Seattle City Council Briefing 9/8/2020

The September 8th, 2020 Council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 935 AM.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Herbold?

Here.

Torres?

Here.

Lewis?

Here.

Morales?

Here.

Mosqueda?

Here.

Peterson?

Here.

to want.

Yeah.

Strauss present.

Council President Gonzalez here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

Council members, the council rules are silent on allowing electronic participation at council briefing meetings.

In order to continue participating remotely, I'm going to move to suspend the council rules through October 1st of 2020 to allow this meeting to occur while participating through electronic means.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow electronic participation at council briefing meetings through October 1st, 2020. Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and council briefings will be held with council members participating electronically through October 1st of 2020. We'll go ahead and move to the approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of August 17th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, I will be as brief as I can.

I want to welcome everyone back from our summer recess.

I hope each of you had a opportunity, you and your staff and all of our staff to take advantage of a two week recess.

I'm happy to see you all again and look forward to getting back to work on all of the priorities that we have at the city council on behalf of the city.

And look forward to working with all of you in the remainder of the year.

I wanted to provide really quickly an update regarding the three council bills that Mayor Durkan vetoed and returned to the City Council at the end, excuse me, in the middle of August, right before our summer recess.

Those are Council Bills 119, 825, 119, 862, and 119863. Colleagues, we've done this before in terms of reconsidering vetoed bills.

And as you know, the city charter establishes that the council shall take action on any bills that have been previously vetoed.

And we must reconsider any vetoed bills.

So that means we have to reconsider the three bills that were vetoed by Mayor Durkan.

We have to do so within 30 days of the official veto notices, which were published in this instance on August 25th of 2020. So I do not anticipate that the council will take action on these three bills before the regularly scheduled city council meeting on Monday, September 21st.

So again, I think the soonest we will take action is Monday, September 21st.

I understand from the math, and my staff can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the outside date of when we can last take action is September 24th.

But just wanna make sure that you all understood what the charter requires of us and what you can expect in terms of when we would reconsider those vetoed bills.

And so during the recess, my office had frequent communications with the mayor's office to try and find areas of agreement on the public safety related policies and priorities that the council put forward in these three vetoed bills.

We still don't have agreement, but we have been having frequent communications and my staff and I are going to continue to engage with you, your staff and the mayor's office in the coming days to try and see if there is an opportunity to bridge the obvious gaps in policy priorities that exist between the council and the mayor's vision and approach for how to the city's public safety services and investments as reflected in the various council bills.

So I am happy to take any questions or hear any comments before we get into the preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

All right, hearing none, I'm sure folks might have something to say later.

Oh, Council Member Mosqueda.

I'll save it for our updates.

great.

Thank you, Council President.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you so much.

So let's go ahead and begin our next discussion on the preview of today's City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

I'll call on Council Members as established by the rotated roll call for the City Council Meetings, which is designated alphabetically by last name with Council President always called last.

So this week's roll call rotation begins with Council Member Herbold, then Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, and then I will conclude the agenda discussion.

So, let's go ahead and begin.

Council Member Verbald, you are up first, please.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Welcome back, everybody.

Good to see all your faces.

And now that I'm beginning to speak, my cat is also beginning to speak, so bear with me, please.

There are no items on the full council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

There is an item that I'm a co-sponsor for, and I am certain that Council Member Peterson will speak more to it, but this is the bill that will fund bridge stabilization work.

That is the West Seattle Bridge, bridge monitoring, repairs, and enhancements to the Spokane Street Lower Bridge, as well as funding for a lot of the traffic and mobility mitigation projects that are part of ReConnect West Seattle.

and this legislation is an inner fund loan to fund these elements.

And it uses $50,000 from the construction and inspections fund and 20, I'm sorry, $50 million from the construction inspections fund and 20 million from the REIT to capital funds project fund.

Other items coming up for me this week.

I do have a public safety and human services committee meeting this week on Friday at 9.30 AM due to the Labor Day holiday.

And items on that day's agenda include a possible presentation from the Seattle Fire Department and Seattle Information Technology on the Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network project, otherwise known as PSIRN.

Legislation is required to accept an interlocal agreement to put the network into service.

This is a project that the fire department and Seattle IT have been working on for several years, and the interlocal agreement is an important next benchmark.

In addition, in committee, we will be hearing from each the Community Police Commission, the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Police Accountability as relates to their reports and recommendations regarding the use of crowd control weapons.

These reports resulted from a request from this council in the crowd control, the crowd control weapons legislation that we passed.

And I'm really looking forward to hearing I will be sending out a reminder to all of the councilmembers to let me know their feedback on this legislation.

On the 19th of August, you may recall I sent an email inviting councilmembers to let me and Greg Doss of central staff know of any questions regarding the recommendations of the three accountability bodies.

We will send along questions by noon on Wednesday because there will be obviously an interest in hearing again from the CPC, OIG and OPA in response to the Council's questions in time for the Friday committee meeting.

So we want to make sure we give them a little bit of time on that.

I want to just very briefly speak to an article in the Seattle Times regarding police department overtime that I know we all read during the break.

I've been in touch with both with the city auditor and Chief Diaz about this issue.

The chief has indicated that he has initiated more intensive oversight of daily overtime use.

I appreciate his attention to this so soon after becoming acting chief and want to understand more detail about what it means to have more intensive oversight of daily overtime use given what we learned in the Seattle Times about the the rather extreme delay in acting on recommendations from the city auditor report on SPT overtime for 2016 with 30 recommendations, several of which were implemented quickly, but many of which are still listed as pending.

We received an update in December.

Well, it was a status update as of December 2019, we received I believe in April and it notes sort of the for all of the work that the city auditor does, it goes through and it identifies which recommendations have been acted upon and which ones are either in progress or pending.

And the status update that we received in the spring notes, again, that the 2016 city audit report has seven recommendations that are listed as pending.

Many of those recommendations relate to work with the Seattle Information Technology Department to implement a new work and timekeeping system.

And the status report notes that the new solution will contain automated controls for detecting payroll errors and noncompliance.

The city auditor shared in its status report in the spring that Seattle IT reported the project team completed a competitive selection process.

For technology system in September of 2018 and has finalized the contract with the vendor and that work had started in January 2019 at that point the expected delivery date of project.

that the new completion date is expected to come in the following months.

Chief Diaz recently noted that the IT project intended to help these management issues has been is quarter one, 2021. And there are some other recommendations in the audit that don't actually rely on this new system.

One of them is related to tracking off-duty work hours.

There is a policy, a police department policy that states that personnel are required to log in and out by radio when working off-duty.

and so the city auditor suggested that this would be an option for tracking off-duty time, an option that is distinct from the technology solution.

And so I'm also interested to know whether or not this policy is being adhered to, whether or not we are ensuring that officers are logging in and out by radio when working off-duty.

Again, so this off-duty piece is separate from the overtime piece, but they work together because there are limits to the number of hours that officers are permitted to work, including overtime and off-duty work.

So I'm really interested to know whether or not any work has been done on that.

And then finally, there was the, in I believe the end of 2017, the executive order from then Mayor Burgess related to the development of a plan and timeline for management of off-duty police officers.

and we received, the council received, I believe it was in 2018. Well, I think it was requested in 2018 and we received it in 2019. I'm not quite sure about those dates, but we received a report in response to a statement of legislative intent on what the process was for developing this off-duty time, we have a lot of work to do here.

I think there is a lot to do here.

I am pleased that chief Diaz is or yes, the redeployment of officers from other units to patrol might also help address some of these overtime challenges and to what extent we can expect a reduction in the reliance of overtime from this redeployment.

the chief's redeployment.

I understand the majority of the positions from the chief's redeployment come from There are some specialized units that reportedly will be to patrol, and so I'm really interested to know more about the impact.

It is within the chief's discretion to do these types of redeployments, but I do want to make sure that specialized units that are focused on vulnerable populations, that we are not looking to redeploy those officers to patrol because of the council's concern as expressed in the resolution that we passed with our budget action, trying to emphasize police response to the needs of folks who are part of vulnerable populations, specifically the elderly and domestic violence and sexual assault.

that will be something that I'm hoping to get more information from the chief on before those changes take effect in, I believe, September 16th was the date that they are estimated to take effect.

Other items that I have coming up.

on my week this week.

I do have on Wednesday, King County Regional Policy Committee meeting.

On Thursday, the Lead Policy Coordinating Group quarterly meeting.

And then I held virtual office hours over recess on August 28th.

My next virtual office hours will be on Friday, September 25th.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear from Council Member Juarez, please.

Thank you.

Good morning.

The Public Assets and Native Communities Committee has no items on today's agenda.

However, we do have two items on today's Introduction and Referral Calendar, and I'll briefly address them.

One is Council Bill 119875. It's an ordinance related to Seattle Parks and Recreation, which authorizes an amendment to the interlocal agreement between the City of Seattle and the Seattle Parks District, allowing for a delay in the six-year planning cycle of the Metropolitan Park Department budget process due to extraordinary circumstances, basically COVID.

And we'll have more to come.

If you remember correctly, We passed the Metropolitan Park District back in 2014. We do the planning in six-year cycles.

We're not able to do this.

The park board wants to do the amendment to the interlocal agreement for a delay to allow for planning due to a natural disaster, economic circumstances, or other emergencies, and that would be the COVID-19 pandemic that we're under and our inability to have the type of community meetings that we need.

The second item is resolution 31967. I'm really happy about this.

I want to thank the folks at Lake City Way and build Lake City together.

This resolution is providing an honorary designation of a part of 28th Avenue Northeast.

It's Hayashi Avenue.

This piece is a special community-driven bill that I look forward to addressing next Monday.

The honorary street is to recognize the Hayashi family's contribution to the Lake City neighborhood and to educate those on the egregious violation of human rights and racism that affected Japanese Americans during World War II.

The community had been working on this for more than at least two years, maybe longer.

And again, I will look forward to speaking more on this next Monday at the briefing.

And I want to thank Chris and a bunch of the folks who have been working on this recognition and this honor for this family.

In regards to the Metropolitan Park District Board, the originally scheduled Metropolitan Park District Board governing meeting, which is us, was scheduled for this afternoon.

It's been canceled.

Typically, if you recall, board meetings occur about three times a year to consider the next phase of our six-year strategic plan in June.

And then we approve a budget that corresponds with the city budget in November.

One of the pieces of legislation to be considered would have been to make changes to the 2020 Metropolitan Parks District funding that had been included in the 2020 rebalancing legislation, which was vetoed by the mayor and is awaiting further action.

So that will be pending.

So to streamline the MPD legislative process, we will postpone today's council meeting to a later date.

The goal is to consider all three pieces of legislation at once.

I didn't want to have a We will consider all three pieces of legislation at once after council considers the 2020 budgetary matters.

As usual, I want to thank the parks folks and superintendent for keeping me updated about what is going on.

which I think we've been doing since May.

Other than that, let's see.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez for that report.

Are there any questions or comments on that report?

Okay, hearing none, Council Member Lewis, good morning.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam President.

It's good to be back here with everybody.

I just have a couple of items.

First, there's no items on this afternoon's agenda from the Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I do just want to talk briefly, though, about some of the reporting we saw over the weekend from Sidney Brownstone relating to the city's shelter efforts.

As we are well aware, and now the people of Seattle are well aware from Cindy Brownstone's reporting, the temporary community center shelters that were set up back in March to take care of overflow due to deintensification efforts at several Seattle shelters are closing down, and folks are being sent back to shelters that have now adapted to the COVID situation by increasing privacy, increasing space, and really fundamentally changing a lot of our shelter stock in very fundamental ways.

And I think Sydney's reporting was very good at illustrating this.

in just the way that we're really seeing a transformation on our shelter stock to emphasizing dignity, emphasizing longer stays, emphasizing privacy, things all of us take for granted and that are extremely important in having a comprehensive strategy to provide shelter and relief to so many of our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

The unfortunate downside of this as covered in Sydney's reporting, is that only 14 folks moved on from those community center shelters to permanent supportive housing between March and the summer.

Not very many, given that there were hundreds of folks who moved through those community centers.

Shelters and really just emphasizes the bottleneck that we continue to struggle with as a city where COVID has not only resulted in a loss of shelter space.

Sydney goes on to say that the compass shelter, which she uses as an illustration.

for a lot of her reporting, is actually going to lose 13 spaces as a result of their de-intensification, which has considerably improved the stock of their offerings, but has reduced the total number of shelter spaces.

That is a trend that is being repeated in a lot of our shelter stock throughout the city.

And it is no wonder that we are facing now, as so many of our neighbors are keenly aware, and I'm sure everyone here is getting the same emails that I'm getting, that we are struggling with a massive influx of unsanctioned encampments that are almost certainly corresponding with the fact that the shelters are de-intensifying, shrinking in size, and we are not able to scale up non-congregate shelter adequate to replace the loss in shelter stock.

So I just wanted to emphasize this, because even though we are still dealing with the summer balancing session.

Soon enough we're going to be going into our fall budget session to deal with the 2021 budget.

As has been and as will continue to be, de-intensified non-congregate shelter expansion is going to be a very big priority for me.

It is by far the only way that we as a city can start to get ahead on removing and reducing unsanctioned encampments by giving people an option to get inside.

Most people offered a tiny house or some kind of non-congregate setting will take it.

And that is a universally held opinion across the provider community, across the navigation team.

Anyone you talk to at any level of doing outreach and providing services will confirm that.

And this myth or this canard that is constantly in emails from folks who are frustrated about the encampments alleging that folks want to be in those encampments and won't go if offered some kind of alternative are patently false and just not borne out by any of the reality of what is seen on the ground.

So we can start by in assessing the vetoed summer balancing budget bills, maintaining the few million dollars that we did put in for de-intensification efforts and making sure that remains part of any kind of arrangement, be it an override of the bills or a deal with the executive to move forward on it, that that stays in.

And then going into the fall, making sure that we are adjusting to this new reality of COVID where it just doesn't make sense anymore.

Not that it ever truly did for lots of reasons related to dignity, public health, best practices.

and just treating our neighbors like human beings to rely on mats on the floor, temporary shelter stays, and other things that have resulted in being blown out of the water because of the COVID situation and just the complete lack of viability anymore for congregate shelter as a viable way to get people inside.

That is all I have to report on that.

I want to thank Sydney for her reporting.

I think that she did a really excellent job of summarizing the problem that we're facing as a city, and I look forward to continuing to work on that issue.

I have a regional policy committee meeting on September 9th.

And I do just want to remind folks that in addition to being able to sign up for my office hours that I try to maintain on a weekly basis, I am continuing to go to the Queen Anne farmer market every afternoon.

from every Thursday afternoon from 3 to 7 p.m.

on Thursday, September 10th.

This coming Thursday, I will be there.

So folks that want to come by, I look forward to talking to you in person at the booth that we have there.

I don't just go there to load up on kombucha for the week.

I go there to make sure that I have an opportunity to talk one-on-one and those one-on-one interactions in person, properly socially distanced and with masks have been very helpful opportunities to really be able to get out there and talk to the community in a non-virtual way.

I definitely encourage people to drop by if there's anything you want to discuss and look forward to seeing folks there.

And with that, I have nothing else to report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

I see that Council Member Mosqueda has a question or comment.

And colleagues, if anyone else has any questions or comments, please do raise your hand or let me know by sending me a message.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Lewis, thank you for your summary as chair of our efforts regarding homelessness and housing of our unsheltered population.

Can you elaborate a little bit more?

I haven't had the chance to read that Seattle Times piece, but when you talk about how we've adopted our COVID response or adapted our shelters to respond to COVID to provide additional privacy space and longer stays, I'm just, I'm, I'm trying to reconcile that with the newest information that we know that COVID lingers in the air.

again calling for us to be investing into the non-congregate shelter that I know you're a champion of as well.

But what exactly is the mayor's office and executive office saying about how they've adapted the space for indoor shelters when COVID lingers in the air and ongoing best practice is to get people into individual rooms.

Can you elaborate on that for us?

Well, speaking just to the reporting in the Seattle Times, it speaks more to the deintensification efforts that providers are doing, not necessarily what's happening in the temporary city.

run shelters, but Sydney's reporting covers Catholic community services and Compass and youth care, I think in particular, and just talks about some of the efforts that those providers are doing to adapt to the COVID situation, to provide de-intensification, provide more privacy, and includes many testimonials from folks who are in those shelters attesting to on the improvement in the situation.

I mean, the underlying takeaway that I took from the article though, is those de-intensification efforts come with a net reduction in the amount of placements that we can have.

So that the quality of the shelters is improving, but we are losing spaces.

And I think this is critical because the, You know, I mean, I don't want to, I don't think it's completely responsive to your question, but I will say that if folks that are looking for some kind of rationale to explain why there's this massive increase in visible on sanctioning camping it sure seems that uh...

it's logical to conclude that this uh...

the intensification of shelter space is a big part of this uh...

and we need to get a handle on it and as you know uh...

councilor mesquita too i mean i uh...

continue to be an advocate primarily of uh...

of hotelling in tiny house villages uh...

or the kind of modular shelter systems that Colleen Echo-Hawk has talked about that they have down in Soto, the Chief Seattle Club is running.

And I think that these particular shelter spaces that Sydney was covering are more of sort of a de-intensified like semi-congregate.

And there are some pictures in the reporting.

But I mean, I think the important takeaway is any way that you slice it with this, we're losing shelter placements and we need to be doing more as a city.

And like I know that this council is committed and we have appropriated or worked to appropriate considerable new resources and we need to work out a way as a city to get those resources up and running and get folks off the streets so they can live somewhere where they're safe, not just from COVID, but just from the, especially as it's gonna start getting darker and rainier and wetter and there should be a sense of urgency to this.

So I appreciate your question.

Thank you very much.

Are there any comments, other comments or questions for Councilmember Lewis?

Okay, hearing none, we will go ahead and move on to the next Councilmember.

Councilmember Morales, you're up.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, everyone.

Good to see you all.

There are no items on the agenda today from the Community Economic Development Committee.

We do have a committee scheduled for next week, the afternoon of September 15th.

We'll have several commission appointments.

And we are anticipating that the mayor will be transmitting legislation to establish a permanent equitable development initiative advisory board.

Our understanding is that that will be transmitted this week.

So we will be discussing that in committee, hopefully voting on that so that we can have it before council.

As we come back from recess, I just want to share a little bit.

I heard loud and clear, I'm sure everyone did from their constituents over recess, that our neighbors are really looking for leadership in the city, leadership that's exemplified in action and not just rhetoric.

So I think it is the work that we all have ahead of us.

You know, the mayor has talked a lot about the importance of having a plan.

And I want to say that this council presented a plan to the public on how to rebalance the budget.

And we spent, in fact, 2 months discussing it.

We passed a rebalanced budget that addressed the unprecedented impacts of COVID-19, but also the impacts of that on our budget, on our residents, and the critical racial equity and public safety issues that we've all been discussing over the last couple months.

Our democracy is based on collaboration.

It's also based on compromise.

I know that's not a word that makes a lot of people happy, but I will say that over those two months, this council has had conversations with hundreds of organizations and community members.

We took the mayor's proposed rebalance budget and collaborated with people in our communities, in our districts, and sought compromise amongst the nine of us.

This was a really important effort, a robust effort, and it was guided by the best policy and economic practice from around the country, and guided by listening to hundreds of hours community input between public comments, hearing from our own constituents in our districts, working with organizations, was not simply a veto of this council, but a veto of the collaboration that we were engaged in, and frankly, of the community.

What I hear from my constituents is that they felt like this was a rejection of their voices, the emails and calls and discussions that we had.

So we know specifically as it relates to the public safety and the police department, this discussion will continue.

We have the rebalance to consider in the next couple of weeks, but also the work ahead of us for the 2021 budget.

My commitment is to advocate for the resources that our community needs to interrupt violence in our neighborhoods, but also to build healthy neighborhoods.

Violence is rooted in cultural and social and economic conditions.

This isn't about bad people.

It is about systemic racism that has created community conditions that don't serve our neighbors well.

And everyone has a role to play.

reducing the violence and building healthy communities.

This is not just a public safety issue.

It is not just a law enforcement issue.

And focusing resources only on the police department is not going to solve these problems.

We have to think beyond that.

And we have to commit to investing in holistic changes to see the kind of healthy communities that we want to see.

I will say it's concerning to me that the mayor is using her veto so liberally.

The power of the veto, in my mind, is to be used sparingly so that it respects community and respects a representative democracy.

My mind is frequent use of the veto plays into a really insidious pattern that, you know, the winner takes all in a democracy or that power can only be exhibited force and unilateral policymaking is acceptable.

I think this council rejects that notion.

Speaking for myself, I should say, I reject that.

This is a legislative branch of city government and we are elected to make policy and budgetary decisions for the city.

That's our job.

That said, I do hope that we can find a way to work collaboratively with the mayor.

The people of South Seattle are counting on me to deliver the resources they need for healthy neighborhoods, and that will happen best and will work best for them if we can work collaboratively with the executive branch.

I do think that the proposals vetoed by the mayor were initial step in that direction to try to address the community concerns.

And as I've said before, our neighbors don't wanna hear what we can't do.

They want us to get to work.

And saying no isn't leadership and vetoing things isn't the plan.

So we have important work to do, the people of Seattle.

Our neighbors want a responsive government.

They want investment in programs that support our homeless neighbors, that support our young people.

They want opportunities to build community wealth through local economic development.

We want a city government that reigns in overtime costs and that holds city employees accountable for egregious behavior.

And yes, they want community safety, protects all people in our city, not just those who live in areas of concentrated wealth.

So my commitment to my community and to the city is to continue working, try to find common ground so that we can focus on the kind of outcomes we wanna see to serve our neighbors best and work collaboratively with the executive branch so that we can get this done for our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Are there any questions or comments on Councilmember Morales's report?

Okay, hearing none, we will hear next from Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, Council colleagues.

There are no items on today's full Council agenda from the Budget and Finance Committee or from the Housing and Finance Committee.

Our next Finance and Housing Committee meeting will be on September 15th at 9.30 a.m.

where we will be getting a briefing and an update on the TMC legislation, or this is the legislation for basically app-based drivers to make sure that they're getting adequate pay.

Really excited about the work that we've been doing with Teamsters and other worker advocates and the executive's office to work on this legislation.

So it's been a long time in coming.

Wish we had done it last fall, but there is more activity to come on this this fall.

Looking forward to passing that with your help.

As it relates to the budget, appreciate the Council President's overview and the upcoming steps that were outlined.

I also want to echo some of the points that were just made by Council Member Morales.

I know that as it relates to the budget or even policies that come out of this branch of government, the legislative branch, not everyone agrees with us.

And that's from issues relating to homelessness, to affordable housing, to the pandemic response, to our recovery efforts to make sure that we shorten the recession.

And all of these issues are complex and all of them are being done during trying to be addressed during a global deadly pandemic.

And there are no easy paths forward on these issues.

Many of us who've been working on these progressive policies over the years have said if it were easy to do it would have already been done.

So we're here trying to take some very important steps to address the compounding public health crises that are in front of us.

And that includes systemic racism, that includes the lack of affordable housing, that includes economic inequality that plagues our city, especially black and brown folks.

And that obviously includes COVID response as well, which is having a disproportionate impact on black and brown communities as well.

And as we engage in these next steps on the budget process, let's again remember that the council is the legislative branch of government.

Our city's responsibility is to make sure that as the council, we are deliberating in public, that we include public comment, that we have this public comment and a collaborative process guide us as we work on really tough issues.

As it relates to collaboration, let's remember that as a legislative branch, we already are collaborative by its very nature.

We work to get not just a majority of council votes, but a super majority as it relates to the budget.

We have a super majority that requires us to have ongoing conversations with a diversity of opinions, make sure constituents ideas are reflected, and the very nature of our policymaking and budget appropriation requires these public deliberations, public input, and collaboration, not just amongst us, but making sure that we're pulling in those voices from the public.

And it's important to note that this branch of government is the only body that does our deliberations in public, that we're held accountable to having these conversations in public.

And importantly, we have committed to bringing in folks who have been historically marginalized, voices who've been left out of the conversation, people who have lived experience and invite them to the table to make sure that our policy and now our budget is informed by those discussions.

And this last fall, or I'm sorry, this last summer process where we invited people to the table.

It wasn't just a handful of people.

It wasn't a dozen.

It wasn't a few dozen.

It wasn't even a hundred.

It was hundreds of organizations that we consulted with as we worked with coalitions who represented various aspects of our community, folks who had lived experience to talk about what our summer rebalancing budget could look like and how we responded to the SPD budget inquest that revealed where dollars were going and where we wanted them to go upstream.

This summer, with that collaborative process in mind, the council unanimously passed a budget with public input, and we acted with urgency, given the compounding public health crises, the pandemic, police and public safety concerns, and the housing and homelessness crisis.

And it's disheartening that these bills were discarded when the mayor has executive implementation and spending authority and has offered no plan, even going as far as disparaging the good work that's been done by our central staff and by all of our work.

in our offices.

I want to make sure folks know how much we appreciate all of your work, the legally sound work, the well-researched work, the comprehensive ideas that you all brought forward.

I appreciate all of that effort that went into bringing forward a summer rebalancing budget that has not been done in recent history during the type of compounding crises that we've had.

As our legislative branch of government continues to do its work, we will continue to carry out our deliberations in public with a process that will be guided by those who have lived experiences.

We will again roll up our sleeves.

We will do the hard work in this month and the upcoming month, and we will make sure that we respond to the crisis with urgency, including, by the way, responding to the gun violence crisis, which was referenced in the veto message.

Let's remember that there was $4 million to respond to gun violence in the budget that was recently vetoed.

We are not going to put at risk our democratic principles as we try to respond with urgency.

And we will also note that there are many cities across the country that are acting with the same level of urgency and not losing precious time.

New York City, Austin City, Los Angeles City, San Francisco and many other cities have already acted or are acting with urgency.

So I'm hopeful that we can continue to move forward.

I want to make sure that folks know that this process is not just about tinkering around the edges.

This is a dramatic impact that we sorry a lack of action has a dramatic impact that we must work to correct quickly.

and I'm always open to collaboration.

I mean, if anybody has worked with me prior to council and seen me on council, you know that the way that I engage in public policymaking is by being aggressively collaborative.

I want your input and I want it early and I wanna keep working to try to get as many voices included.

There's a lot to fix here and there's a lot of work that needs to be done and I'm not interested in pointing fingers or taking or working with folks who want to take their ball and go home.

We want to work together.

It is in the interest of our city to work together.

but we have to do it with urgency and center folks who have lived experience in our conversations.

We will do this in a transparent way that includes public engagement and accountability.

And having a take my ball and go home approach or my way or the highway is not collaboration.

Investing in true community safety, economic recovery and bridging and bringing Seattleites to the table is not easy.

This is not about rubber stamping any process.

This is about making fundamental change change that has been ignored for many decades.

And change is uncomfortable.

And if we throw away democratic principles of including various voices at the table and trying to shake up the status quo, we run the risk of those institutions that have harmed so many for so long remaining in place.

I want to make sure that we move forward with urgency.

That's what we did this summer.

We legislated to lessen the harm in our approach to engaging with those who are in shelter.

We pushed to bargain for more public safety oriented policing model.

We collaboratively developed a plan to center those with lived experience from diverse community voices to finalize a public safety plan.

This was dollars that were included for a collaborative engagement process that would ensure that the budget that comes this fall is led by various voices from across the spectrum.

And it's unfortunate that these legislative actions were vetoed.

It's unfortunate that we're in a position where we need to now act with even more urgency to make sure that these issues will be addressed given the public health crisis that's in front of us.

And I, again, will be prepared to roll up our sleeves to work with our incredible central staff and all of your offices and our community partners in the mayor's office.

I don't have time for finger pointing.

I don't have time for these political games.

We know that there is a historic precedent that is being required of us as elected officials, not just in the city, but across the country.

More is being asked of us.

We acted with urgency and it is now our time again to roll up our sleeves and make sure that there is not a delay.

Collaboration does not equal capitulation.

We must make sure that we're working together.

to center our progressive values in any future conversations about the budget, but as the legislative branch, it is our duty to put forward a budget process.

It's the executive's option to choose how to implement those.

I want to make sure that as we engage in conversations about what a table looks like or another task force, that we don't try to rewrite history.

What has been done in this city in the past, specifically to minimum wage, was a mayor who invited all people, even those who he disagreed with, to the table to identify a way to get to, for example, $15 an hour.

Not saying that it was going to be maybe up to $15, but saying this was the goal and everybody who was coming to the table must agree to it.

And then walking out of that table, everyone would support the outcome.

We need to make sure that we have a process moving forward that not only allows for us to move forward with responding to the public health crisis of homelessness and housing and COVID, but also responds to the public health crisis of racism and unarmed black and brown folks being killed.

That requires urgency and makes requires us to get to a table where people have the same shared outcome because we have to have that urgency getting to that process.

I look forward to having conversations that will, again, center those with lived experience, progressive principles, and making sure that we're moving forward with urgency.

Let's remember that we don't have time to wait.

Every article I heard over the last two weeks was talking about more people losing their home, more people losing their jobs, more people going without unemployment insurance, more people losing their childcare.

and more black and brown folks losing their lives because of systems that have not yet been fixed in this entire country.

Let's lead in Seattle like we've done before, and let's deal with the urgency that's demanded of us.

Council President, I look forward to additional conversations about the next steps and appreciate all of your work.

I know people worked day and night for many months, and a lot of work is still to be done in front of us.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the roll call line.

Council Member Peterson, you are next.

Good morning.

Hello, colleagues.

On today's City Council agenda, we've got several items that passed out of the Transportation Utilities Committee.

Item 18 is an ordinance granting University of Washington permission to maintain and operate five existing pedestrian bridges.

Item 19 is an ordinance related to street and sidewalk use.

Councilmember Strauss has done a lot of work on that Council Bill 119865, so he might want to speak about that in greater detail later.

Council Bill 119858 is item 21 on today's agenda.

Council Member Herbold already spoke to that related to the financing of the West Seattle Bridge immediate response, shoring up issues.

Item 23 on today's agenda is an ordinance from Seattle Public Utilities authorizing them to accept donations to help low-income customers.

We also have three appointments to the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board.

We heard from those three folks at our TUC meeting, our Transportation Utilities Committee meeting.

All well-qualified and eager to participate in the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board.

We also have a clerk file.

Item eight is a clerk file due to various delays associated with the COVID pandemic.

Our Seattle Information Technology Department is filing a six-month extension for various impact reports.

We'll receive those reports no later than March.

We have three reappointments to the Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee.

Those appointments are coming directly to the city council because they are reappointments.

Those are items nine, 10, and 11 on today's agenda.

And I'll assume Council Member Strauss, who's vice chair of the committee and sponsor of the e-scooter legislation, will speak to those two council bills that passed out of committee 119867 and 119868. The next Transportation Utilities Committee meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 16 at 930 a.m.

On September 16th, we will receive two important reports.

The first will be about bridges, specifically the report I requested from our City Auditor of bridge conditions throughout Seattle.

The second big report will be about Internet for All.

It's a resolution co-sponsored with Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Juarez.

We'll be receiving the initial gap analysis and action plan from Seattle's Information Technology Department about expanding Internet access and adoption.

Again, that'll be on September 16th at Tuck Committee, along with several other items.

And due to the large volume of business that goes through the Tuck Committee, we are planning to schedule an additional special meeting of that committee.

We'll let you know when that is as soon as we decide.

It's probably September 17 or 25. We're working with the council president's office on that.

Just a heads up today, there is a, I will potentially be reintroducing an amendment that tied at the Land Use Committee, tied two to two.

That amendment is about the Landmarks Board and Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection, SDCI, would like to have the authority over landmark sites, and I am not in favor of that.

So I may reintroduce that amendment today to give other council members a chance to decide on that, which tied in committee.

I may not still deciding.

We'll still circulate that before noon today, though, just so you have it prior to our noon deadline for amendments at full council.

You all probably noticed this morning the harmful wildfire smoke has returned to our city today, reducing air quality.

We have an opportunity to take some legislative action on climate change later this week with Resolution 31933. which is, I believe, going to be heard at the Government and Education Committee this Friday at 2. I'm the sponsor of this.

What it is doing is updating the summary and fiscal note to add a couple of key environmental questions, climate questions specifically, about whether carbon emissions would be increased by legislation, whether our ability to adapt to climate change or our resiliency to climate change will be increased or decreased by legislation.

puts a climate lens on legislation.

And that was an idea that came from Dr. Kathy Tuttle, who is a constituent of mine and ran a very strong campaign in District 4. Climate Solutions, which is a key environmental organization in the state, They said that Seattle must act with urgency to cut our climate pollution and accelerate the clean energy transition we need.

We must ensure that future policies our city adopts cut climate pollution.

And so adding climate considerations to fiscal notes is a good first step to better understanding how city policies impact the climate and therefore our health, finances, and safety.

So that resolution 31933 going to committee this week.

And that is all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson for that report.

I do have a question about your potential amendment to Council Bill 119835. One of your legislative aides just circulated to Council members.

It would be helpful to me to hear from from members of the committee.

who, you know, those who were in favor of it and those who were against it, I think it would be helpful to hear the rationale for both of those perspectives during council briefing.

Sure.

I'm happy to address those who are concerned about the amendment being proposed by the Durkin administration.

I can go first or last.

Since you are potentially bringing forth the amendment again, which my understanding would, in reading it, it appears that the amendment would remove language from Council Bill 119835 that would authorize our Seattle Department of Construction Inspection through a conditional use process to allow uses on landmark sites.

that are located in single-family zones that would not otherwise be permitted.

So if I understand the amendment, if I understand that the base bill allows SDCI through the use of a conditional use permit to allow for uses at particular sites, including those located within single-family zones that are currently not otherwise permitted, Now if I understand the amendment that you're potentially reintroducing a full council, is that the amendment would require that the landmarks board continue to have authority for determining whether or not those conditional uses would be allowable, as opposed to allowing SDCI to exercise its director discretion on those particular uses.

Am I understanding your potential amendment appropriately?

Yes.

The current law is the Landmarks Board has that authority.

It's the Durkin administration and SDCI that want to take that authority and put it over to SDCI instead, which I am not in favor of.

Okay, so when you say that, you mean that the council bill that is before the city council this afternoon reflects the Durkin administration and SDCI's desire to have that authority vest in the SDCI and not in the Landmarks Board, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

And so I appreciate that additional clarity.

And I would just like to hear from you, Council Member Peterson, why you are considering bringing back this amendment that failed in committee.

Thank you.

So I don't think SDCI made a good case why they should take the authority away from the Landmarks Board.

It's it's the existing law that the landmarks board has this authority.

They did not make a good case I think that it favors real estate developers who may want to removed urban forests, put in new suburban type developments.

It's not, it's a big change.

I think it warrants additional discussion.

This omnibus bill was originally put forward as a chance to kind of clean up land use legislation.

And I think this particular change goes to, Too far to be thrown into the omnibus bill and should perhaps be come to us separately for more discussion hearing from the landmarks board members.

I did say that they did talk to landmarks staff, but not.

But we didn't hear from the board and apparently we've since learned that the board members were not aware of this change until it was.

put forward.

So just to pull it out, pull out the proposal from the Dirk administration, give it more time.

If STCI really wants to pursue this, they can come back in a separate piece of legislation.

Council Member Strauss, did you have something you wanted to say?

Just, Council President, I heard your request that you wanted us to have a discussion about the merits of this amendment here and now.

Is that the case?

It is the case, I think it would be helpful.

Not all of us are members of the land use committee.

And if this, I think this is an appropriate opportunity for us to have some baseline conversation around.

An amendment that potentially might come back at 2 o'clock that was.

that failed on a two to two.

And so I think it would be important for the rest of us who are not members of that committee to understand the proponent side as well as the opponent side to this potential amendment.

So in that spirit, I invite members of the Land Use Committee to provide those of us who are not standing members with that additional information before we head into our two o'clock full council meeting.

Thank you, Council President.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson, for alluring me just before council briefing that you would be bringing this back.

I did not have, with our conversation taking place a minute before council briefing started, I did not have a chance to go back and review our last committee presentation where we had a robust discussion.

What I can tell you is that most landmark structures are designated as sites as well.

This change of use, adds sites to the understanding of buildings as well.

And that the concerns that I've been hearing over email do not actually address the contents of the bill.

I will need to go back and review the committee hearing to have a robust discussion because I learned about this just a minute before council briefing started.

So I'll be able to speak more at length about this at full council this afternoon.

Council Member Herbold and then Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you.

Councilmember Peterson, you mentioned that the Landmarks Board had only recently learned of this proposal.

I'm wondering, have they taken a position on the proposal since learning of it?

And then also, as it relates to advocacy groups that work on on landmarking of properties and the preservation of properties that have been landmarked.

I'm wondering if we heard from Historic Seattle about this inclusion in the omnibus bill.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's my understanding that because the landmarks board had not heard about it in time, they were not able to add it to their agenda to make an official, provide an official opinion as the landmarks board.

I don't know if we've heard from Historic Seattle.

That's a good question.

I can search emails for that.

But, you know, August is sort of a Sleepy time for a lot of people are a lot of people are away And I think that it's just another reason why this we might want to pull this out and deal with that specific item later

Yeah, I mean, I understand, you know, the purpose of an omnibus bill is really usually considered sort of cleanup of a bunch of different technical issues that might not necessarily need the input and consideration of stakeholder organizations.

We have a board, a city-created board that is I think a strong stakeholder to this particular issue.

And I would like to hear from them on their position on the inclusion of this in the omnibus.

And if there is not time to do so, I do think that that might be a basis for asking SDCI to bring this back separately in a way that there could be a greater input on the change.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you, Council President.

So I appreciate the opportunity to have a discussion about this.

I did speak against this at the last committee meeting, and I will do so again now.

Let's also remember that this was almost four weeks ago that we had this discussion.

So there's been ample amount of time.

This passed the week prior to us going into recess.

It was not included on the Monday agenda prior to recess.

And now here we are potentially thinking about delaying again.

I don't think that's a good idea.

So let me just give you a few examples of why I think that this is not a necessary amendment.

The Department of Neighborhoods still weighs in if there's a change to a landmark site.

This is just allowing flexibility for the uses on landmark sites.

This is squarely within SDCI's world of the work that they currently do.

And they make conditional use determinations.

That's typical of their role.

And it could come up on a very large site.

The reason I think that this is an important use of flexibility is that there's the ability to potentially use those sites for housing and other things that are public assets, public goods that we would want to include on various sites.

If there's no flexibility on uses, then it could leave really important opportunities to provide appropriately scaled housing on the table or other public assets that we would want to see moved upon.

And I think that it's important to recognize that this is just a conditional use.

It's still a conditional use decision.

So this is not a free for all.

And Department of Neighborhoods, again, weighs in if there's a physical change, if there would be, a quote, suburban development proposed, and I'm not sure what that means, but what we're talking about here is very much within the scope of what this council and previous councils have wanted, flexibility to include public assets on sites currently that could include things like housing, and it is not a free-for-all.

This is a thoughtful and careful site-specific review, and I think that it's important to recognize that this is conditional use.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda, for that description.

On the opponent side, I really appreciate having an opportunity to spend a little bit of time hearing the proponent side and the opponent side here during council briefing.

Are there any other comments or questions on this particular potential amendment or any other portions of Councilmember Peterson's report?

helpful, Council President?

Just thought I'd give one example.

Absolutely, please.

I mean, think about all of the great work that we always applaud up at Sandpoint.

There's historic buildings there, and we've done a lot of work to bring in folks with various incomes, mixed incomes, into incredible housing opportunities near transit and near child care opportunities.

And having the ability to make sure that there's flexibility on landmark or historic sites has allowed for us to act with urgency when there's the ability to include public assets like housing.

So I just don't want us to miss an opportunity like that, and I still think, again, this is a conditional review, so there would still be the opportunity for landmarks to continue to weigh in, but let's, I think, not miss any opportunities like that and others across the city.

very, very helpful, Council Member Muscata.

Council Member Peterson, please.

Just since Sam Point in my district was referenced, I just want to speak to that.

That was approved by the Landmarks Board under existing law, and actually there is a lack of child care and transit in that area.

So I just think that the way the law is now is working, and this is a big change and would like consideration to have it considered at a different date.

Council Member Strauss, please.

Thank you, and just following up on my remarks earlier, most buildings that are landmarked are also inclusive of the site.

The fact that the site wasn't included in the land use code was a mistake, and because of the intent of the code section is for landmarks to be used for non-conforming uses under certain conditions, which requires a permitting process, the land use code never considered that landmarks aren't just structures, that they're also included in sites.

which is the technical nature of this change.

And just flagging as my colleagues have stated, Vice Chair of the Land Use Committee, Council Member Mosqueda, mentioned there is still a process for these decisions to be seen, heard, and decided upon.

This is not an administrative change.

Thank you.

You're on mute, Council President.

Thank you so much.

Are there any other comments or questions about this particular report?

Okay, well, again, I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation about this in council briefing and in anticipation of council member Peterson, potentially bringing forward this amendment that failed during during committee.

We look forward to hearing from you council member Peterson before 2 o'clock.

if you do intend to bring it forward, it would be helpful to know that by at least one o'clock today to make sure that we are prepared to move forward this afternoon.

So I would appreciate that heads up if you are able to accommodate that request.

Great, I'm seeing your head nod, so I'm gonna take that as a commitment to let me know by 1 p.m.

if you're gonna bring that amendment forward.

Okay, colleagues, let's go ahead and go down the roll call.

Next up is Councilmember Sawant, and then we'll hear from Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Sawant, good morning.

Good morning.

I hope everyone had a good council recess.

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

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is for two weeks from now, Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020. In relation to the mayor's veto of the summer budget vote by the city council, I wanted to clarify to several members of the public who have written to my office during the break to again, remind everyone that my office has always voted against the budget because every budget that I've encountered on the city council has been an austerity budget or in other ways, failing to meet the needs of ordinary people.

And we have made it very clear that we are fighting for a people's budget.

And as I've always said, every year during the budget, I have said this, if Democratic Party politicians were willing to join me in pushing for a budget that actually fights for the needs of the poor and the working class, homeless and oppressed people, to fund significant expansions of affordable housing and other immediate needs of those who are currently homeless, I would absolutely be willing to work together with others on the Council and that commitment continues through the budget that we will be working on this year.

But of course, as I have always said, my loyalty and the loyalty of my office and my staff is with the vast majority of people who are left behind year after year in the budget.

And I wanted to clarify further that Mayor Durkin, who's a corporate Democrat, vetoed the budget, not because she opposes austerity, but because she's not happy with how little austerity there was in the budget, and she wants to do greater austerity.

She has opposed any cuts, even very, very minor cuts to the police department.

She has opposed any kind of even minor public oversight on the police department.

Her veto of the council's budget is her doubling down in representing the interests of big business, the wealthy, all the entities who have bitterly and in an organized way, in fact, opposed any and all significant progressive policy passed by the council over the last six years, whether it was the $15 minimum wage or the recent historic Amazon tax, whether it was improvements in the availability of tiny house villages which have proven themselves as a real temporary solution for homeless people or renters rights like the move-in fee cap and payment plan.

It's also important to remember that all of each and every single progressive policy passed by the majority or by unanimous vote in the council in the last six years has happened because there have been movements of ordinary people, community members, labor unions, renters' rights organizations, homeless activists themselves, fighting around those demands.

And we should also remember that part of Mayor Durkan's doubling down for the interests of big business and the ruling class as a whole is also represented through her vehemently defending the Seattle Police Department in their egregious and violent approach towards protest movements, which continues to this day.

Just last night, through live video, we were able to see how the police department reacted towards peaceful protesters with the everyday march, the evening march of the everyday march, who are the activists, who are among the activists who have fought for defunding the police and who are among the reason the council has shown any willingness to do anything around police accountability.

So it's very important that those of us who are elected representatives who are wanting to take a position other than what Mayor Durkin has taken to stand in solidarity with the activists who have been wrongfully arrested and have had violence directed at them from the police.

This has been a pattern It's not just one thing.

It has been a pattern of Mayor Durkin making it very clear which side she is on, which is not on the side of ordinary people who are fighting for a better society.

She vetoed the budget.

She did not sign the crowd control weapons ban.

That was one of the most significant victories that has been won by Seattle's Black Lives Matter movement, which was an ordinance that was fought for by my office, by Socialist Alternative, by activists on the ground.

And not only did she not sign it, she then tried to get a judge to prevent the ban being enforced.

She did not veto the Amazon tax itself, but returned the legislation unsigned and has in every way possible adamantly opposed any taxes on big business to make funds available for the urgent needs of the society in Seattle, including for affordable housing.

The veto that she has enacted will not stop the austerity.

It will just turn them into executive decisions.

And for all those reasons, it is absolutely correct for the city council to stand against the veto.

Socialist Alternative and I continue to believe that the budget that was passed is not acceptable.

It makes very minor changes and fails to fulfill the promise of defunding the police by at least 50%, let alone the question of affordable housing and all the other pre-existing needs of society.

But the veto makes everything worse, not better.

We have to be very clear about that.

And last but not least, it's not as if the mayor is unfamiliar with compromise.

What she's doing is moving increasingly to the right and fighting to exclusively represent big business, which is a reminder, it's a call to action for ordinary people, working people, oppressed communities that we need to double down in building organized resistance and building united movements to win police accountability and end to racist practices and affordable housing, to make Seattle a city that is affordable and livable for all.

And absolutely, building a united movement means collaborating and reaching agreement on the things that we agree on while we continue honest debate on the things that we don't agree on.

That's collaboration, actually fighting alongside the people who are impacted by the injustice and who want to fight for a different kind of society.

And so I absolutely oppose Mayor Durkin's veto of the budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we will go ahead and hear now from Council Member Strauss.

Please, good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning.

There is one item from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the introduction and referral calendar.

It is Council Bill 119877, which would extend Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections and Department of Neighborhoods' ability to host virtual design review and landmarks review board meetings during the COVID-19 emergency.

This is an extension of the bill that we passed earlier this year, and as an up by way of this as an update they have hired additional staff member to host design review meetings virtually beginning the process which we discussed about when we passed the bill earlier this year, and there are still some.

requirements that are needed to have an extension of this process.

So Council Bill 119877 is an extension of that virtual design review and landmarks review board meetings during the COVID-19 emergency.

We will have a briefing on that in committee tomorrow.

There are six items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full council agenda, five appointments to the Seattle Design Commission, and Council Bill 119835, which is the annual land use omnibus bill.

There is a substitute amendment for the omnibus bill, which makes minor technical and clarifying amendments and can be found on today's agenda.

This is separate from Council Member Peterson's amendment, which I will bring more information to you and our colleagues later this afternoon.

The next meeting of the land use and neighborhoods committee is tomorrow Wednesday, September 9 and there are five items on the agenda.

There's a briefing and public hearing on Council Bill 119838, which is the comprehensive plan amendments and.

the briefing and public hearing on the resolution that sets the docket for the comprehensive plan.

There's also a vote on Council Bill 119827, which rezones land in Rainier Beach to facilitate the development of affordable housing.

and a briefing on Council Bill 119877, which I just mentioned, extends virtual design review and landmarks board meetings.

There's also a required post-adoption public hearing for Council Bill 119832, which the Council adopted in July to implement the interim regulations for floodplains as required by FEMA.

As Council Member Peterson mentioned, I took the lead sponsoring the scooters legislation And while I still have some concerns, I think that we need to move on this now.

As I've said before, we've engaged in an academic conversation for 18 months or longer about how scooters can work in Seattle.

And while I still have many concerns about safety, parking, equity, and other issues, we are at a point where the academic conversations have gone on long enough.

and the pilot program is important to move now so that we can allow people to learn to ride scooters in good weather when it's not rainy and dark give them a chance to learn to ride in a safe manner and at that time if we realize that scooters are not well suited for our city then we can end that pilot.

We do need to move forward at this time because as I've said before we've We're at the point where the academic conversation has gone on long enough that if we don't try this, we're just going to continue circling around the same questions that can only be answered if we try it in the real world.

In District 6, tomorrow I will be joining the Green Lake Community Council's monthly meeting.

I did take time over recess to speak with residents of District 6 about issues across our district.

And we will continue our District 6 resident meetings this week.

Lastly, I just want to note that the Seattle Channel was named among the best municipal television stations in the nation yesterday when it received the prestigious overall excellence award for government programming at the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors annual conference and virtual award ceremony.

So lastly, Council President, just a big congratulations and kudos to the Seattle Channel.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Councilmember Herbold, please.

Thank you.

Councilmember Strauss, I totally understand your desire to act on the scooter permit legislation in sufficient time to allow for People to learn to use scooters while the weather is still nice.

I think that is a legitimate reason to ask that we move quickly.

I am requesting that we hold it for just one week.

Over the recess, there was a new lawsuit against Lime and Bird.

They were sued in San Francisco Superior Court after the committee vote on behalf of people who are injured across the country regarding on scooters and I just I want to take a closer look at the issues related to that lawsuit and how the SDOT proposes within its free floating scooter share pilot permit requirements to address some of the issues that I know we share concerns about related to safety.

I've also just learned that there's a pending lawsuit for injuries to pedestrians, particularly elderly pedestrians, for riding on sidewalks.

And I know that the SDOT has done a lot of good work around enforcement intentions around use of of scooters on sidewalks.

There is this issue of course of allowing scooter use on trails where there is no sidewalk and so that's another issue.

I would just really appreciate just one more week to take a look at more closely and wondering whether or not you are open to a one-week delay.

Councilmember Herbold, I would just say that I appreciate you lifting up those particular legal cases that exist outside of the state of Washington.

I would just say that in my review of the legislation, when we were discussing this at length in committee, is one of the things that was important to SDOT and that was highlighted in the legislation is that this particular council bill that we will be considering today, which simply allows for the use to move forward.

We actually are not legislating the permit use document, which is a much longer document that has been negotiated and that companies who who are going to provide the service will need to agree to in order to deploy devices in the city.

One of the things that was really important that came out in that conversation was that we have the strongest indemnification clause of all of those that we're aware of in the country.

And so that's important because the indemnification clause is a protection to the taxpayers of the city of Seattle So the indemnification clause won't prevent groups like the ones you've just identified and discussed from suing the corporations directly.

I see our obligation on the city council is making sure that obviously we're holding these corporations accountable to making sure that they're deploying these in the safest way possible for the safety of of as many people as possible across the city.

But I also see a secondary obligation for us to make sure that in the deployment of these devices, when we know that there are some ongoing safety concerns that we will never be able to completely zero out, that we have to make sure that we protect the taxpayers of the city of Seattle from you know, multi-million dollar lawsuits that could be filed against the city of Seattle directly.

I believe we have done that through the indemnification clause that was discussed and highlighted during the presentation by SDOT.

And so I feel comfortable moving forward with the legislation today and don't think that an additional week is going to improve on the realities of those indemnification issues that have been negotiated and worked on extensively between the executive, SDOT, and potential participants in In the program, like Lyme and Bird and Uber and others.

And so, again, there's nothing we can do to guarantee that there won't be that there will be zero injuries and in the event that there are some injuries that the corporation is responsible for, it's important to me to make sure that the corporations will be responsible for those.

And I think based on my superficial understanding of these lawsuits that are happening in other places, that is in fact what is underlying those issues.

But I just wanted to sort of state my position on the record as it relates to those legal issues and happy to hear from Council Member Strauss as a prime sponsor as well.

Yeah, and just if I could respond for clarification's sake, I appreciate understanding the protection provided through the indemnification clause and appreciate understanding its strength.

My concerns are really focused on, with full understanding that our legislation is only establishing a permitting fee.

It is not itself establishing the permit requirements, but we have those permit requirements.

And my interest is, in reviewing those permit requirements, which are separate from the legislation, but reviewing them in light of these lawsuits, lawsuits that have been filed since the committee action, to make sure that the permit requirements adequately address, you know, not zeroing out all accidents, but mitigating to the best, of our ability to my satisfaction, the likelihood of large numbers of injuries, not purely for protecting the city's pocketbook, but for protecting folks who ride these scooters and are able to ride these scooters because the city has permitted them.

Yeah, and I think that the point that I was trying to to also make Councilmember for bold is that because the legislation before us today is only about setting the fees for those permits.

There is nothing that precludes us from a council considering to continuing to engage with the Seattle Department of Transportation.

As it relates to the permit requirements that again are not subject to this afternoon's legislative action by the council and and my understanding is they won't be.

We won't be seeing a bill that puts forward a need for the council to approve the permit requirements.

And so setting aside the issue of the fees, I believe that the work you're describing can and should continue through direct engagement with the Department of Transportation on those particular substantive issues related to ongoing safety concerns.

by council members.

I will use myself as an example.

I intend to support the bill this afternoon and would support it moving forward this afternoon because it sets the fees.

But I have already had back and forth engagement with Directors Zimbabwe on issues of concern that I have about the permit requirement document around issues related to Minimum number of deployment of units in racially diverse and economic diverse zip codes, for example, as well as issues related to parking corrals.

that will help to promote parking infrastructure to make sure that the scooters are put in a place that are safe and not obstructing the right of way of other appropriate uses for sidewalks, etc.

Again, I'm using myself as an example of feeling comfortable with the question before the council through this legislation this afternoon, which is fundamentally about the fees that we want charged, want the corporations to be charged in order to have this opportunity and ability to deploy these devices in the limited nature described by SDOT.

And I still continue to engage with the department around some of the substantive concerns I have about the permit requirements.

And I believe that those things can happen on a parallel path without causing additional delay on the permit fee legislation that was voted out of committee before recess.

Council Member Strauss, and then Council Member Mosqueda.

Sure, or if Council Member Mosqueda wants to go first, I can wrap up at the end.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council President and Council Member Schaus.

Yeah, I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

I just did want to take a quick second to make sure that I didn't miss an opportunity, though, for us to continue to correct and continue to educate the viewing public about scooters.

There was a robust conversation in 2018, again, last year, about scooters.

I'm really excited that this piece of legislation is moving forward as a first step.

As we engaged in the conversation in 2018, one of the most important takeaways that I remember from that conversation was an analysis of the Austin study at the time, 2018, that was looking at injuries and deaths related to scooters.

And it's really important for us to highlight that data.

While there may be people who file lawsuits on a number of items, the data said that for 913,000 trips that were done in the city of Austin, there were 29 head injuries, which were also minor in relation to other head injuries related to car accidents, for example, and there were zero deaths.

And so I just think that it's an important opportunity for us to continue to highlight that that type of statistic, that safety statistic, is not the case of cars, for example, where people die on a daily basis with the type of injuries and deaths that we've seen due to cars.

And we don't stop all traffic in the city, though I know that there's some who would like us to.

We continue to try to make cars and roads safer places for pedestrians and bikers.

I think making sure that more people can get out of their cars and into a mode of transportation is not only going to be important for us to think about the safety of those individuals moving forward, but the safety of our planet, given that many of us could not breathe last night, trying to figure out how we get more people out of cars is an important step.

And also recognizing that currently these scooters, according to that data that we looked at in 2018, zero deaths for 913,000 trips taken in the city of Austin, and much minor head injuries then and other types of transportation.

So I look forward to voting on this legislation this afternoon.

And I also will note, similar to the council president, I see this as an important first step.

I too have a lot of questions, but my questions are more specific to how do we implement a requirement like the city of Chicago has used to make sure that their carriers of scooters require W-2 employees or employees instead of independent contractors.

aspects of the program that I know will be under discussion as we move forward, but I think that the public safety issue is something that I just wanted to offer my take, my recollection of what the City of Austin's safety study showed us.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda for that.

Council Member Peterson and then we will hear from Council Member Strauss if he wants to wrap up the debate, unless Council Member Herbold wants to add something.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to echo the concerns raised by Council Member Herbold.

When we had our committee meeting on this, we did look at a letter we received from Dr. Fred Rivara of Harborview, where he had cited six studies with concerns about injuries.

And with the city having Vision Zero as its official policy, it's something to be mindful of.

And one of my concerns with the legislation, obviously, there are two council bills.

One is the fees, and one is the the loosening of where the scooters can go or clarifying of where scooters will be allowed in the other council bill.

My concern is that the legislation lacks the specifics on the pilot program.

And so it's very scant legislation and it's not, we do, there is this draft permit requirement document, which is really helpful and thoughtful.

However, that's not part of the legislation.

And so that is one of my concerns is that we are basically ceding our authority to SDOT on this.

And so as chair of transportation committee, since there will be this new mode of transportation potentially introduced onto our streets and in some cases sidewalks when streets are not an option, I will be sending a letter to the SDOT director encouraging them to keep track of certain metrics so that they can report back to us in six months and 12 months on how it's going with this pilot.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Herbold, did you have anything else you wanted to add?

Yeah, I just want to say, and I hope this is received in a spirit that it's offered, that I'm, you know, with all of the conversation that we have had this morning about collaboration, I'm really disappointed that my request for a one-week delay has turned into this sort of, are you for it or are you against it?

discussion.

It has long been the culture of this council to observe that courtesy when a colleague requests a one week delay.

It is not my request is not an indication that I am opposing.

this legislation.

I think there's a lot of really good work that has been done on this legislation since we've begun speaking about it, since we began, as Council Member Strauss says, the intellectual exercise around deploying scooters.

And I just want to get to a place where I feel good about voting on this legislation.

I'm almost there.

And Again, I'm disappointed that what is a request for a courtesy delay is received in a way where we're now debating the merits of the bill.

That was not my intent.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Herbold.

I appreciate your remarks.

I think ultimately Councilmember Strauss as the sponsor of the bill can tell us one way or the other whether he is fine with an additional one week delay.

I hope you didn't take any of my comments as calling into question or staking out a spectrum of for or against.

I thought I was responding to your particular concern was whether or not the lawsuits in other jurisdictions trigger particular legal concerns as it relates to the legislation and the program as proposed by SDOT.

And in my estimation, because of the indemnification clause, I feel as though the concerns you are expressing have been, in my mind, for me, addressed adequately, and I feel, as a result, comfortable moving forward today without the need for an additional week.

Now, I understand that you have made requests for an additional week, and you've stated on the record your motivation for why you think another week would be necessary, and so I am happy to hand it over now to Council Member Strauss, as prime sponsor of the bill, hear from him his thoughts and see where we can go from here.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Council Member Herbold, for bringing these concerns.

In the spirit of collaboration, much like Council Member Peterson gave me a call even if it was just a minute before council briefing began about his amendment to the omnibus bill, hearing this request for a week delay on somewhat time-sensitive legislation, in my opinion, The hearing for the first time at council briefing does not give me an opportunity to prepare or to have a thoughtful conversation with you about the need, the merits, and the desires that you have.

And so I would be happy to have a conversation with you maybe after council briefing.

At this time, I don't feel comfortable holding it for a week simply because The information that I have at this time is that the need to get this program running in good weather is one week at this time of year has a great amount of impact.

The issues that you did raise are important.

And as Council President mentioned, edemnification issues have been really well ironed out in this proposal.

And so I also have a lot of concerns about this proposal.

So I'm not that different than you in the sense that I still have concerns.

And what has made me comfortable with passing the legislation today is SDOT's They're pledged to me and their demonstration already of being able to work through the permit requirements and making changes as needed so that we have the greatest program possible.

The example that I provide from the council committee, and I'm not sure if it was before or after you had left for your West Seattle Bridge meeting, which was the first ride on scooters is restricted to eight miles an hour.

which is a pace that some people, not myself, can run.

So it's quick, but it's not that fast.

And one of the questions that I raised is if people are having trouble learning to ride these scooters, could we extend that eight mile per hour requirement for an additional ride or up to additional two rides?

And they responded that this was something that they could change in real time.

And so I absolutely hear and understand your request for a week delay.

If we were in June right now, I would have no problem at all saying yes, absolutely, let's make sure that this last academic and intellectual question is answered before we move forward.

I guess my largest issue is that we have delayed this for 18 months or longer.

The benefit of that delay has been that we have created one of the most robust programs in the country.

So when other cities moved quickly at first, there were still technical glitches with scooters.

There were issues about sidewalks, parking, et cetera.

And SDOT has done a really good job of being able to monitor what other cities have done.

and create a permit program that allows us to address those issues.

And similarly enough, the providers, the scooter companies themselves have been able to iron out wrinkles that they would have otherwise had, and we moved early on in this process.

So because we've already had an 18-month delay, and because the weather is changing rapidly, I know it's gonna be 87 this week, but we've only got a couple more weeks until the rain and darkness comes.

We're already at sunset at 7.30 now.

I would be hesitant to delay this another week.

And with that, I would also welcome a conversation after council briefing.

Thank you so much Councilmember Strauss for closing out debate on that particular issue.

Colleagues, I think that given the request for an additional week to consider the scooter legislation I have.

I've taken the step of reaching out directly to Director Zimbabwe just to get additional information about any potential concerns that the department might have with one additional week extension in terms of implementation of the pilot program.

I've also asked them to please provide us with a response to the concerns that have been expressed by Council Member Herbold regarding these lawsuits and potential implication on our pilot program implementation.

if he's able to do so before two o'clock today.

I will await to hear his response and I will stay in close communication with Council Member Herbold and Strauss as it relates strictly to the procedural request for a one-week extension, leaving the substantive policy issues for discussion in open session.

Thank you so much for that conversation.

Really appreciate it.

I think we have a path forward more to come colleagues in terms of what we will ultimately do with that legislation this afternoon.

Are there any other questions or comments on Council Member Strauss's report?

Hearing none, I will conclude Council briefing with my report.

At the City Council meeting this afternoon, I will be moving to suspend the rules to allow for an amendment to the introduction and referral calendar to introduce and refer legislation related to a new collective bargaining agreement between the City of Seattle and Local 79 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

This ordinance was transmitted to the Council during the recess.

And I will move to refer it to the City Council so that we can take action on it as soon as Monday, September 14th.

And secondly, this afternoon at City Council, we will be voting on the reconfirmation of Director Dwayne Chappell as the ongoing leader of our Department of Education and Early Learning.

He will be joining us at the top of today's agenda during full council to make a few remarks, assuming that he is indeed reconfirmed.

After Director Chappell, my committee has five appointments for the council's consideration.

So these five appointments are a mixture of council and mayor appointments to the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy Oversight Committee.

And we will also consider one mayoral appointment for the Immigrant and Refugee Commission all on this afternoon's City Council agenda.

This week, I'll also be holding a meeting of the Governance and Education Committee at 2 o'clock p.m.

We will be having a first hearing of the resolution described by Council Member Peterson related to related to the potential change to fiscal notes.

Secondly, we will also be hearing a report from, a potential report from Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy focusing on the childcare work and deployment that they have been doing during the COVID-19 period.

And I am, I am forgetting what the third item is.

And so I apologize for that, but look forward to hosting members of the Governance and Education Committee this Friday at two o'clock via Zoom.

I'm happy to answer any questions or hear any comments on my report.

Okay, colleagues, I'm seeing no questions.

And if there is nothing else for the good of the order, Council Member Burwell, please.

Thank you so much.

This is something that happened actually during our council briefings meeting.

So that's why I didn't include it in my report.

Council President Gonzalez, your office has approved my walking on of the the PCERN interlocal agreement legislation that I mentioned we would be hearing in committee.

I know we were going to be hearing the legislation.

I did not know that it had not yet been referred, so my staff has worked with yours to ensure that it's ready to be walked on at full council today at 2 o'clock, and I just wanted to make sure that everybody on the council and the public knew that I would be walking it on this afternoon.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Hurdle.

Fast, fast work by our teams.

Is there anything else for the good of the order?

Okay, seeing no additional business to come before us in council briefing, we are adjourned and I look forward to seeing you all again this afternoon at two o'clock.

Thank you so much and welcome back everyone.