Seattle City Council Briefing 12/12/22

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Monday, December 12th, and the council, Seattle City Council, will come to order.

Madam Clerk, will you please wait before I do that?

The time is 2.04.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Salant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Present.

Thank you.

I should also announce that Council Member Mosqueda has been excused for today, for today's council briefing.

We will move to the approval of the minutes.

There is no objection.

The approval of the minutes of December The minutes are adopted.

Moving on to the president's report.

Before I go to the president's report, I want to thank councilmember Peterson for serving as council president pro tem last Monday and Tuesday.

Councilmember Peterson, thank you very much.

I also want to thank not only my staff but your staff because I know it was kind of short notice and I want to thank you all for I mean, obviously things are much better when we all work together.

So thank you very much for jumping in and handling the council briefing and the council meeting.

Thank you.

OK.

All right, so now that I got my thank yous out of the way, let's go on to the president's report.

So I have some few items that I want to read into the record, so I make sure I make sure I comment on all this.

So on today's agenda, we have a presentation by the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, lovingly known as OIR, regarding the state legislative agenda for 2023. The draft agenda was distributed to all council offices and everyone has had a chance to comment.

Here in the D5 office, we added language regarding police investigations of missing murdered indigenous people, and also language regarding gun safety laws, mental health counselors in our high schools following the unfortunate shooting at Ingraham High School.

Today OIR will present the agenda and the vote on the agenda via resolution will be tomorrow.

This will allow OIR to get ready for the first day of the legislative session, which I understand is January 9th.

And we, of course, appreciate all the work that Director Tarlington does and her staff with us and look forward to learning more.

My understanding is that we do not have any proclamations or letters for signature today.

And then following our individual reports, we'll also have 2 executive sessions at the end of today's meeting on 2 legal matters.

Each of them is expected to last 20 minutes.

If we go beyond 20 minutes, I will go back on the record and extend the time.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of bills as well as three appointments.

In addition, we will take, as usual, one vote on the consent calendar unless, of course, there is a council member that would like to remove something from the consent calendar that we would discuss further on in the agenda.

Following the consent calendar on tomorrow's agenda, we will be voting on the, as I said, the state legislative agenda resolution, resolution 32076, which you all have a copy of, which people can find online as well.

In addition, the Land Use Committee will have two items for a final vote, and I believe Council Member Strauss will speak to those two items today.

The Public Assets and Homeless Committee has one item on tomorrow's agenda in which Council Member Lewis will speak to that.

And the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee has nine items on tomorrow's agenda in which Council Member Peterson will speak to those items.

Finally, rounding out tomorrow's agenda, we'll be voting on the Legislative Department's Racial Equity Work Plan, which was developed by the Legislative Department's Race and Social Justice Initiative Change Team to improve racial equity in the Legislative Department and at City Hall or the City of Seattle.

Information on all the items on tomorrow's agenda is available online.

As a reminder, there will be no council briefings on Monday, December 19th, Monday, December 26th, or Monday, January 2nd.

Tomorrow will be our final council meeting of the year at two.

All committees will step down for the last two weeks of our December recess.

The first council meeting of the new year will be Tuesday, January 3 at two o'clock in the year 2023 and a year just flew by.

So, with that also moving on into our agenda, like, as I had shared, there is no letters of proclamation for signature today.

So moving on to item number four, we have our presenters here and I will let Director Tarlington introduce her staff so we can begin to discuss the legislative agenda that will guide their work in Olympia during the upcoming state legislative session.

The agenda before us will be, as I shared earlier, will be for a vote tomorrow.

Director Tarlington, we are glad you have joined us here today with your staff and thank you for meeting with our staff offline a couple of times in the email exchanges we had and kind of shoring up some of the issues that we wanted to see in the agenda.

But I'm going to turn it over to you, Director, and you can have the floor and tell us what we need to know.

Thank you so much, Council President Juarez, and thank you to all of the council members.

and your staff, central staff and your individual staff, for all of the work that you have helped accomplish to prepare the resolution for the city's state legislative agenda for 2023 and 2024. I want to particularly thank you for being so accessible to our new state relations director, Samir Junaidjo, and our new state legislative liaison, Anna Johnson.

I know that the last six to eight weeks for the two of them have been a real whirlwind, and they have worked with city departments, the mayor's office team, as well as the city council members and the city council staff to put together a truly updated legislative agenda, including some executive highlights.

to help us all focus on the work ahead in the 2023 legislative session.

I just want to take this moment of personal privilege to thank the Council President And to thank all of the council members for the past year, where you have made yourselves reachable.

You have had open communication with all of my staff.

My deputy director, Sierra Howlett Brown has worked really closely with the central staff and with each of the staff members in your offices.

to make sure that as so many important issues affecting our city were unfolding, whether it was at the international level, the tribal level, the federal level, the state operations, as well as our local and regional partners, you have been there for us.

I hope all of you enjoy a very peaceful and restful holiday season as we prepare for 2023. I'd like to turn it over to Sameer, who will begin the presentation with Ana.

And I'm going to let them drive the train for how we're going to discuss the agenda today.

But thanks again.

And Samir, it's your court.

Thank you, Gail.

Thank you, Council President and Council Members.

Nice to be here.

As Gail mentioned, my name is Samir Junaidjo, the new State Relations Director for the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

And we're going to talk briefly about just a general update about the 2023 legislative session, and then get into a short summary of the 2023 legislative agenda.

And Ana and I will tag team that.

So to start, this will be the first in-person session since 2020. But despite that, we do expect to hear that many committees will continue to allow remote testimony and potentially other advances from the two hybrid sessions.

This will be a long session, 105 days, which means new two-year budgets will need to be adopted.

We expect the governor to release his proposed budget later this week.

And the governor's budget is a starting point for the legislature's budget and also gives a preview of the top issues that will be considered during the session.

With respect to the budget, in November, the State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released their revenue update and so projections for the current cycle are almost $762 million higher than anticipated, and the state is projecting $680 million more than expected for the 23 to 25 budget cycle.

However, enthusiasm for the revenue growth was tempered by inflation, rising interest rates, concerns about a recession, and also the recent technology sector layoffs.

With respect to changes in the House and the Senate, House Democratic leadership largely unchanged.

However, there is a new House Majority Leader, which is Representative Joe Fitzgibbon from the 34th District, a Seattle delegation member.

House Committee assignments have not been released yet.

We expect those to be unveiled probably this week.

On the Senate side, Senate Democratic leadership largely unchanged, but a new Deputy Majority Leader, which is Senator Emily Randall from the 27th District, and a new Majority Whip, which is Senator Tawana Nobles from the 28th District.

The Senate committee changes are as follows.

With the retirement of longtime Seattle member Senator Ruben Carlyle, there's a new chair of the Senate Energy and Environment and Technology Committee, and that is another Seattle delegation member, Senator Joe Nguyen of the 34th District.

The Senate also has a new Local Government, Land Use, and Tribal Affairs Committee, which will be chaired by Senator Liz Lovelet of the 40th District.

There's also a new Business, Financial Services, Gaming, and Trade Committee, which will be chaired by Senator Derek Stanford of the 1st District.

And also another retirement from the Seattle Delegations.

With the retirement of Senator David Frock, there's a new Capital Budget Lead, which will be Senator Mark Mullet of the 5th District.

Moving on to the agenda itself.

So the process during the late summer and fall OIR work to collect priorities as Gil mentioned.

Can I stop you for one second?

Sure.

Are you going to provide to us, you just shared the new leadership and different, would you provide us a list of that?

Yes, happy to.

What district they come from and all that.

I was trying to write it down, but I could keep up with you.

Yeah, no problem.

We'll be happy to share with all of you.

Sorry, I didn't mean to disrupt your flow.

Go ahead.

No problem.

Yeah, and for the agenda, as Gil mentioned, we've talked with the executive branch, the legislative branches of the city and work to collect priorities and you've seen drafts of that and been part of that process.

The agenda itself is organized under four sections, safe, vibrant, affordable and interconnected.

And it is a formal document that is intentionally brought to allow the city's legislative relations team to engage on a variety of topics in Olympia during the upcoming session.

And so what we'll now do is highlight some of the top issues under each section.

So I'll pass it along to Anna to take on the safe section.

Hey, everyone.

My name is Anna.

I'm the state legislative liaison for the Office of Intergovernment Relations here at the city of Seattle.

So starting with the highlights in the safe section of the legislative agenda.

Gun violence prevention is expected to be a top priority this legislative session.

The crisis of gun violence continues to affect Seattle and Washington State, and the city would support a number of proposals, including the following, limiting or banning assault weapons, holding negligent gun dealers and manufacturers civilly liable for the harms their products cause, instituting a 10-day waiting period and requiring a permit to purchase a firearm, funding for gun violence prevention programs, regulating funding, regulating presence of firearms or other weapons in sensitive public places, and allowing local jurisdictions the ability to build upon statewide standards and adopt sensible gun regulations.

The city plans to support efforts to increase accountability and transparency in law enforcement, including legislation allowing independent prosecutions of deadly force.

Additionally, we plan to support an increase in state funding for law enforcement training, including the Basic Law Enforcement Academy and development of regional law enforcement training opportunities.

Addressing the inequalities and loss of rights resulting from the Dobbs v. Jackson decision will be a top priority this session, and we plan to support a number of priorities to protect abortion access, reproductive health care, and gender-affirming care, including a constitutional amendment and also legislation prohibiting hospital mergers that would diminish access to care.

We expect the legislature to continue addressing behavioral health this session and we plan to support policies to increase the number of mobile crisis units and crisis stabilization facilities continue the implementation of the 988 crisis hotline and address the behavioral health workforce shortage.

Under the vibrant section of the legislative agenda, some of the highlights include revenue for local government.

The city supports adopting tax measures that lead to a more equitable and progressive tax structure.

And we will support preserving and increasing local funding authority and support new and healthy revenue streams for local government.

The city plans to support policies that provide funding for business restoration and access to capital, including for tenant improvements and facility repairs, and policies that support economic recovery for businesses.

The city's top priorities for the climate and the environment include salmon recovery, extended producer responsibility for paper and packaging products, and implementation of the Climate Commitment Act, and decarbonization of the building and transportation sectors.

The city also plans to help address student mental health by supporting additional funding for mental health and behavioral health counselors in schools.

And now back to Samir.

Thank you, Ana.

And special shout out to Ana because it's her birthday today.

So thanks for doing this on your birthday.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday.

The next section is housing.

And housing is very likely to be the top issue next session.

A number of ideas will be floating around, but the city of Seattle does expect to be supporting policies to encourage the development of housing at all income levels.

We'll support efforts to further streamline the planning and permitting process.

We wanna support addressing barriers to home ownership and also increase tenant protections.

We also expect to see and support a very large and unprecedented investment in the housing trust fund.

With specific regard to homelessness, we will definitely support continuing the Rights-of-Way Safety Initiative and also reforming the State Environmental Protection Act to make it easier to site shelters and tiny homes.

On the interconnected section, we expect to see a very big focus this session on pedestrian safety.

We will support funding safe and accessible crossings at Rights-of-Way and also policies that reduce dangerous conflicts between drivers and people biking and walking.

We also will be supporting policies that advance transportation justice, which will include policies that reduce traffic stops for non-moving traffic violations, and also the decriminalization of jaywalking.

And that's it for the 2023 agenda.

Happy to answer any questions.

So at this time, colleagues, this would be a great time to go through the 17 pages.

Very well documented.

And I see Council Member Strauss has his hand up.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President and thank you to the whole OIR team.

I'm not going to speak to everything in this document because we'd be here until Sunday and it is Monday.

I will share with you, I am hoping and intending to bring an amendment to tomorrow's full council.

My apologies, Council President, I know that- Yeah, I heard.

I know, I know.

I've even got two amendments tomorrow, it's really bad.

All of that to say is just restating the city's desire to have lids over federal interstates and state highways so all along I five, we've got some really amazing opportunities to use lids SR 520 is having a great lid put in now.

is really center for me in this conversation is the fact that we can use both public and private resources to create these lids.

We've seen in Washington, D.C., office buildings being built over highways.

We've seen in other cities how public housing being built over highways.

And in all of these situations, we see a greater interconnectedness between neighborhoods that were disconnected when these highways were built.

colleagues and or OIR team, please let me know if you have questions, comments, or concerns about this amendment.

I hope it is a friendly amendment.

I would add this to Councilor Strouss.

I'm glad you brought this up with our team here because we explored this back in 16, 17, and 18, what Redmond and Bellevue did with Microsoft to do the LID public-private partnership and then actually hiring the person from the city side to go work at Microsoft for their employees and for parking.

So I've always been a big proponent of that.

But I think we really would have to look at a serious public private partnership because we also explore that opportunity before we did the John Lewis bridge.

We originally were trying to make it into a lid, but eventually became a beautiful bridge instead.

But I am very supportive of that.

So thank you for that.

And I see that Councilor Lewis has his hand up.

Councilor Lewis.

Thank you so much, Madam President.

This might be a change of topics or well, I should signal I want to do a change of topics, but I will take this opportunity to signal my support for Councilmember Strauss's amendment.

But if you want to stay on the if there's other responses to the amendment, I'd rather let that play out before I ask a different question.

So I just want to offer that.

I don't see any other supporters yet, so go ahead.

So you great.

Thank you so much.

So I want to raise just a few things relevant to the recent decision by Seattle voters to adopt a variation of rank choice voting for future Seattle City elections.

And I want to start by talking about a related issue around ballot structure that may have been brought to OIR's attention at this point, but I know it was something Council Member Mosqueda wanted to bring and she's not here this afternoon, but I share her interest in this.

But my understanding is we are preempted by the state in creating a clearer ballot order.

When we have competing measures on one ballot, we have to have that model with the threshold question.

And then a second question where people choose between two competing measures rather than the more simple structure that's envisioned by the charter that would allow us to have both measures listed one after the other and have a more clear ballot structure.

So my understanding is that if the state were to change some language in RCW 29A 36071, we would be able to adopt a more flexible and clearer ballot format.

So I did just want to raise that here and see if that is on OIR's agenda or if there's some change we would need to make to the underlying resolution to reflect wanting to pursue that change, which I would call a technical change, but some legislators might have a different opinion on that.

Let me have Director Tarleton respond if she wants to before we go to you, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you.

Samir and Ana and I did discuss this and Samir, perhaps you could refer to this section of the agenda, which may be sufficient, Council Member Lewis, or we can look at a technical adjustment.

But Samir, isn't there a section that we address elections, revisions and all of that?

Yeah, we did talk about this with Councilmember Mosqueda.

We think this is something that we would definitely support in the next session.

And I think there's a part of the agenda where we refer to policies and programs that remove barriers to voting.

And we feel like this would fit under that.

And we think this is something that we would certainly support next session.

But Councilmember Lewis's comment isn't just because it's not Explicitly written in there in the resolution doesn't preclude us from promoting that.

So we're okay there.

That is correct.

All right.

That's what I thought.

That's how it's always been.

All right.

I is customer losers or anything else before I move on to council member Nelson.

The only other thing that I would raise since we have the team here is given that we have moved to a form of rank choice voting by popular election.

The city may consider supporting the local option bill that would allow us to further refine that new move to rank choice voting.

But that might be a longer conversation and might be best manifested potentially even in its own resolution or with some additional discussion with council colleagues.

But I did just want to raise that since we're on the topic in open session today.

that that might be something we pursue.

Director Tarlington, I appreciate the comments that Council Member Lewis raised.

If indeed we were to move forward and explore this issue more, what committee would that go through on the state side?

It would be state government.

OK, so everything regarding elections goes through state government on the House and the Senate side.

And who chairs that?

Who would be the if you don't know that?

We don't know the chair in the House, but the Senate, I think, is still Senator Hunt, isn't it?

Senator Sam Hunt from Olympia.

OK, great.

OK.

And he always is open to legislation regarding elections.

you know, enhancements to improve voter turnout, voter participation, remove barriers for entry into our political system.

Thank you.

Councillor Nelson, do you had your hand up?

Are you still did you still want to comment?

Yeah, I was going to comment, I was going to have a question, but so this is it.

So we have somebody said 17 pages of a legislative agenda and then staff just distilled it to several priority pieces.

And so I think that that is informed by by what, you know, of bills that are going to be put forward.

Right.

This is my first legislative agenda to approve.

So that's why I'm asking this question.

So if that's is that the case and how does one get How does a council member get on the on the official list of legislation or issues that you all staff are going to be spending session working on?

Because, you know, you you have called some and going forward, if we're discussing what we really have to have you guys work on, how does that happen?

That's a good question, because it is a process question.

Director Talented, did you want to respond on how we do this?

I am very glad for this question, especially in open session, Council Member Nelson, because as all of you know, even before you may have had the opportunity to take a resolution on the legislative agenda, the legislative session, especially a long legislative session, has many bills introduced that are not We are not previewing.

Okay, we have no idea what's going to happen.

And I'm going to let some air describe some of this process that will happen, Councilmember Nelson but very important for all of you to know, we may have a 17 page broad agenda, it, it is to ensure that we are trying to anticipate Any number of policies that could be introduced in a long session, it is on average, very typical that up to 600 or 650 pieces of legislation will actually be introduced in the next 5 to 6 weeks of the 1st part of the session.

And this year we have.

We have many, many new legislators elected in 2022, and those legislators have very substantial agendas, and we have no idea what policies they might introduce.

So Samir, perhaps you could describe to the council member some examples of how we will need to adapt as policies are introduced.

I think I'm just adding to that I think you mentioned with number of bills that we have no but not have no idea about will be introduced and so a lot of it was also my first session so but I believe a lot of this will be organic.

And you know obviously a lot of it will be reactive to number of these bills and so in terms of what you know.

prioritizing the priorities.

I think that's an organic process and we kind of will have to wait and see what's actually dropped, what will take up bandwidth in the legislature.

But at the same time, I think we want to make sure there's a very open-minded communication with the council member offices.

So we know your priorities and we know what, which will inform how we prioritize as well.

So.

Thank you.

Is there anything else about that?

Council Member Nelson, was there any follow up?

It's, I know it seems a little bit confusing in the beginning, but The, is this 120 day session or it's not.

105. 105. So it's always, we always start off with this kind of, if you will, like a blueprint.

And then as the bills start coming in and they start teeing them up for us every week, we kind of go through.

I think a good thing that I was a good, what was helpful for me is we always keep a copy of what I mark up for the whole, what you gave us last year.

I literally keep the paper copy, but what got passed, what failed, where we talked about it, what putting in the margins.

where we supported it, where you asked us to come down and provide public comment in Olympia or obviously on TV.

So you'll have plenty of opportunity, Council Member Nelson, to discuss or promote or elaborate more on priorities that basically our lobbyists will do for us in Washington, D.C. I mean, I'm sorry, that too.

I'm going to mention that at the end, by the way, Leslie, but on the state side.

And that's why I kind of wanted the list that Samir shared.

about, thank you for that too, because I always try to remember who chairs what.

And so if you put that together on some of these issues, particularly when we know the district, I think those of us that know, we kind of know what our district is here in the city of Seattle, but trying to remember who's, like I'm the 46, like who's in the 46, whatever, who's chairing what committee.

So all of that's important to have those relationships and conversations.

And so it's actually, actually pretty, pretty fun.

No.

Is that Nelson and, and all of you.

Um, one of the most important things that I learned in my eight years there is how crucial it is to know the priorities of the chair of the committee.

And that has a tremendously substantial impact, much as it probably does with your committee chairs that you chair.

It has a real impact on which bills get heard.

And I think Council Member Nelson, by the end of January, early February, we're gonna have what we call the funneling effect, where we will actually know which pieces of legislation are still in play, because they will have had to been heard by a committee and moved out of committee.

And that's when you start reducing the 17-page broad view of everything that affects our 770,000 people in this city down to, OK, what are the 150 pieces of legislation that are still in play?

And that's where you get to really focus.

And as Council President said, it becomes kind of fun.

Well, the part I like is that we get to say, OK, this bill has legs and these are our concerns.

And this is the person who's chairing that committee.

And this may affect, obviously, the whole city of Seattle.

So we need you to start paying attention.

That's always been kind of like kind of towards the end.

I've always appreciated that you guys have been there.

Just you just always been there to answer all of our questions.

And with that, I'm going to I know Council Member Peterson is next.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, thank you very much for answering that process question.

I lived through the this year's session, but I didn't I haven't been at the table when the priorities were set by my council.

That's why I was asking that.

And maybe there will be I don't know when it comes to things that we might want.

Our legislators that are new or priorities for us, like the voting thing, I think that maybe is there time for us to discuss an open session what those priorities are or this new priority.

I don't know anything about whatever it is about our CV that you guys are talking about.

But when I hear clear and flexible and enhance, I always want details.

Yeah, we will.

OK, great.

Yeah, you bet.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So let's go to Councilor Peterson and Councilor Morales.

Thank you.

COB, Ryan Noles...He, Him, His): Thank you to the oh ir team for crafting and stitching together all these ideas and updates.

COB, Ryan Noles...He, Him, His.: : into this document and thanks to Karina bull on on city council central staff, but now that everything's together and we see all the edits.

COB, Ryan Noles...He, Him, His.: : merged into it, I did have a question about the finished product is a potential I don't know if it's a discrepancy or not, but wanted to get your thoughts on this so.

On page 12 of the document under affordable city, it talks about we oppose preemption of local regulations, which is great, that we want to do it ourselves.

But then on page 11, it says we support policies that set a statewide floor for residential density.

And so I just wanted to make sure that We weren't inviting a state preemption on residential density.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the statement, but wanted to get your thoughts on that.

And then have a minor comment about the language about displacement, where it's just considering the impact on displacement.

It would be great to have a stronger word, and then they're actually going to address it instead of just consider it.

Thank you.

You want to take that?

Go ahead, Samir and Ana.

We have had a lot of discussions about this council member.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think we've heard a variety of things from the departments on housing, mayor's office, and also various council members.

And I think it is not clear as to what essentially will happen on the zoning requirements at the state level.

we've already heard various competing bills that have set all sorts of various requirements.

And so there's no one, there's no one path that I think we know about right now.

There's no one path that I think people agree on.

So this is one that I know we will be tracking, we'll be tracking the various bills.

And, you know, like I said, there's probably the multiple competing bills on this on this topic.

So I think what we'll be doing, we'll be tracking it and updating you on it, and ensuring that we can kind of come up with a position if there is in fact a police position that we can come up with, we will want to be involved, we will definitely want to be involved because it will impact the city greatly and will impact the comp plan greatly as well.

So it's something that I think we will 100% be tracking and our weekly briefings to you be updating you on see what what is what's actually moving and what's not moving.

Yeah, I am going to have on a and some year tracking these pieces of legislation council.

Member Peterson, because the committees that are going to be hearing these bills, the issues will be dispersed among a number of committees.

And as soon as we know the chairs of the different committees, both in the House and the Senate, who will be hearing these pieces of legislation, I do want to recommend that we have very specific discussions with each one of you, as well as with the mayor's office, about how to communicate to the chairs and to the prime sponsors what are the issues in contention.

Because as Samir said, there are, there are very disparate views in the legislative environment right now and we don't, we don't know the views of a lot of the new legislators, and that will be a big factor.

And we have four new legislators in the city of Seattle districts, and we want their opinions and their views better understood so I, I look at this very much as an evolving discussion, and I believe that the governor's budget.

will signal some important directions that the, the executive branch is taking that they are going to be telling the legislature.

These are the directions, we're headed in, and that will help us understand maybe where the differences of view are going to materialize.

Thank you.

Does any follow customer Peterson before we go on to customer Morales president I just had one comment on this one.

Director Tarleton and others, I share this information only because I have the privilege and honor of serving on the Association of Washington City's board, where preemption is a hot topic and always.

Councilmember Peterson, just for reference, since you haven't been in those meetings with me, there is a difference.

The National League of Cities has defined a difference between preemption and a legislative floor.

And I know the two can be used interchangeably, But they're very different.

And I and I want to just note that for the record here because a preemption is blanket.

disallowing of certain types of policies within government.

A floor is a graduated or nuanced level setting for the state.

If a bill has a graduated rate, say cities of 20,000 have a different policy objective than 50,000 that is different than 100,000 or 700,000, that is setting a floor for which cities must meet certain criteria based upon their population.

We see this type of policymaking throughout, and that is different than a blanket preemption saying that all cities must do X, Y, or Z.

I'm not here to comment on the underlying bill.

I just wanted to provide that texture to words that oftentimes are used interchangeably.

Thank you, friends.

Thank you.

Council Member Rawlings.

Where'd you go?

There you are.

Thank you, Council President.

I first just want to thank the OIR staff.

We've had lots of conversations over the last several weeks, and I appreciate your willingness to listen and incorporate as many of our different priorities as you can into these documents.

And I just want to offer my support.

You know, I participated last year maybe the year before, particularly around when issues around gun violence or bills around gun violence prevention were being, and some of the reforms were being proposed.

So I just wanna offer my assistance again, if we get to that point with some of these bills.

And then similarly with any of the bills around DOBs, I'm particularly interested as I know Council Member Herbold is in the hospital mergers issue.

And my third sort of big issue, I guess, is around neighborhood planning, land use.

So the housing, particularly transportation safety, we're really interested in tracking that with you as well.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, thank you, too, because I know that you were very instrumental in discussions, particularly what happened after the Parkland shootings.

I don't think the public knew that and we've been sharing this information that our city passed or the state passed with our insistence as well, 20 laws since 2018 after the Parkland shooting.

I think there was not a lot of information out there that we had not responded to school shootings and that continues to be a priority.

Thank you very much for that.

I know we've had And I know Councilor Morales has been following that as well.

And so did former Council President Gonzalez.

That was a big issue for her as well.

And so obviously that's still on our minds about what happened and the money that we have in our budget for counseling.

And we want to follow up on that and take another run at the ones, some of the laws that we pushed forward last session that did not pass or that were close.

If we get a second bite of the apple, that'd be great.

So I want to thank you for that.

Um, I'm gonna see if there's anything else from my colleagues before I hand it over to you before we close this out.

Director Carlton.

Is there anything for my colleagues.

Oh, Mr Strauss Oh, okay.

Sorry Council President apparently I got a lot to say today.

I know I know I'll keep it under 10 minutes though.

Um, I know that we've got a number of legislators representing Seattle retiring this year.

I won't speak to all of them because again that would put me over 10 minutes, I did have the privilege to get to work for Senator Frocked.

I just wanted to take this moment to recognize him.

He is a thoughtful and considerate leader that really is focused on policy over politics.

There are a few like him elected, much less alive.

I just wanted to take this moment to recognize him because I learned a lot working from him.

I find that when we put policy before politics, We increase the amount of trust between people and we're really able to focus on the solutions that everyday Seattleites need.

And so just really want to thank Senator Frock for his time and service to our city and to our state.

You've made our state and our city a better place to live.

Thank you, Council President.

I will stop talking until it's my turn to talk.

That's fine.

This just makes me laugh.

Is there anybody else that wants to thank anybody else in the state legislature for retiring before we move on and close this out?

OK, not seeing anything else.

What I want to say to you, Gail, I'm sorry, Director Tarlington is, first of all, as a former state rep, you were phenomenal.

Your knowledge, local, regional, municipal and tribal, which I always appreciated with Sierra, Those governments, the subject matter expertise and also your procedural knowledge.

Last year was so much nice with you being here because you know all these people you've been down there and it's just so wonderful to have you and I really truly mean that.

that you know the sister you were there eight years.

We spoke when you were still a representative and the hard work that you do and your great staff.

I wanted to share and I don't know if Sierra wants to weigh in.

We will be going our fourth or fifth year in a row to the National Congress of American Indians in February, where we will be meeting with Leslie Polner and meeting with our congressional delegation up on the hill again.

So we usually meet with and also tribal leadership Particularly on the climate change stuff where we met with President sharp and the whole issue of moving the village audit back and all that funding and some of our other state reps regarding the money for the West Seattle bridge.

So I'm hoping that our office will be able to meet with you.

Obviously, before we.

I think.

Me and 1 other staff are going to share.

So we usually lay out who we will be meeting with the congressional delegation and hearing from my colleagues what issues they would like us to raise.

And then also meeting with tribal leadership where we have the interaction.

And also we find ourselves at the same time there with the indigenous-led urban organizations that represent the city of Seattle.

We literally run up on the hill into Esther Lacero and Derek Belgard.

We run to all those folks meeting with the same people for treatment, inpatient treatment, healthcare, climate change, all those things.

DOT is a big one this year, Department of Transportation on roads and issues.

So we've got a lot.

This is my last year here.

So I'm trying to get a lot done in this last National Congress of American Indians.

And I want to thank you.

Sarah, I know that you always prep us for those meetings with Leslie Poehler before she takes us up.

So we're looking forward to working with you again.

I don't know if there's anything you wanted to add about that, because I know before Our other friend would go back.

Yeah, I'll just say our Director of Federal Affairs now Michelle Nance will be supporting you and Leslie in that but looking forward to helping you build out a build out an itinerary and schedule those meetings and just let us know what you need for that.

Yeah, you guys have been great, especially with meeting with Leslie she just takes really good care of us in Washington DC.

and the issues.

I mean, you're shepherding these electives, and we don't know what building we're supposed to be in or where we're supposed to be, what time.

So I appreciate that.

I know sometimes we're a handful.

So I want to thank you for that.

And I look forward to doing that.

I appreciate that.

And I appreciate everyone, including yourself, who take the time to go to DC and do the lobbying on behalf of the city.

And happy to support any of those endeavors.

You know, and I have to say this, I'm really proud of our two senators, Senator Murray and Senator Cantwell, always take the time to meet with me.

I always appreciate that.

Not that there's nothing wrong with meeting with the staffer, but just for my time in Indian country and working in the governor's office.

So I appreciate that.

And I know that they're busy people.

So anyway, thank you very much.

With that, before we move on, colleagues, is there anything else we want to ask of our amazing OIR staff and their leader, Director Tarleton?

Yes.

Oh, Councilmember Strauss.

Wow.

I'm joking.

Also, you're spot on.

We know that the staff make this whole place work.

I thought we were gonna have another episode of Schoolhouse Rock.

Thank you.

All right.

So with that, thank you, Director.

And we look forward to hearing from you again.

And we'll be discussing and voting on the resolution tomorrow.

Thank you all so much for your support.

And thank you for your time today for this discussion.

We'll look forward to tomorrow.

Thank you.

Okay, colleagues with that let's move on in our agenda to item number five.

This is where we go and have each one of you talk to us about City Council actions, what's going on Council, your regional committees.

And today, if there's anything, let's see.

Oh, this is the lineup today.

We're going to start with Council Member Nelson.

Then we're going to go to Council Member Sir Peterson, Council Member Sawant, Council Member Strauss, Council Member Herboldt, Council Member Lewis, Council Member Morales, and then me.

So with that, Council Member Nelson, please begin.

Well, hello, everyone.

I'm feeling a little rusty here.

So the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee does meet this Wednesday, December 14th at 930 in the morning, and there are nine items on the agenda.

Don't be scared, many of them are appointments and reappointments so first we'll have a discussion and possible vote on clerk files 02423 and 02424 appointing Andrea Friedman and Julius Caesar Robinson as members of the Seattle Music Commission.

We also have a discussion and possible vote on the reappointment of four people, Jovino Santos Neto, Jessica Thune, Nick Verwick, and Shannon Wells to the Seattle Music Commission.

And then there are three pieces of City Light legislation.

We'll have a public hearing, briefing, discussion, and possible vote on Council Bill 120461, authorizing City Light to grant an easement over a portion of the city's transmission corridor near 19541 Stone Avenue North in Shoreline and accepting payment for the value of that easement from the owners of the adjacent property.

A public hearing, briefing, discussion, and possible vote on Council Bill 120430, authorizing City Light to convey an easement to the City of Shoreline and accepting payment of fair market value for the easement.

And then lastly, a briefing discussion and possible vote on Council Bill one two zero four eight one, approving a 10 year franchise agreement with King County for the use of the county's right of way to serve city like customers in two areas of unincorporated King County, which are Skyway and White Center.

So that's our committee meeting this Wednesday, December 14th.

All right.

Report from last week.

Thursday was a big day for external events, starting with and addressing the board of the university district partnership.

Where they shared the great news that they received a $5 million grant from the Department of Commerce to support small business capital improvements in the districts that's pretty big money so congratulations to them.

I caught the first half of the port's annual holiday party, which was a really classy affair with an amazing cross section of guests, including, of course, port staff and commissioners, city of Seattle staff and departmental leadership, labor, several regional electeds, and lots and lots of folks from the maritime industry, which really drives home the importance of that sector to the local, regional, and state economy.

And then finally ended the night at the Fifth Avenue Theater for a showing of The Wiz, which if you haven't seen it, you really should.

It was enough to make me a convert to to the art form, I have to say.

Stunning costumes, dancing, singing, acting, just sumptuous.

And we we council members Strauss and Morales and I were invited by Inspire Washington, Manny and Jesse with Inspire Washington.

And before the show, there was a small reception with Bernie of Fifth Avenue Theater who made the pitch for, well, actually a request that the city support a request that they will have before the legislature this coming session for a sizable allocation to help them out.

They're still reeling from, frankly, audiences not coming back in in full force since the pandemic and a lot of delayed costs.

I mean, delayed expenses.

So I plan to make the case for that in our legislative session in these coming weeks.

All right.

And so that was Thursday.

On Friday, I was joined by Council Member Lewis for a conversation with Kevin Renderly, whose business in Wallingford suffered its sixth break in and he was representing Kevin, was scores of small businesses in District 7, where his wife's store was broken into within days of his.

And, you know, it was the same conversation I've been having with small business owners over and over in every district of the city for pretty much the past year.

And the names and places are different.

But the same message is is basically that these small businesses recognize SPD's staffing shortage, but they nonetheless feel abandoned by the city as they operate within what they see as a context of kind of lawlessness and struggle to sort of just go on day after day.

And I have to credit Kevin and the other entrepreneurs, not just in his coalition, but everyone I've talked to for continuing to engage with the city Because that's what small businesses do.

They don't give up.

And so I welcome these conversations and frankly feel that they've spoken and it's now on us to do something sooner rather than later.

So I'm just looking at all possible options, including private security.

It is that bad.

And I just want to note that this is December when when retail stores you know, make most of the money that not most of the money, but they really depend on a strong on strong receipts in December to pay their bills for the whole year.

So I just wanted to to say that it was that I'm just giving voice to what I'm hearing from them and just showing that, you know, I think that we're all committed to doing something to help them out.

All right, coming up this week, Business Impact Northwest holiday pop-up party is this Wednesday, and I urge all my colleagues and staff to attend.

You probably all got the invitation.

It's a great way for us to support our local business community and the revitalization of downtown Seattle.

That same day, I'll be attending the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber's elected officials reception.

That's on Wednesday, and I hope to meet some of the new legislators that were just recently elected, as Director Tarleton mentioned, there are many of them.

And then I'll wrap up my week by attending Tabor 100's holiday party, which is always a good time.

Great dancing, food, and conversation.

All right, that's it for me.

Hey, Council Member Nelson, I think the chamber party is Thursday.

Oh, good.

Excellent.

Thursday.

I'll see you there.

I've been doing that ever since budget all my just ask my staff.

It's all kind of melded in my mind.

I only know because Sarah Mays is sitting here and telling me so it's on that one.

Okay, thank you, customer Peterson.

I again colleagues, there are nine items from the transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full Council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

The final versions of all nine Council bills were unanimously approved by the committee Council 120429 is s dot.

related legislation sponsored by Council Member Strauss that would make permanent the Safe Start Street Reads program.

I know I'll be speaking about that tomorrow.

Council Bills 120470 through 120474 are five pieces of legislation from Seattle Public Utilities, specifically two bills accept land easements and three bills relinquish land easements.

And while we had opened up required public hearings for the three relinquishments there were no public commenters on that.

Those all pass unanimously Council 120477 is about a city compost purchasing agreement that legislation is required by state law and encourages the purchase of locally sourced compost and requires the city to conduct educational outreach Council 120475 is for the Cedar River sockeye hatchery intergovernmental agreement.

This authorizes execution of operations of the hatchery with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Council 120476 is the Duwamish Basin Steward Interlocal Agreement sponsored by Councilmember Herbold.

That would cost share a new Duwamish Basin Salmon Recovery Steward with King County, Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle.

If you have any questions before tomorrow's full council meeting, please reach out to City Council Central Staff, Brian Goodnight covering SPU and Calvin Chow covering Many thanks to the committee members who were able to attend this morning's special meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

This morning, we had two informational items.

We're planning for the regularly scheduled financial audit of Seattle Public Utilities, which is a $1.3 billion enterprise, and that's being done by the independent accounting firm, Moss Adams.

We received an update on one of the city's largest capital projects, the Ship Canal Water Quality Project.

And our next meeting is, the committee will be on January 17. So we're canceling the January 3rd committee meeting and we'll meet again on January 17. That concludes my report.

Any questions before we move forward to Council Member Sawant?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

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

The December 16th regularly scheduled meeting of the committee has been canceled.

Now that committee meetings are restarted following the end of the budget deliberations, the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee will begin considering several renter rights bills addressing issues renters have raised.

I hope the committee will be able to start discussing them in January.

The first bill we will discuss will be a bill limiting the late fees landlords can charge to prevent a cycle of debt where renters fall farther and farther behind.

The city of Auburn limits late fees to $10 a month, which is the standard we would like to set in Seattle as well.

Later in 2023, the committee will discuss legislation improving the enforcement of renter rights laws and legislation for citywide rent control.

Any questions or comments before I pass it on to Council Member Strauss?

I don't see anything, so Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

Let me pull up my notes.

Thank you, everyone.

Let me get the timer going.

OK.

Yeah, OK.

Hold on.

Let me get mine going.

Let's just do this.

I'm really trying to cut it down here.

I've removed colleagues as I said last week I've removed all of my updates that are not very time sensitive to D six, or anything other than on full Council so here we go.

The D six residents watching today I'll be holding my next town hall this Wednesday December 14 Green Lake Community Center, we will begin at 6pm and last until at least 730. Attendees will have the chance to ask me questions in their own words.

I've been hosting these regular in-person town halls.

It's been a really great opportunity to see people and hear directly from them what is most important to D6 residents.

If you're not able to attend, I hold office hours every week and you can sign up on my website.

Also happening today is the Office of Planning and Community Development hosting a D6 open house tonight at 6pm at the Loyal Heights Community Center at 2101 Northwest 77th Street and Sound Transit is hosting an open house over at Lawton Elementary for Interbay and Ballard stations this evening.

Here before full council we have a couple items coming from the land use committee, we held our regular land use committee.

This last week, and we had A number of things that we approved out of our agenda to come before full Council we have an appointment to the equitable development initiative, john Rodriguez he received unanimous approval.

We also have Council bill 120464 the affordable housing design review exemption for 60% am I this bill streamlines the process to ensure affordable housing projects will move through the design review process expediently.

These changes were first passed by council on a one-year basis in April of 2020 as a COVID-19-era emergency legislation.

These emergency regulations were set to expire on December 30th, 2022, 60 days after the COVID-19 emergency proclamation ended.

During the time that this legislation was implemented in our city, we found this policy reduced costs and reduced time for building and making affordable housing operational.

The bill before us tomorrow is a temporary legislation for one year giving us the time to craft the permanent legislation needed.

We are declaring a SIPA emergency, based on the city's homelessness emergency as without adequate how affordable housing.

trends into making homelessness unachievable to address, which is under the threat to public health and safety.

For colleagues that were not on the committee, when we are not able to graduate people out of shelter into affordable or permanent supportive housing, we are not able to get people into shelter.

Just one example that I have for you is that when we have adequate affordable housing and permanent supportive housing, we could make one tiny home be able to serve four people in a year.

Currently it's serving one to two people per year because we're not able to graduate people into a permanent place to live.

When I've worked to address homelessness, whether at Ballard Commons or Woodland Park or many other places, what we find is that shelter is the resource that determines the amount of time it takes to address homelessness.

If we are able to have one tiny home serve four people per year because we have adequate affordable housing, that means we are going to be able to address homelessness more efficiently and with wider scale.

The bill before us tomorrow specifically allows for developments with at least 40% of units affordable to households with no greater than 60% of area median income to opt out of design review.

It does authorize the director of SDCI to waive or modify certain development standards for projects opting out of design review as type one, which means non appealable decisions if the waiver does not one, impact the height bulk or scale of the part of the development or to result in more affordable units.

This also requires us to approve a work program for consideration of permanent changes to the design review program, which is a separate issue entirely.

I want to thank Mayor Harrell and Councilmember Mosqueda for your support.

in getting this legislation done.

Again, this bill is set to help us address homelessness by expediting by making affordable housing built faster and with less cost, which allows us to better use our shelter systems to get people off the streets.

We also have on full counts tomorrow Council Bill 120462, which is the 2022 comprehensive plan amendments.

This is for the annual comprehensive plan, not the major update that will be happening next year.

Many of us, many colleagues had ideas that they wanted included in these annual updates that were asked to be held until the major update.

This legislation.

I was able to introduce an amendment regarding lids, which I discussed in our state legislative agenda.

And there was an opportunity to include that language here as well.

At committee, we discussed the arborist registration bill and Councilmember Peterson.

I just want to let you know that I did meet with the representatives from plant amnesty and other high road arborists today.

Councilmember Peterson, I asked them to meet with you directly as well.

The draft I brought before committee still has significant work that needs to be done before it can be introduced.

So I want to make sure that you have the opportunity to meet with these folks as well.

Because when I asked them to meet, when I was going over the bill with them, it is clear that the final solution is not yet identified.

And so if you meet with them and are able to see the solution more clearly, I'm happy to follow your lead.

Just for one example, one point of confusion is regarding the words major pruning, which has a technical and legal definition.

which is different than what was included in the in the original bill that's closer to the 25% four inch cuts, but the question now becomes do we use a different word to represent the diameter cut in the pruning dose or do we use the technical definition of major pruning.

Just for reference that's one of the questions that we have to unravel so if you see a more clear path to success here happy to follow your lead and I will continue to chew on it as well.

There were also some significant questions about how to post and the.

in order to achieve the outcomes we're trying to achieve.

So if you've got ideas, happy to follow your lead.

I'll continue working through my ideas.

I see pathways forward and what I'm most focused on right now is how do we keep high rate arborists working in the city and how do we help them help us to use posting as a way to prevent less reputable companies engaging in illegal or harmful pruning.

That's the end of the day what I want to see.

So if you've got ideas stemming from that meeting, I'd be happy, I'd be interested to hear them.

Tomorrow on full council, not from the Land Use Committee, we have my bill, the Safe Starts legislation, which is the final step in the pathway to permanency for making outdoor dining a permanent piece of the fabric of Seattle.

This legislation creates that permanent framework for outdoor dining to stay and ensure they remain as part of our city's fabric.

They focus on four elements, equity, safety, access, sustainability, and overall reduce the fees small businesses have to pay to use our right-of-way.

There are some places where it increases the fees.

There's some other secondary fees that I'm still trying to chew on to see if we can't make it more accessible, less expensive.

I will be bringing one amendment because this has been an iterative conversation regarding the deadline for outdoor dining permits that are within historic districts.

My amendment pushes their deadline back by six months, and this really stems from a conversation that I had at the Ballard Historic District meeting, and I asked this question if this was welcome.

The answer back from the historic district was, it doesn't really matter how we have historic district outdoor dining wait, to be repermitted, it just needs to happen.

And so in my conversations with Estad about how do we message to businesses operating in historic districts in not to apply right yet, I just found it more simple to put this amendment forward.

The reason we're putting this amendment forward is because the Ballard Historic District is taking the time right now to help us develop and identify how pergolas need to be built and what they look like in historic districts.

Once we have that information, it will be much easier to permit the pergolas in the historic districts.

And finally, on Resolution 32076, which is the state legislative agenda, colleagues, you all heard I will be bringing an amendment regarding highway and interstate lids as described before.

Thank you, colleagues.

That is my report.

in nine minutes, 10 seconds.

I'm sure if you included the other banter, I would have been way over 10 minutes.

Colleagues, are there any questions?

Lastly, it is my parents' wedding anniversary.

Happy anniversary, Robert and Chris.

Love you all very much.

And I'll pass it over to Council Member Herbold.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

First, starting off with full council items on tomorrow's agenda.

We have Council Bill 12-0469.

This legislation implements a council appropriation of $500,000 that we voted on during the mid-2021 supplemental budget process.

to implement a recommendation of the Inspector General to increase the amount of storage space for evidence.

This bill has been expedited to allow the mayor to sign it by the end of the year.

And on Wednesday of last week, Lisa Kay of Council Central Staff sent council members a memo about this legislation.

Just as a fun fact, the legislation that we voted on in 2021 that allocated, allowed for this $500,000 appropriation was made possible by a council budget proviso on SPD salary savings.

This $500,000 was a small portion of a number of things that the city council and the police department and the executive agreed upon as priorities for use of 2021 salary savings.

Also on full council agenda tomorrow, Council Member Peterson mentioned it, went through his committee.

It is a bill that I sponsored.

It is a bill that works to cost share funding for a Duwamish Basin steward position.

I've been working with WIRA 9, the Watershed Resource Inventory Area, and the port for several years now to get this funding for this position and just really appreciate Council Member Peterson for moving this forward while I was out sick last week.

Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m.

Agenda items include the appointment of Adrian Diaz as Seattle Police Chief.

This is listed for discussion and possible vote.

The appointment packet that was sent by the mayor as well as interim Chief Diaz's responses are included and listed on the agenda.

We shared them with council members well in advance.

And if the committee votes tomorrow, the full council should hear the appointment on January 3. In addition, we're going to be appointing, hopefully we'll be hearing and hopefully voting to appoint a new police commission member.

This is a council appointment.

And we'll be hearing an update from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections and the Office of Emergency Management on the development of their unreinforced masonry program.

This program is, the work is deriving from a resolution I sponsored in the council past last year.

That was Resolution 32033, which establishes the benchmarks for the policy development of this new program.

And then finally, we'll be having a public hearing on the 2023 draft annual HUD Consolidated Action Plan.

A couple other points I'd like to make today.

We've got some news on the public health front.

This afternoon, we were informed that local health officers and healthcare leaders are recommending again, wearing masks indoors.

Seattle County Health Officer Dr. Jeff Duchin has joined other local health officers and health leaders recommend masking in public cases and other prevention measures giving high level of respiratory viruses circulating and stressing hospitals.

Background on this, I think everybody knows that communities across the state, across the U.S. are experiencing a surge in both viral respiratory illnesses, including respiratory Syncytial virus, otherwise known as RSV.

Influenza and COVID-19 health officers and healthcare leaders who are working to improve the health of Washington residents are, again, recommending that we wear high quality, well-fitting masks when around others in indoor spaces to protect against both acquiring and spreading these infections to others.

I met with Dr. Khan, the Seattle King County Public Health Director just this morning, and they have asked for council's help in pushing out this masking message, not only to the general public, but for the neighborhood and downtown business communities as well.

These are, our local businesses are examples of public gathering places where people should beginning to mask again when entering.

Please, everyone who's eligible, stay up to date on your vaccinations.

This is the most important way to protect against severe influenza and COVID infections.

In addition to RSV and influenza, we know that new COVID variants are taking hold, and immunity from past vaccination is waning for many people who have not yet received an updated booster shot.

Unfortunately, in King County, only 26% eligible people have received all of their immunizations through the most current booster.

Everyone six months and older should be vaccinated against these diseases, and everyone who's eligible for an updated booster should get it now.

Another piece of breaking news just in the last couple days, the CDC has expanded the use of updated COVID-19 vaccines for children six months.

through the age of five, six through five years who have previously completed a Moderna primary series are eligible to receive a Moderna bivalent booster two months after their first primary series dose.

And then for the Pfizer, it's the children who are six months through five will receive the Pfizer vaccine booster as their third primary dose.

Just again, the surge in these viruses is creating many illnesses, contributing to rising absenteeism in schools and businesses, and is also impacting the overcrowding of hospitals.

So again, just wanting to take every opportunity to flag this, and I thank everyone for doing what you can to help.

And then moving on to some of the other areas in my committee bailiwick I want to just thank Councilmember Nelson for her report on her visit with local businesses who have been victims of crime.

I want to take this opportunity to flag that the audit that Councilmember Lewis and I sponsored last year on organized retail theft will be delivered in the first quarter of 2023. And I know that we're all eager to learn more about the recommendations from the city auditor to help businesses in all of our respective business districts that I hope will come out of this audit.

as far as attending other meetings for regional committees and committees that I serve on to represent the city.

Last week on Thursday, I attended the Lead Policy Coordinating Group quarterly meeting.

In addition to several report out items, we had our goodbyes to King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, who has been a member of the Lead Policy Coordinating Group for several years.

I also chaired the quarterly Seattle Fire Department board meeting.

This week, I will be chairing the quarterly Seattle Fire Department board meeting.

As far as events coming up this week, well, and last week, last week I attended the OPCD comp plan public meeting in district one at South Seattle College.

This was the first comp plan related public meeting that OPCD has hosted and there'll be several more in other parts of the city over the next couple months.

And I also just wanna flag that I had the privilege last week of going on a short trip to Nantes, France, as part of the Seattle Sister City Program.

I had the privilege and honor to present on a panel with government representatives from the cities of Barcelona, Uagadougou, Anansi, Rennes, and the World Health Organization.

I also had the opportunity to meet with the mayors of Nantes to discuss their participatory budgeting program, their interneutral city designation, their cultural district, and also met with representatives from a landfill business entrepreneur incubator for the engineering sciences and maritime sectors there.

This week, tonight, as a matter of fact, I'm attending a community meeting to discuss Harbor Ave and the Alki neighborhood concerns around dangerous driving activities in that neighborhood and other public safety concerns.

Estat Parks and the police department will be in attendance as well.

Thank them for joining me.

And that's all I have.

Do any of my colleagues have questions or comments for me?

Not seeing any.

Thank you very much.

I'll pass it on to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

I apologize.

It seems like half of my light bulbs are out of my office right now, so I'm also going to take this opportunity to signal that for facilities here on Council briefing.

Good to see everybody here.

Let's jump into some of the final updates here from the end of the year.

Last week, there was a meeting of the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee.

I want to thank Vice Chair Mosqueda for presiding over the meeting in my absence.

More on that at the end of my briefing.

During that meeting, there was a unanimous recommendation for the reappointments that will be on tomorrow's full council agenda of Robert J. Flowers and Katie Garrow as members of the Washington State Convention Center Public Facilities District Board for terms ending in July of 2026. The committee also unanimously recommended passage of Council Bill 120467, which approves a settlement agreement with the Washington State Department of Transportation.

That agreement is a land swap involving parkland associated with the 520 bridge.

I'm happy to talk one-on-one with any members who have additional questions about that legislation and appreciate the committee unanimously passing a recommendation of that agreement.

On tomorrow's introduction referral calendar, I expect some legislation to be referred to the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee for meetings in January.

That would include a measure relating to Benaroyal Hall and repurposing of concession revenue to Benaroyal Hall's capital facilities budget.

I'm planning to hear this legislation as I indicated on January 18th, assuming it is sent to the committee.

Seattle Public Library updates.

Program highlight from the Your Next Job or YNJ program, which began as a pilot in 2020 in response to the immediate crisis of job loss in our community due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to provide a higher level of support to those left out of federal unemployment relief due to barriers, which may include language, literacy and accessibility.

This program through the Seattle Public Library has been a regional partnership with Snow Isle Libraries and King County Library System and the Seattle-King County Work Source System.

Changes have been made to this program after its two-plus years of operation, including contracts with community organization Building Our Bridge, or BOB, and changes to incorporate Amharic, Arabic, Aromo and Tigrinya as additional languages to expand accessibility even further for communities where English may not be a first language in Seattle and King County.

Library hours for the upcoming holidays.

The library will be closed on December 24th, December 25th, and January 1st in observance of the holidays.

And with that colleagues, I just want to close by thanking Council Member Mosqueda for chairing my committee last week.

I also want to thank Council President's Office and the Council President Pro Tems for excusing my absence.

As some colleagues may know, my wife Laura and I welcomed our daughter Vivian Grace Lewis on December 5th.

uh, at 9 0 4 a.m.

Last week.

Uh, so I was, um, I was pretty busy, uh, both, uh, mother and daughter doing very, very well, uh, and do appreciate the support, uh, from the legislative department during this time.

Um, as we, uh, excitedly welcome Vivian into this world and look forward to a 2023 and more work before this council, when we reconvene.

next year.

So thank you so much.

And with that, colleagues, are there any questions on my presentation?

Well, congratulations, Council Member Lewis, you look very rested, I may add.

A little suspicious of that.

I think the lighting is helping in this office to be candid.

So no hurry on getting those bulbs replaced.

And the other good thing is you get the tax write off.

So well done.

Yeah, it was very prescient of Vivian that she had the sense of timing to wait for budget to be over.

And that she also is apparently going to grow up to be an accountant, given the response that you just raised.

So thank you so much.

Congratulations to you and your new family.

Wonderful news.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Council Member Ellis.

Thank you very much.

Mazel Tov Councilmember Lewis, wishing your wife a restful maternity leave.

Are you than me.

It's the only other thing I have to say about that.

Okay, also thank you for the news about the library languages.

Very excited to hear.

As a representative from the South End, I very often hear why we have some things translated into some East African languages, but not others.

So I'm excited to hear that we're starting to remedy that.

Let's see, starting with my committee update.

On Friday last, the Neighborhood Education, Civil Rights and Arts Committee met.

We voted to recommend four appointments, two for the LGBTQ Commission, and two for the Ballard Avenue Landmarks Board.

Those should be included for discussion or consent calendar next week.

We had a hearing as well and discussion on Council Bill 120456, which is an ordinance relating to administrative review procedures for historic preservation districts.

We will discuss this bill again at the next committee meeting on January 27th, where I expect we'll take a vote before bringing it to full Council in early February.

We also discussed Council Bill 120312, an ordinance related to historic preservation.

This is the bill regarding controls on the Seattle First National Building as a landmark in the city.

Colleagues, you'll recall this bill was first discussed, or you may recall, in my committee earlier in the year, in the spring.

At that time, I had delayed a vote because I was struggling to understand what benefit accrues to the city of protecting a one-story building in the middle of a dense neighborhood, especially when we have such a dire need for the rapid production of more housing in the city.

This bill will be coming to full council with a recommendation that it do not pass.

And colleagues, because this bill relates to landmark controls agreed to by the property owner in the city, I have requested an executive session for later today.

Let's see, external committees, King County Public Health, Council Member Herbold already gave the notice that this past weekend, 12 county public health officers did issue a recommendation that we return to indoor masking.

I won't repeat the information that Council Member Herbold provided except to say that it is not just COVID and RSV, it is also the flu.

Folks are referring to this as the triple-demic.

And the flu in particular is very dangerous for children under five, for adults over 65, those who are pregnant or living with an underlying condition like asthma or diabetes or heart disease.

So it is very important that folks get vaccinated.

get your COVID booster if you haven't already, and please make sure that you're staying safe and keeping the rest of our community safe.

One other health-related item I want to mention, as the Council Member with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in my committee, I do want to note that thanks to the hard work of our state partners and immigrant rights advocates, the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Treasury last week approved the first state innovation waiver under Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act.

What that means for us is that starting in 2024, all Washingtonians, regardless of immigrant status, so including folks who are undocumented, will be able to get health and dental coverage through Washington Health Pathfinder.

and access to the cascade care savings.

So this is a really important shift in changing access to healthcare for folks in our state.

And I'm really happy to know that particularly folks who are undocumented will be able to have access to affordable quality care.

Let's see, tomorrow at our full council meeting, as council president mentioned, I'll be bringing a resolution to endorse the legislative department's racial equity work plan.

The legislative department's change team has been working hard on this work plan to shift the department's culture.

And the plan is complete.

The change team has been working really hard and they're eager to begin work.

So we will have a vote on that tomorrow and I look forward to your support.

And then just a couple last things in district.

Last week, I attended the YouthBuild graduation of 10 young people at the Georgetown campus of Seattle Colleges.

If you don't know, YouthBuild is a pre-apprenticeship construction trade program that is certified by the state.

This is run out of South Seattle College's Georgetown campus.

Of the 260 nationally affiliated YouthBuild programs across the country, Youth Cares Youth Build here in Seattle is the only one specifically recruit young people who are experiencing homelessness.

So I want to congratulate all 10 students.

Their teachers did a great job highlighting the hard work that they were doing over the last six months.

They have completed their GEDs.

They went through a six-month program that can now help them get into union apprenticeships in the construction trades.

So it's very exciting to see that our young people, particularly our young people who are experiencing homelessness, have a pathway to stability and to, very importantly, get the skills and education and the training that they need to be able to provide for themselves and their families in the future.

We will continue to work in my office with YouthBuild to refine our Green Building Apprenticeship Program legislation that we began talking about this year, and I'm looking forward to continuing that discussion next year and moving that policy again to see if we can help expand options for these young people.

Lastly, I want to end by reminding colleagues that no less than 15 people walking, biking, and rolling were hit by people driving on our streets this weekend.

This weekend, 15 people.

That feels like a real emergency to me.

I'm glad to see that our advocacy is happening at the state level as it relates to reducing pedestrian traffic violence.

I'm really hoping that we can have just one weekend with zero fatalities or injuries caused by people driving in 2023. I look forward to continuing to work with SDOT on their upcoming Vision Zero action plan and just really want to remind all of us, remind the viewing public that People are trying to navigate their neighborhoods.

It's rainy, it's dark, very early in the day.

And so please slow down.

And remember that there are other people trying to get around their neighborhoods who are not in cars.

And by the way, this information is really being tracked by one journalist in particular, Ryan Packer.

I'm hoping that we can address this crisis with the same kind of urgency that we showed in addressing the West Seattle Bridge.

And I'm hoping that Ryan can really drop this as a beat next year.

He covers a lot of other transportation issues that are very important.

I'm hoping he can spend his energy covering things besides traffic fatalities.

That is all I have, council members.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Are there any questions for Council Member Ross before I wrap this up and we go to executive session?

All right, not seeing any.

I have a few items and I will be brief.

I will start with my committee, the Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

There are no items from my committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

Our committee meeting, which was scheduled for Thursday, December 15th, is canceled.

And the next meeting, the Tribal Governance Native Communities is January 19th, that's a Thursday, 2023. Going into last week, last week we met with representatives from the Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People's Task Force.

This meeting included representatives from the Seattle Police Department and the mayor's office to discuss local implementation of the state's new MMIP alert system.

Second, we met with our new superintendent of parks, AP Diaz, to discuss not only the citywide issues, D5 issues, but also the cleanup, focus on community centers, the new community centers that are coming online, the recently passed Metropolitan Park District, the six year plan, and some of the budget items that we wanted to see citywide as well as within the district.

Coming up this week tomorrow, we have the twenty twenty two annual employee service recognition at 10 a.m., which I will be attending.

This will be a virtual gathering to recognize council employees for their service to the city.

Everyone is invited to celebrate the hard work and dedication of staff We have achieved a service milestone in the legislative department, the Office of the City Auditor, and the Office of Inspector General.

Next, on Thursday, we will be attending both the Sound Transit Board meeting and the Seattle Chamber's public officials reception.

I don't know about the second one.

I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Anywho, once again, all committees will be standing down the last two weeks of December.

The first council meeting of the new year will be Tuesday, January 3rd at 2 p.m.

That concludes my portion of what I had to share with y'all.

Next, we are going to go into executive session.

We have two matters, and I'm going to go ahead and read into the record the official language to bring us into the executive session and just stay where you're at.

There's not, my understanding, there's not a separate call in, call in number.

If there's no further business, we will move to the executive session.

Hearing no further business, we will now move into executive session.

As presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into two executive sessions.

Purpose of the executive session is to discuss real estate, a real estate transaction and pending potential or actual litigation.

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

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

I expect the time of the executive session to end by.

Madam Clerk, you might have to help me on this.

If we're going to do 20 minutes each, should I say three, four, what time would that be?

Good afternoon, it looks like that would land us at about.

If I'm doing my math correctly, 40 minutes, so that would be for.

Oh, eight, so let's say for ten for 18. Oh, for so then we'll say for 20. OK, thank you.

OK, so we'll go in and we'll we'll we'll come out of executive session unless I need to extend it for 20. As I shared, if it needs to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.

At the conclusion of the executive session, executive sessions, this council briefing will automatically be adjourned.

The next regularly scheduled council meeting is scheduled for January 9th, 2023 at 2 o'clock p.m.

The council is now in executive session.

Thank you.