the city for discriminated discriminatory promotion practices.

I asked the city auditor to start looking into our workforce equity in promotions across the city.

And so we'll have a presentation on the results of that.

And then we will also be hearing from the Department of Neighborhoods to give an update on their generational wealth initiative work.

It'll actually be D.O.N. and O.E.D. They've both been working on community wealth building strategies.

And so, we'll hear from the departments about the work they've been doing together.

And we'll also hear from some community members who participated in some pilot projects.

around this work, so I'm really looking forward to that conversation as well.

This will be the last committee meeting before budget.

And then after budget, our last meeting of 2023 will be on December, I believe it's December 8th.

This week I do have one bill up for discussion in tomorrow's Transportation and Public Utilities Committee.

I'm calling it our Complete Streets Ordinance.

So I want to thank Chair Peterson for getting that on the agenda for us.

This is Council Bill 120658. It would require sidewalk installation or maintenance to be included in road repaving projects.

Specifically, it would require sidewalks to be installed on streets without sidewalks and for repairs to damaged or uneven sidewalks to be made in areas where sidewalks exist.

As part of road repaving work, it would also require a start to present a summary.

of road repaving projects to council every year, and a detailed memo for each project where the SDOT director deems that sidewalks are unnecessary.

That memo would include information on how the department will mitigate pedestrian safety and accessibility issues in those specific cases.

So this was a bill that we worked with Disability Rights Washington, America Walks, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, Commute Seattle, and other local and national advocates.

Again, I want to thank Chair Peterson for allowing us to get that on the agenda before the budget process starts, and looking forward to that conversation.

Moving on, finally, to district updates.

I want to also acknowledge the hate crime that occurred at the Wing Luke Museum last week.

This was a terrifying incident.

A man smashed with a sledgehammer each of the museum's windows.

And we know that, thankfully, nobody was injured.

There were community members inside the museum at the time.

Nobody was injured, but I know that the staff is pretty traumatized.

The person who did this has been apprehended.

My understanding is that, as Council Member Herbold mentioned, bail is being set today.

I have been in contact with museum staff and board members, as well as SPD, following the incident and will continue to do what we can to support through our office.

I also want to highlight Executive Director Joel Barriquiltan's remarks in an interview following the incident with King 5, where he said, and I'm quoting, safety is not the absence of any kind of danger, the presence of our connectedness.

We can create safety by being together more often and with more of us.

And I will say that I have heard draw talk very often about the need for community cohesion for folks to work together on, you know, whether it's challenges or or some visionary project for the C.

I. D.

and for the city.

So I know that he is really.

really rooted and grounded in building strong community together.

And I know that that's going to be necessary for this foreseeable future here.

So I look forward to joining the museum for their event next Saturday.

They'll be honoring author and journalist Ron Chu in partnership with the Library Foundation.

There'll be an informal tour of the CID Library branch afterwards, so I'm looking forward to that.

I will be gone this week.

I'll be attending the Association of Washington City's retreat Wednesday through Friday.

Well, through Thursday, I'll be back for my committee Friday morning and that will be in chambers.

In the meantime, my office will be co sponsoring a community open house this Friday in partnership with tent city 3 and to welcome tent city 3 into the district that will allow both community leaders and nearby community members to meet their new neighbors and give folks an opportunity to learn about the great work done by share wheel.

My team will also be attending the regular Yesler Terrace Community Council Meeting and Community Safety Meeting held by the Chinese Information Service Center in Beacon Hill as part of the ongoing conversations to promote community safety amidst the string of armed robberies against Asian elders.

Last week, I did partner with our New Holly Gathering community members and SPD to bring in-language support to over 80 Vietnamese seniors regarding safety tips and updates on the cases.

We'll also be meeting with folks from Electrify America, which hosts a number of electric vehicle charging stations across the city and in my district to address some of the safety concerns they're having with maintaining these stations.

And then finally, I want to also acknowledge the incident last week.

I know all of us on Council have seen the atrocious video that has now made national and international news regarding the Vice President of SPOG's comments on Janavi Kandila.

and her death.

In January, following that incident, I made remarks at our council meetings and committees calling for increased transparency and increased accountability.

Following the public release of that body camera footage on Monday, I did release a statement calling for immediate action by the chief An action would be to come before this council and answer questions about how he intends to change the culture of his department, a culture that has allowed for this type of comment to be made in the 1st place.

I'm particularly interested in hearing why Daniel Autor, the VP of SPOG, was tasked with giving the officer who hit Genavi, Evan Dave, sobriety tests, rather than having an unbiased third party conduct that, and why the department ran blood tests on Genavi to try and detect drugs in the first place.

There's clearly a lot of work to do to transform the culture of a department that has continuously lost public trust.

And I wanna make sure that the next steps from the department are laid out for the public.

I think we have all commented that there needs to be a rebuilding of trust between the community and the police department.

It is not the community's job to rebuild that trust, it is the department's.

And I would like to know what concrete steps they're gonna take to move in that direction.

That's all I have, colleagues.

Is my microphone on?

You are muted.

The policy issue that you raise, I want to just take this opportunity to share a little bit of my request as it relates to that specific issue with the department, looking to pull up the exchange So, I did ask the question of given that SPOG as an organization's job is to assist members in defending themselves against complaints and discipline.

whether or not there's a conflict of interest, that somebody in a leadership role for that organization in another role performs a function that will be considered as part of the complaint process and discipline outcome.

We heard a number of things that Officer Auditor said that suggested a bias towards an argument that there was no misconduct.

Officer Auditor said that Officer Day was going 50 miles per hour.

Officer Auditor doubted that there was a situation where John Dovey's body was thrown as far as it was thrown.

There were a couple other statements that suggested a bias towards a finding of no misconduct.

I also have concerns that if a person who leads an organization whose job it is to defend an officer against complaints is doing the drug testing, whether or not that has any bearing on the decision making for the prosecutor, and whether or not there's any question of whether or not the test of the officer might be considered inadmissible.

In response, the police department acknowledged that these were important issues to take a look at and that there is policy that says no member of the department may receive preferential treatment in criminal investigations.

But they do acknowledge that that this issue might be an issue that suggests, if not an actual conflict of interest, a perceived conflict of interest, and that this issue is going to be put on the, quote, policy roadmap.

So, as a point of information, the department has, I believe, only 11 trained DREDUI officers.

So, there are 11 individuals that are trained to provide this kind of response.

And they're not all 11 of them aren't all working all 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So, understand that there are staffing constraints, but there is this question of whether or not the person should have been called.

And really appreciate you, Council Member Morales, for raising that question as well.

Good.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I don't see any other questions, so I will hand it to Council Member Mosqueda.

Great.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Morales.

Hello, colleagues.

I do want to just, on this topic, say thank you to Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Herbold for your comments today.

I, too, share those concerns and would also very much like to see a conversation at Council, as Councilmember Morales outlined.

I did share my full statement with the Seattle Times as well after we had the opportunity to hear the horrific comments made by the VP and President of SPOG Um, after the video was released, and I do hope that the local, the state, the national, the international attention to this issue results in actual action.

That is what people are demanding action and that we respond to seeing those types of comments.

on full display and as Council Member Herpel noted, the callousness, because it's our responsibility to make sure that we have the opportunity to rein in that type of behavior and that a contract does not bargain away accountability measures in the future or now.

So look forward to the action that is being demanded of our city in the wake of those remarks.

On our next full council meeting, we will have the opportunity to wrap up our finance and housing items for this year.

We will meet on Wednesday, September 20th at 9.30 a.m.

We will include three major components on the agenda for that day.

We have held extra time on our colleagues' calendars, so my hope is that you can continue to hold time until 1 p.m., though, like last week, we might not need that full time.

The 1st category is the 4 higher legislation again, 3 pieces of legislation that update and modernize the city of Seattle's regulation for 4 higher transportation services.

This is legislation that the finance and administrative services department and the mayor's office really had the reins in developing legislation in partnership with various stakeholders.

Frankly, over the last few years, this is an issue that predates cobit and we will be.

I'm planning to vote out the legislation from Finance and Committee, excuse me, Finance and Housing Services, Finance and Housing Committee on Wednesday this week.

And then, Madam President, it will be my request to you that we hold the legislation to wait for King County to pass it through their chamber so that we can consecutively pass the Transportation Network Company legislation in conjunction with the county as well as required.

This will allow for us to have additional time if there are any changes that the county partners make in considering their legislation and after budget.

We will then be able to take this legislation up as a policy that's already gone through committee and we can then do a final passage after budget.

The other item on the agenda is two pieces of legislation related to office of housing property transfer to pieces of legislation relate to sound transit properties and the Phinney Ridge property where office of housing is authorizing transfers there.

And the last category on our budget is on our agenda is the staggered elections resolution.

Again, this will be for briefing and discussion on Wednesday.

Uh, we will have the opportunity to upload to the agenda a new version of the resolution that incorporates some of the feedback that we heard in finance and housing last meeting with the hope to really hone in on where there is common ground.

The common ground that I think that there should be is focused on stability, reducing turnover and increasing institutional knowledge and capacity so that we can better serve members of the community with less interruptions.

So looking forward to having another conversation about that and being able to circle back to that before the end of the year.

On the calendar this week I wanted to let you know today I had the opportunity to meet with Lisa Brummel, co-owner of the Seattle Storm and thanks to Jenny Gilder and folks like Maria Barrientos from Barrientos Ryan who reached out and wanted to have an opportunity to meet with us and tour the Seattle storm facility under development in inner Bay, very excited about the tour that we had today and walking around the facility.

That's under development.

There will not only be 2 full courts for practice opportunities.

It will also have the offices held within that building.

There's going to be art in terms of sculptures and murals outside some open space for entry that will include.

Hopefully, a very welcoming environment for members of the community to not only be proud of our Seattle storm team, but also to really celebrate its presence in the heart of the city and in the heart of interbay.

They're very excited to hear more about what their needs are.

Their needs are to really make sure that it is a safe place to get to and travel around.

And as Councilmember Strauss will probably be proud to hear me say, to make sure that more folks who park around the area as they go to see Ballard FC play, that they have safe, connected sidewalks and safe streets around the area as well, and signage to make sure that people know where the new practice facility is.

So I look forward to working with our colleagues, including Council President Juarez, who's been a longtime champion of the Seattle Storm, and I know is interested in this topic and that facility being successful.

So look forward to having more conversations about that in the upcoming budget.

Last week, I also went and had a chance to meet with the folks at Crisis Connections located in Belltown.

I just cannot get out of your district, Council Member Lewis.

And very excited to hear about the work that Crisis Connections does with the 988 number, the 211 number, the teen line, and the various other lines, including the line that directly connects to frontline officers and firefighters who are trying to assist those who are having a moment of crisis.

I want to thank Michelle McDaniel, the Chief Executive Officer of Crisis Connections, for graciously offering me and Melanie Cray on my team an opportunity to sit down with a generous amount of time from their staff and tour the office, see the call center and hear more about the types of calls that they are receiving, given the shadow pandemic and the increased crises that many community members are facing, especially teens.

I think it's incredibly important for us to continue to think about how we continue to support the crisis care, crisis connection center and more upstream, the types of services that would reduce call volume that their call centers are currently receiving.

So, very excited to hear more about that first responder one call option as well that they have and how we can get more frontline providers using that service so that we can really reduce the chance that somebody ends up in the criminal justice system and increase the chance that they can get connected to the services they need.

Thanks to Michelle and her entire team, folks from King County as well who met with us, and Melanie Cray for organizing that.

On full council tomorrow, as the council president noted, we do have one item on tomorrow's agenda that includes the Seattle Housing Authority legislation to use higher than anticipated revenue from the lease or sale of a property that they had at Yesler Terrace redevelopment so that they can use that for services to support Seattle Housing Authority residents.

As we've heard over the last few years, while the buildings on the outside of affordable housing providers might look the same, the needs of residents on the inside over the last few years have dramatically changed.

The needs on the inside have dramatically scaled up.

And we need to be able to provide additional resources to serve those residents on the inside of the building with health services, safety services and counseling services.

So I'm appreciative of the partnership and leadership at Seattle Housing Authority for using.

This create a strategy to take higher than anticipated revenues and plug it directly back into support needed services within those buildings for residents.

On the introduction referral calendar this week, you see Council Bill 120663. This legislation that would authorize the Director of Finance and Administrative Services to renew an expiring real property lease for the Fire Marshal's office located on 3rd Avenue South and South Main.

The Fire Marshal's Office includes approximately 66 full-time employees, all assigned to 3rd and Main Building, which they've leased since 1998. The fire marshal's office is interested in continuing to lease the space as they have operating ongoing operational needs, and they will need to have close proximity to the fire headquarters at fire station 10, which is the emergency operations center.

So, this legislation would authorize the execution of the 5th amendment, which includes an additional 5 year term and 1 year extension option given the timeline and the.

The, um, the work that has already been put into this, and the routine nature of this, I have asked central staff and the council president to help us get this directly to full council, which they have agreed.

Thank you.

Council president and central staff for working on this is the lead on this.

If you have any questions, it will go directly to full council for a vote on September 26. With that, I look forward to seeing my colleague Councilmember Herbold at the Seattle-King County Coalition on Homeless Services, who are going to be having their annual event on Saturday at the Lawn Bowling Party, and I'll also be dual tasking as I'll be joining the Latino Community Fund Gala as well.

Thank you very much.

Seeing no questions, turning it over to Councilmember Nelson.

All right, there aren't any questions.

So hello, everyone.

The Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee met twice last week to finish up several pieces of legislation before the budget, including two appointments to the Municipal Commission, Kelly Faryar and Nick Turner to the Seattle Municipal Commission.

And we also heard and voted on Resolution 32108, documenting City Light's compliance with the Federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act, or PURPA.

And it was a big week for the city's BIAs, or Business Improvement Areas.

We heard and discussed and voted on Council Bill 120634, an ordinance renewing the Ballard Business Improvement Area, otherwise known as the Ballard Alliance.

Nearly 65% of ratepayers have approved this renewal, which essentially keeps the assessment formula the same, although adjusted for inflation, and makes some reasonable changes to the BIA boundaries.

And we also had Council Bill 120641, an ordinance renewing and making some changes to the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area, or STIA.

Now, last year, the committee renewed the STIA and increased its assessment from $2 to $4 a night.

And this legislation would switch the assessment to a percentage, 2.3% of the total per night rate for a particular room.

And that is competitive with Portland's.

So the ordinance also allows for STEA to use those funds to attract travelers for the meetings and conventions market instead of just for leisure tourism, which is what it is currently allowed to be used for right now.

And then all five of those items were unanimously recommended by committee members and will be on tomorrow's full council agenda.

That was the last meeting of the year until our very, that was the second to last meeting of the year.

Our last one will be on December 13th.

All right, moving on to the meetings that I took last week, it's good to hear they're making the rounds.

My staff met with representatives from Electrify America, which runs a nationwide system of electric vehicle charging stations in which in recent months has experienced a number of incidents of vandalism that have damaged or disabled charging stations in the Seattle area.

And while I don't believe the city collects Data on damaged privately owned charging stations, I do want to acknowledge this is a growing problem and could impede the implementation of City Lights Transportation Electrification Plan and obviously the realization of our climate protection goals.

On Thursday night, I attended the Puget Sound Business Journal's annual event honoring distinguished directors on the boards of organizations making a significant impact in our region.

And I went as a guest of AP Heard, who was one of the honorees, and a longtime friend.

So congratulations, AP.

And then on Friday, I joined cascade bike club on a ride to learn more about the protected bike lane along East Lake that's proposed as part of the rapid ride J line configuration.

And coincidentally, this was my preferred bike commute route to city hall when I was a staffer.

So that was familiar territory.

meetings for this week.

Let's see.

After briefings today, I'll be briefed by Human Services Department Director Tanya Kim on the 2024 to 2028 Consolidation Plan in Community Development Block Grant prior year transfer legislation.

Looking forward to that.

And on Tuesday, I will be meeting with Senator Cantwell's staff to discuss key takeaways from the fentanyl task force she convened earlier this summer and also compare notes on urgent next steps in our fentanyl crisis.

This upcoming Wednesday, I'll be joining Aaron Goodman and the Soto BIA for their Recovery Cafe event.

Recovery Cafe is an essential organization in our community that addresses the needs of those experiencing homelessness, substance use disorders, mental health challenges, and other related traumas.

Later this week, my staff and I will have a briefing with our state legislative OIR team to discuss priorities for the 2024 legislative session.

And then finally, we'll end the week.

My chief of staff and I will be attending the 2023 Marquee Gala celebrating 50 years of the Seattle International Film Festival.

That's on Thursday.

And, you know, CIFF always knows how to throw a good party while raising funds and awareness for all the great work they do in community.

So thank you very much, Tom Mara, for the invitation.

All right, that's it for me.

And if there are no questions, I will pass it on.

I want to know why Mr. Mara didn't give us our invites to the film thing, because we got them in May or June.

So I hope Tom's listening.

That has some pull there, I guess.

Ask the chair of the Film Commission, maybe.

They've got an in.

Thank you.

All right, thanks.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

There are no items from our Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

Our next meeting of the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee is tomorrow, Tuesday, September 19, at 9.30 in the morning.

We expect to have approximately 24 items, though 17 of them are appointments to the various Transportation Advisory Boards.

As I noted last week, I'd ask committee members to schedule themselves to stay at our committee until about 12 noon tomorrow.

I'll quickly summarize the legislation here.

Council Bill 120657, SPU and central staff will join us for a second discussion and hopefully a vote on the periodic update to our water rates.

As a reminder, Seattle Public Utilities operates with a six-year projected rate path set by resolution for its three main lines of business, water, solid waste, and wastewater.

We typically see an increase in those rates every year to keep up with rising costs.

The rate increase that Seattle Public Utilities is posing with this council bill is significantly less than expected when compared to the current approved rate path and is well below the rate of inflation.

Our city council central staff analyst, Brian Goodnight, circulated a five-page memo to committee members this past Friday.

I'm really proud of Seattle Public Utilities for heeding our calls to prioritize low rates and manage their costs.

I'd also like to commend the diligent oversight from the volunteer customer review panel for their steadfast efforts to monitor costs and rates at SPU, which benefit our 750,000 constituents.

This is a good opportunity for me to put in a plug for Council Bill 120602, which would repeal City Hall's regressive tax on drinking water.

Our committee will also have a second discussion and ideally vote in favor of Council Bill 120642, a proposal from our Seattle Department of Transportation to temporarily eliminate fees for food trucks, vending carts, and smaller sidewalk activities.

Well, this measure might have been reported as part of the proposed downtown activation plan.

It would actually be a city wide policy, but according to fiscal note, the city would forego revenue of only 140,000 dollars or so for each 12 month period.

And the fees would resume on January 1, 2026. Our committee meeting will also include Council Bill 120658, sponsored by Council Member Morales, which she already spoke to.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for putting that proposal forward so we can make sure Seattle benefits from better sidewalks as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Our committee will also discuss and possibly vote on Council 120661, which is a proposal by Seattle Public Utilities to update the city's litter code.

Their proposal clarifies the fees and adds an administrative enforcement tool to discourage illegal dumping.

At our committee, the Seattle Transportation Department will provide an update on their Vision Zero action plan efforts.

As you may recall, Director Spatz has made safety a priority at SDOT and completed a top-to-bottom review of Seattle's Vision Zero program, which is committed to a vision of eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries by the year 2030. We hope to receive an update on SDOT's early action initiatives, as well as any other updates they can provide.

transportation advisory appointments.

We will have appointments to the various transportation advisory boards, including the Bike Advisory Board, Freight Advisory, Pedestrian, Transit, and School Traffic Safety Committee.

Hearing the calls for action among those who rallied to save the magnificent cedar tree, luma, from chainsaws in North Seattle, I took time during council's recess to draft legislation in consultation with the Snoqualmie tribe to prevent more threats to important culturally significant trees.

This brief bill, which I presented to the Urban Forestry Commission two weeks ago, Would ensure that checks quickly with the States Department of archeology and historic preservation for culturally modified trees under the revised code of Washington chapter 27.53.

I want to thank central staff and the city attorney's office for their review of that legislation to confirm no issues.

and it's awaiting formal posting on the introduction referral calendar.

In the meantime, I'll have a proposed council bill, just a draft informational file on my transportation committee agenda tomorrow, just to daylight that for the general public, just the preliminary contents of the proposal that would ultimately ensure protection of culturally significant trees.

In district for this past weekend, I attended a ribbon cutting for the nonprofit family works, which expanded its operations for low income families.

to the top of the light rail station at Roosevelt, Cedar Crossing mixed-use buildings in the Roosevelt neighborhood.

I was joined by parents, children, staff, and nonprofit board members, or I should say I joined them, as well as the director of the State Department of Commerce, Michael Fong, and State Rep. Jerry Paulette, as well as one of the original founders of Family Works, State Representative Frank Schopp.

That concludes my report.

Any questions before we move forward?

Okay, I think it's Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

All right, good.

Thank you.

I will be brief.

Let's see, there are no items from the governance native communities and tribal governments committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

The next governance native communities and tribal governments committee will be this Thursday at 930 am.

And I will speak to that agenda later in this meeting.

So let me go through what I did last week.

Last week, we held our weekly meeting with unified care team, which responds to homeless encampments, not just citywide, but also district 5. and we reported the impacts of encampments on Lake City Way and 125th and the requested assistance and outreach and cleanup.

On Wednesday, we attended a meeting of the South, I'm sorry, Sound Transit North King sub area.

Should I do every 2 weeks where we were briefed by sound transit CEO, Julie, Tim on planning efforts in and around the 1 30th street station to develop more walkable areas surrounding the station focus on biking, walking, safety, et cetera.

So that's a long time coming and I'm glad we're still working on that.

On Thursday, we met with city staff regarding upcoming sound transit issues, including again, plans for development around the 1 30th street station.

If you haven't had a chance to get up there and look at it, it's looking pretty good.

And my understanding is that Northgate is the highest used light rail, or at least where people have boardings.

This week, the Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will consider the following issues.

We have 2 appointments to the Seattle Indian Service Commission.

We have an appointment to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission, and we have a resolution regarding Memorial Stadium.

We met today with Marshall Foster and folks Um, who've been working on this for quite a while, and we did a resolution, I believe, last May or June and now we're going to follow up with another 1. I believe 1 roof foundation had secured this contract through the.

Thank you, Brian.

Good night for all your good work.

And I'm trying to remember who else is the other person involved Jackie Karen.

Who's been working on this as long as I've had this job almost 8 years and then some so hopefully we'll move forward on Memorial Stadium and working with Seattle Public Schools to redo Memorial Stadium.

And, of course, protect the Memorial the wall.

That is the number 1 issue that will be in the PowerPoint.

All that will be posted.

I believe Wednesday.

So everyone can review it Thursday as we go through it Thursday morning.

Very important, let's see.

Um, oh, a big, thank you to director handy and Lauren Henry.

We've been working on legislation regarding thresholds for executive session on settlement and claims briefings.

It seems that it's been a while that we revisited the number or the amount and so we are looking at the legislation that we've drafted up and hopefully we'll have that to you guys.

Well, we'll be in committee and then we'll share more information as it comes in.

Um, our office will be preparing for budget review and, um, let's see, we look forward to the mayor's presentation on Tuesday, September 26 at 1230 for the budget.

That's pretty much it.

Don't got anything else.

Council member Strauss.

Thank you, council president.

I just wanted, I'm not sure if I missed it, or maybe you just avoided.

Announcing the recognition in which you received and well deserved this last Friday from the mayor's office in the United Indians of all tribes for not only the work that you've done in Indian country, but also here for urban natives.

And it was just a real honor to get to watch a blanket be put upon your shoulders and to receive artwork regarding missing and murdered indigenous women.

It was an honor to be with you.

And to be recognized for all your hard work as a public defender, as a judge, as a lawyer, as a council member, and a council president, and the first district representative of D5.

Go D5, even though I'm D6.

Sorry to put you on blast.

I just think that you are more than deserving of all of the recognition that you received that night.

And I'm sure that there's more coming.

Thank you.

And also, Tim Rainin was there from the mayor's office and Deputy Mayor Wong.

I hope he's watching.

Thank you, Greg, really lovely intro.

Enrique Serna was the emcee.

Tribal leadership, tribal government, and not just that, but we had people from the, a lot of electeds, a lot of people from CLU, University of Washington.

Daybreak Star has a dinner every year, so I didn't know what they were doing, but they were just trying to slide me in there somewhere, and I didn't really wanna do it, but I'm really glad people had a chance to meet my daughter and my granddaughter.

As Lisa knows, I'm sorry, Council Member Herbal knows, We love being grandma, so that's the most important role for me right now.

So, thank you.

Thank you for attending that meant a lot to me to have you there.

Incredible honor.

Okay.

Is there anything else folks before we wrap up and we get busy with customer mosquito and budget after this week?

All right, I see.

Oh, there she is.

Okay.

I think we're all afraid of, you know, when you come on screen because the budget, I literally cleared out my whole life for 2 months and that's all I'm going to do.

I appreciate it.

I got the assignment girl.

I'm on it.

Thank you.

Everybody.

We are adjourned, I guess.

Do I say that?

Yeah, I can say it.