Good afternoon.
It's 2.08 p.m.
on February 26, 2019. This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renter's Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.
I'm joined by Council President Harrell and Councilmember Juarez.
Thank you for being here.
I expect today's meeting will be quite efficient.
The three items on the agenda are all appointments to the Seattle Renters Commission, so we will take them up together.
Michael Ocampo is being reappointed to a second term on the commission, and Gina Owens and Calvin Jones are being appointed to first terms, although Calvin Jones has just finished serving on the commission as the Get Engaged youth member.
There is another spot in the renters commission that the council has the authority to fill and that recently became vacant.
So if anybody who's watching on Seattle channel or is present here in chambers is interested in applying, please feel free to do so through the Department of Neighborhoods website.
As always, please feel free to contact my office at any time.
Additionally, there are three mayoral appointments to the commission that are up for reappointment.
So we expect to get those from the executive soon.
And I believe there's also a vacancy in the commission that the mayor has the authority to fill.
Before we bring our presenters to the table, We do have public comments, so Ted from my office will be reading out the names.
And each speaker will have two minutes.
There are four people signed up for public comment.
Alex Zimmerman, followed by Brandon Macias, followed by Demias Durazan.
Alex, you're up.
I want to talk about people who you appoint.
For the last 10 years, I mean all commissioners.
The people who you appoint is nothing different from you.
All have only personal interests.
Nobody cares about what is happening.
Nobody cares about 700,000 people.
I'll give you a very interesting example.
11 o'clock, I am City Light Commissioner and Chair and Boss and Director Schmidt present.
It's very unusual.
It's exactly what as I talk to you sound.
Yes, exactly to you and to this crook, another eight crook too.
We need in every commission present a director.
This makes the situation totally different.
I'm talking about this hundred times.
Last time you're talking about this human service director who you don't like this, he cannot qualify.
It's very simple.
When every director have Q&A, when every director present, like CTLI director Schmidt present, you know what it means now, it will be a totally different situation.
It's very simple.
The costs are not penny.
But this means you employ people, me, and another 700,000 freaking idiot will control you.
Maybe there will be something changed.
And you never did this.
No one from this dirty crooks who sit in this chamber talking about this.
Simple.
It's simple business.
It's exactly what they're talking.
And another point, why you cannot open Bertha room?
is have 200 meeting government who cost us $10 million per year.
And I spoke about this everywhere.
And Mosqueda promised us doing this.
She a liar and a crook.
Together with you, doing this very simple.
We need something from director.
Stand up, Seattle.
Thank you.
Brandon and Demias, followed by Sochi.
Good afternoon, Council.
My name is Demias de Ronzans.
To my right is Brandon Macias.
We also have Mr. Denard and Mr. Gaspard here with us today.
We are previous employees of Share Wheel.
We're coming before this committee today on issues that I think are really pertinent, especially to this committee and others that we've talked to before.
Human Services holds a contract with ShareWheel to operate multiple shelters throughout the city.
We have all been aware of several miscomings and several misgivings that they have presented to HST and other services.
I've reached out to Mary Flower to try and present some of this information and address some of the misuse of public funds among other things.
I've also reached out to multiple council members, including today's chair, Ms. Sawant.
Bruce Harrell's office has actually been able to respond and assist me.
I've been able to finally get a hold of Ms. Skater's office to have them assist me in reaching out to the appropriate offices, as well as Ms. Herbold is hopefully going to get back to me soon.
We are also here because Renters' Rights Commission might be some people that we might need to address in the near future.
We are currently dealing with misuse of an Office of Housing Levy Agreement location that has some major misuse of, again, those public funds and the intent and purpose of that land use.
So overall, my hope is to be able to talk with more council members that are in charge of these multiple committees that is really pertinent to them.
And again, I really want to say thank you to Mr. Harrell's office for getting back to me so expediently and being so open to assist me.
The four of us here today have dealt with SHARE for quite a long time now.
Ms. Macias, to my right, have been with SHARE for over a year.
We've been present for multiple issues.
We've been employees on the inside.
And now we're dealing with discrimination, retaliation, issues with reporting.
If we bring up anything, we've faced lots of blowback and other issues.
Again, the issues with trying to talk with Don Foley at the Office of Housing, Mary Flowers, who's in charge of that contract for operations of that location.
It has made it really difficult to try and have an efficient way to have outreach to the city.
My hope is that the City Council will take some notice of some of these issues going on, talk with us, find out about these misuses, and hopefully help us put a stop to some of the abuse of city funds, abuse of levy agreements, and abuse of the use of land that is really relevant.
I have some questions today for the potential appointees to the Renters Commission is how can we talk to them?
What kind of issues will they be able to address?
And how can we ultimately work with them to try and, you know, give some advice to the city on some of these issues that are really relevant to us?
My hope is that they can answer, would you be open to talking with us?
Would you be willing to hear some of these concerns?
And would you be willing to work with us with current policies, current issues, and help us address to the Council and other agencies as necessary and relevant?
I really want to again say thank you so much for your time today and hopefully in the near future I can talk with you more and possibly solve a lot of these issues that the city is facing.
Thank you for testifying, and of course, we'll be happy to discuss with you.
Feel free to give your account information, Ted, or either way, let's follow up.
And as far as if you want to get in touch with the Renters Commission, the commissioners are extremely dedicated and they care about the issues.
So I have no doubt that you can attend a meeting and discuss if you want to present something or whatever.
And my office is happy to help you in that process as well.
Final speaker is Xochitl Maykowicz.
Hi, my name is Xochitl Maykowicz, and I'm with Washington Community Action Network.
And I'm just testifying in support of the appointment of Gina Owens to the Renters Commission.
So I've known Gina for about five years, which, man, that's a long time.
Anyway.
And she is definitely someone who's incredibly inspiring to me and has made me a better organizer and helped me develop the skills necessary to organize people.
When I first met Gina, we were working on a campaign around medical debt at Swedish.
And she, just working with her and learning from her on how to both work with people to develop ways to challenge institutions.
I just remember a lot of conversations when we got to the point of like being across the table from executives from Swedish, she was someone who held the ground and really pushed and challenged them.
and we were able to win that campaign.
She's someone that worked really close, like the reason why Washington Can is working on housing at all is because of Gina.
And so I would say, I would say that pretty much the fact that we're about to pass eviction reform in the state of Washington, you could trace back to Gina harassing me three years ago about like, when are we gonna start working on housing?
So I am just super happy that she's up for this appointment and I hope that the council appoints her to this commission and be prepared for another person to be harassing all of you to work on more things, so.
Thank you.
I don't, as you know, so I don't see that as harassment.
I see that as part of the movement we are building.
And I would echo everything you said about Gina.
And can I say also personally, I was so delighted when Ted informed me that Gina had agreed to set up the commission.
So, cat's out of the bag.
I'm going to vote yes.
So, would the presenters please come to the table?
And I, so we don't have Calvin Jones here today, is that right?
Right, I think there's somebody from the Department of Neighborhoods.
Please, yeah.
Welcome, both of you.
And if you could state your name and organization just for the record as an introduction, and then we can take the discussion.
Ted Rodone, Councilmember Suan's office.
Gina Owens, Washington County.
Hi, my name is Wang Wang, and I'm the External Affairs Division Director at Department of Neighborhoods.
Thank you for being here.
Did you want to speak?
Excuse me?
Did you want to speak?
Oh, sure.
Thank you.
I'm pleased to be here in place of Maureen Sheenan, who is Dawn's Seattle Renters Commission Coordinator.
As you know, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to establish the Seattle Renters Commission in March 2017. The purpose of the Seattle Renters Commission is to advise the Mayor and City Council on issues and policies of importance to renters citywide.
I am pleased to be here today to introduce our two nominees for reappointment to a second term of the Seattle Renters Commission.
First is Kelvin Jones, who came to the commission through the Get Engaged program and has continued to actively work on issues important to the commission, including mandatory housing affordability, advising SDCI on the renter portal, and affordable housing at Fort Lawton.
I'm pleased to welcome Kelvin back to the commission as a council-appointed commissioner.
Kelvin asked to share the following remarks as he couldn't be here today.
He said, I'm humbled by the opportunity to continue to serve on the Seattle Renters Commission and appreciate council's commitment to community feedback.
You're all doing an amazing job, and I'm looking forward to working with you to make every part of Seattle affordable and inclusive for all renters.
Thank you.
Should I do the next nominee?
How about, yeah, let's have Gina speak a little bit, but I appreciate that statement from Calvin.
Please let him know.
Thank you for this great opportunity, Shama and Mr. Harrell and Ms. Juarez.
I didn't do a speech because I feel like housing is one of those things that I just talk about how it has made me feel.
I don't need a speech for that.
So I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.
There are a lot of things within the rental issues that I have been made aware of for many years, and I really feel like this is a great opportunity because people in the rental world need a voice at the table, and that's who I am and will be.
for the commission.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Council members, would you like to say a few things?
One is I think Gina's work with the Housing Authority and the Renters Commission would be invaluable with her experiences in the policy advice she's given and the hands-on sort of grassroots work that she's doing is going to be a great thing for the Commission.
What I found interesting in Calvin's background, I don't know if you looked at it, but my goodness gracious, she's got a math degree in theoretical mathematics here from Yale and another degree in I mean, a BA in theoretical mathematics with a 3.9 GPA.
So I'm hoping that he could be an incredible tool in looking at some of the math involved in terms of rental trends.
One of the things that astounds me in Seattle is I think we now have like 51, 52% renters now.
I think it's gone up.
It went from a minority to a majority of renters.
And I've always been curious as to who, sort of the breakdown in terms of who owns all this rental property.
I've been told but not proven that there's a lot of real estate investment trusts, people that anticipated trends 15 years ago that the rents are going to be extremely high and we're going to have this influx of workers that could pay higher rents that a lot of people got way in front of the investment game.
And Reid sometimes may own 20, 30, 40 pieces of single family homes.
But I don't know if that's the case.
And with his analytical skills, maybe on the commission they could, you know, someone like that could sort of use that as an advantage to sort of look at the, I mean, we all know the rent's escalating, but he probably could do more analytical work than that.
It should be a great team.
We got both the analytical theory and then the grassroots activists should be a pretty powerful combination here.
So I look forward to supporting everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, Gina.
I've seen you many times and you've been here providing public comment on housing issues.
I just want to ask you two things.
What district do you live in?
37. Number 7?
District 7?
No, it's the 37th legislative district.
Do you know what city district you live in?
City district?
What neighborhood do you live in?
I live in Central District.
Okay, so you're in District 3 because that wasn't noted on your thing.
So I know that you've been around, it says in here that you've been working for 18 years on the housing and landlord issues and tenant issues.
I just on a personal note wanted to know what got you interested in doing this and because it's obviously a lot of it is volunteer and why you remain so committed and why you want to keep doing this work.
I think it's from actually living on both sides of the track.
On one side of the track I was married and we had a really decent combined income and we never wanted for anything.
After a divorce and some other issues I had, I found myself struggling to make ends meet.
And then I was in a car accident and deemed disabled.
I lost my apartment because I didn't have an income.
You know, spirals made me really look at things that I was facing.
And housing and health care are two things that I work really hard to help people achieve because they are basic necessities.
Housing is one of my babies.
I fought with Washington County to get housing issues worked on.
So yeah.
I just want to thank you because there's so many people like you in this city that volunteer for these committees and then all the renters that are so dedicated to these issues and you know you don't come here and complain you actually offer solutions you know you build community you represent community and you're a part of the solution and I really appreciate that so I'm hoping that I'll be voting yes for you today as well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Excuse me, thank you.
I'd like to then introduce and nominate Michael Okempo.
Michael Okempo will be starting his second term on the Commission.
He brings to the Commission the ability to take words into action and a balanced approach to building consensus on the Commission.
He is a member of the Renter Protections Workgroup and I'm pleased to nominate Michael to a second term on the Commission.
Thank you.
And just to clarify, with the appointments, it's a little strange.
So Michael is a straight up reappointment.
For Calvin, he was the get engaged one, which is a one year term, specifically for youth.
It doesn't count as a reappointment?
It technically counts as a first term appointment to a council appointed seat.
Where does Mr. Jones live?
What district does he represent?
I know it's not noted on there.
District 3. And they are noted on the cover sheet if you look at the residential neighborhood.
I saw that thing.
Where?
I didn't see it on any of them.
It says residential neighborhood.
Yeah, except for Michael's I can see, but Calvin's is left blank and Regina's was left blank.
Am I looking at the wrong one?
So if you look at the cover sheet, it says residential neighborhood and it says right there.
Oh, I see now.
For Calvin it says District 3 and for Michael Ocampo it says Greenwood.
You stuck it in there, Ted.
I didn't even see that.
The reason why I'm asking is because we have one representative from D5, and I know you have an open seat.
So I just wanted to see what the balance was.
Yeah, no, we're happy.
I want to get some more people, because we're at 51% renters and 49% homeowners.
And we're looking at a lot of density and growth.
And we have a lot of renters.
And so I want to be able to create that last seat.
No, it would be great to have somebody from D5.
And if you have somebody in mind, please let us know.
And we'll also keep a lookout.
I have my mom.
If she wants to serve, then I'm happy to do that.
We didn't read the items for the record, but I will go ahead and move appointment 01262. This is appointment of Calvin R. Jones as member Seattle Renters Commission for a term to February 28th, 2020. Thank you.
All in favor, please say aye.
Aye.
That passes unanimously.
Then item number two is appointment 01263, appointment of Regina Owens as member of Seattle Renters Commission for a term to February 28, 2021. Second.
Thank you.
All in favor, please say aye.
Aye.
That passes unanimously.
And then item number three is appointment 01264, reappointment of Michael Padilla Ocampo as member of Seattle Renters Commission for a term to February 28, 2021. Second.
Thank you.
All in favor, please say aye.
Aye.
So all appointments pass unanimously and they will come to the full council on March 4th.
Is that right?
Okay.
And for Calvin and Gina, you don't have to be present at the full council on March 4th, but if you would like to, you would be most welcome.
So, you know, my office will follow up with you on that.
So to your point, Council Member Juarez, I'm looking at the districts now.
So there's one district five.
I don't see any district twos.
There's one, two, three, four, five, six district threes.
They're pretty heavy with district threes.
one district seven, so it'd be nice to get a little more spread out.
I totally agree, yeah.
Unfortunately, sometimes we are...
I've been guilty of that too, so...
No, no, no, absolutely.
I think all districts should be represented.
It's also a question of who is willing to serve.
Like, many times we ask and then individuals are busy or they're, for other reasons, unable to serve because it's a time commitment of us, you know, some kind.
So, yeah.
So, please, you know, we would welcome any suggestions from your offices.
Yeah, we have two more spots.
Two more spots open.
I'll have to check on that.
I don't know.
I'm just looking at charts.
So, maybe there's two spots.
So, we'll get some twos in there.
Yeah.
All right.
No more fives.
You got one five.
That's enough.
Thank you very much for everybody who came today.
And thank you, Gina.
And please convey our thanks to Michael and Calvin.
And there are no more items unless there are any comments.
Meeting adjourned.
Thank you.