Seattle City Council 1/7/2019

Good afternoon.

Thank you for being here.

The January 7, 2019 City Council meeting of the full Seattle City Council will come to order.

It's 2 o'clock p.m.

I'm Bruce Harrell, President of the Council.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Here.

Herbold.

Johnson.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Mosqueda.

O'Brien.

Here.

President Harrell.

Here.

Five present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, Council Members Herbold and Mosqueda will be excused from today's meeting.

Hearing no objection, Council Members Herbold and Mosqueda are excused.

At this point, I'll move to adopt the introduction and referral calendar.

Are there any comments?

I do have an amendment I'd like to make.

Before I do that, I'll have to suspend the rules.

If there's no objection, Council Rule 3A6 relating to the distribution of a resolution for introduction and adoption by 5 p.m.

the preceding business day will be suspended to allow consideration of a resolution for introduction and adoption.

Hearing no objection, the Council Rule is suspended.

Just for the viewing audience, I'll get into the substance of the resolution when we speak about it.

But we were on break for a few weeks, and we didn't have the ability to get this in front of the public before 5 o'clock.

And it's sort of an administrative resolution to begin with, so we suspended it to allow its consideration today.

So that's what we're doing here, to be open and transparent.

So if that's the case, I will move to amend the proposed introduction and referral calendar by introducing Resolution 31859, entitled, A Resolution Relating to Committee Structure, Membership, Meeting Times, and Duties of the Standing Committees of the Seattle City Council for 2018 and 2019, Allowing for Temporarily Changing the Committee Meeting Times, and superseding Resolution 31789, and by referring it to the City Council for adoption at today's meeting.

Is there a second?

Okay.

Those in favor of the amendment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

Motion carries.

And if there's no further discussion, those in favor of adopting the introduction referral calendar as amended, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the introduction referral calendar is adopted as amended.

Okay.

If there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

There are no minutes for approval today.

Presentations.

I do not believe we have any presentations this afternoon.

Public comment.

At this time, we're always pleased to take public comment on an item that appears on today's agenda or our introduction referral calendar or our work program and so we'll extend public comment for 20 minutes and have two minute allotments for speakers and we have first sign up Mr. Alex Zimmerman followed by the Honorable Michael Fuller.

Happy New Year, my Consul.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

And our next speaker will be the Honorable Michael Fuller.

Yes, as I continue in prayer, my condolences go out to George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush.

who was the 41st, well, he was in the United States Navy during World War II, also the 41st President of the United States, and also the signing of the America with Disability Act, July 26th of 1990, and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 1973. that's not being enforced by the City Council.

And also the violations of Chapter 42, 42.30, Open Meeting Act.

Bruce, you are abusing your authority and power over we the people, where you feel that you can have the right to discriminate under our first amendment right due process equal protection of our 14th amendment rights and procedure due process and substantive due process.

which is a breach of contract, breach of trust with fraudulent intent and fraudulent dishonest act and 1962d conspiracy and section 241 conspiracy against civil rights under color of law violation which carries 10 years in prison $250,000 fine, three years supervised release and a hundred dollars assessment ends up evading the rights under color of law uh one year in prison $250,000 fine three years supervised release and $100 assessment and the violation of the Title IX of the Federal Funding Act of 2000 and that Federal Immigration Reform Act of 1986 that was signed by President Ronald Reagan that's not being enforced and also the violation Black Lives Matter.

This is not the changes or the dreams.

Black Lives Matter.

Thank you, honorable.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir.

So, Honorable, I gotta have you stop now.

Honorable, you're disrupting the meeting?

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

I understand.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, sir.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, we will end public comment.

Thank you for your comments.

And I'll move to the payment of the bills.

So please read, we have three, so let's please read the titles separately.

Council Bill 119435, a property in mind to pay certain claims in order and payment thereof.

So I'll move to pass Council Bill 119435. Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Baxhaw.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Five in favor and then opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please read the second one.

Council Bill 119436, appropriating money to pay settlement claims and ordering the payment thereof.

I move to pass Council Bill 119436. It's been moved and seconded.

Any further comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bageslaw.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Five in favor, nine opposed.

The bill passes on the chair of the Senate.

Please read the third one.

Council Bill 119438, appropriating money to pay settlement claims and ordering the payment thereof.

I move to pass Council Bill 119438. It's been moved and seconded.

Any further comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Just one sec here.

Okay, let's move to committee reports.

Please read the first agenda item.

The report of the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee, agenda item one, Council Bill 119427, relating to the regulation of the for hire industry, removing certain considerations between an exclusive driver representative and the Director of Finance and Administrative Services, amending section 6.310.735 of the Seattle Municipal Code, and repealing rules and regulations to the extent they are inconsistent with this ordinance.

Committee recommends it will pass.

Thank you very much.

I'll say a few opening words about what this bill is doing, and then certainly turn it over to Council Member O'Brien, who's shown just strong leadership in this area.

So our goal in this legislation has always been to put the city of Seattle in the best position to address the issue of what we consider fair compensation to all TNC, taxi, and for hire drivers, without compromising the ability of these companies themselves to thrive in a competitive marketplace.

In light of ongoing litigation, we are amending ordinance 124968, which provides counts with most flexibility and options directly and efficiently to address the issue of driver compensation.

The ordinance we passed in 2015 As many of you know have been has been tied up in court and our introduction of this bill 1 1 9 4 2 7 we think is Common-sensibly allows us to look at all options on the table regarding driver compensation without any more additional litigation delays Again just by way of background in December 2015 you may recall that we passed an ordinance again under councilmember Brian's leadership and many of us looking at these issues and relating to the regulation of the transportation and for hire industry, under which for hire drivers could determine whether or not to engage in collective negotiations over various terms with companies who contract with those drivers.

Examples being Uber, Lyft, and taxi companies, and among other things, the ordinance that we did pass.

I listed certain subjects to be collectively negotiated including best practices relative to vehicle equipment standards, safe driving practices, criminal background checks, the nature and amount of payments made to or withheld from drivers.

hours and conditions of work, et cetera.

So I was one of the many council members in support of this.

And again, the legislation today are just removing as a subject of bargaining the nature and amount of payments received by or withheld from drivers.

And there's a few other technical corrections, but nothing substantive in nature.

So that's what we hope to do today.

And Council Member O'Brien, I hope I left you something to say, but there I'll turn it over to you.

Council President, you did a great job of summarizing that, so you didn't leave me much to say, but I appreciate your support and strong words for this.

I also support this legislation.

I'll just reiterate that by taking this action, we still as a body reserve the right to set fares and standards like we do for other parts of the industry.

There's no plan at the moment to do that, but it's something that we might consider going in the future.

But again, as you said, just to reiterate, this still leaves most of the terms of employment, or work, I should say, for these independent contractors to be subject to the collective bargaining agreement.

It just takes this one item out, as you mentioned.

Any comments from any of our colleagues?

And I'll just say sort of in closing that, as many of these TNC companies sort of struggle or are in many cities throughout this country, and actually across the world, with what a regulatory framework looks like, I'm really optimistic that we can figure this out in Seattle, that what's fair to both the drivers those whether the part-time or full-time and to the companies themselves to allow competitive choices that we could figure out what a healthy regulatory scheme looks like here.

And again, maybe other cities in this country could sort of follow our lead and that's the work we're going to do this year and I look forward to it.

Could I just ask about the schedule?

What do you anticipate, and when do you think we would have something for review?

Yeah, I knew I shouldn't have talked that much, then I was going to get hit with a question.

I'm optimistic that first quarter this year we'll be firing up the committee and looking at these issues.

We're still struggling with some issues on how to get some of the data that we want and the executives on board also assisting us trying to get data on the types of rides and the number of rides in certain areas of the city because there are other issues in addition to the compensation of the drivers that we're concerned about with how our streets look.

But I anticipate first quarter this year we'll be doing some work on it.

Okay, having said that, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Five in favor and opposed.

Bill passed and the Chair will sign it.

Please read the next agenda item.

The report of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee agenda item 2, Council Bill 119415 relating to city streets.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

So this ordinance will change the name of a couple streets in Seattle.

A couple different reasons.

The first one is changing Northwest 113th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue Northwest to Northwest 112th Place.

This is to be consistent with the addressing that happens along, I believe, 1st Avenue Northwest.

The second is renaming of an alley in the Chinatown International District.

consistent with practice that Canton Alley has been, and Maynard Alley, sorry, two alleys, and Chinatown International for the practice of what they've been called.

I want to be clear for the folks that these changes do not affect anyone's address, as no one has an address on these streets, so no one will be required to redo that.

And in committee, we didn't hear any concerns about this.

Very good.

Any questions or comments?

Okay, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw.

Aye.

Johnson.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Bill passed and shared with Senate.

Please read agenda item number three.

Agenda item 3, Council Bill 119416 relating to the State Route 520 project authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with the State of Washington to set forth roles and responsibilities and establish a method for reimbursing costs where applicable to operate and maintain the infrastructure constructed as part of the State of Washington State Route 520 project.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member Bryan.

Thank you.

So the next phase of this project is about to get underway.

That phase will include the approach segment between Montlake and the floating structure on the, what direction, the south side.

So the west, that would be the eastbound traffic.

Both lanes will be, both east and westbound will be diverted to the new structure that was completed a couple years ago.

the north approach bridge.

And then also, perhaps most importantly for the community immediately around there is the lid and open space that'll be part of that project.

What this ordinance does is it lays out in significant detail the responsibility of which parts of that project the state and the city are responsible for.

Beyond just the cost, but who will be making decisions, design decisions and maintenance decisions as we move forward and where those lines will be drawn.

It's something that took a lot of work to do this, but by getting this done in advance of this project getting underway, I believe will help streamline the process and allow for a much better outcome at the end of the project.

Thank you very much.

Any further questions?

Council Member Johnson.

I just want to reiterate something for my colleagues that I said in committee, which is this agreement is a great agreement.

The continued work around the 520 bridge as it moves to the west, I think is going to be really critical for mobility.

And one of the challenges that we have right now is that the current schedule has the second bascule bridge in the Montlake area being constructed after the Portage Bay bridge is complete.

and so for all intents and purposes that would mean we're going to do a bunch of construction in Montlake.

We're going to move that construction from Montlake to the Portage Bay Bridge and then to Eastlake and then come back around and do more construction in Montlake of the second bascule bridge.

I've asked WSDOT to strongly consider front loading that second bascule bridge so we conclude the construction of Montlake and then go further to the west.

It's not part of this agreement.

It was never intended to be part of this agreement but I think it's a matter of construction management for the State Department of Transportation and hope that they will continue to make progress in that fashion so that we don't have Mott Lake take a seven-year reprieve from construction and then have construction come back around to their neighborhood again.

Very good.

Any further comments?

If not, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw?

Aye.

Johnson?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

President Harrell?

Aye.

Five in favor, nine opposed.

The bill passed and the chair will sign it.

Please read the next agenda item.

Agenda item four, Council Bill 119417 relating to the South Landers Street grade separation project.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member O'Brien.

I think folks are generally familiar with a major project that is currently underway at Lander Street.

This is a new overpass that we're building with support of a variety of funding sources that has been in the works for probably decades to connect east-west through Soto without being held up by numerous railroad crossings that Lander goes over.

This particular ordinance purchases some very small parcels of private land around the interchange of Lander and 4th to allow where that project sets down.

I don't have the exact number of square footage in front of me, but it's a little over $100,000 we'll spend to acquire the private property there to make sure that that intersection meets the design guidelines we're trying to achieve.

Very good.

Any questions or comments?

Council Member Baxall.

Two questions.

What's the schedule on this in terms of completion date?

And secondly, do you happen to know whether BNSF has come back to us in response to a question?

And I've asked it multiple times if they will tell us when their trains are coming through.

And I know initially that they said, well, we don't have to tell you because the feds don't require it.

But as we're coming through our time of maximum constraint, if people just know when those trains are coming through, it could be really helpful.

And I'm not asking what cargo they're carrying.

I'm just saying, would you tell us when those trains are coming through and when we can expect to have these intersections clogged?

It would be very helpful.

Council Member Bakeshaw, I do not have the exact opening date of that project in front of me.

But there's a, I believe, at least a year to go until it's open.

So part of the period of maximum constraint or the Seattle squeeze that we will, I guess, start facing today and see a significant uptick in a week, this project is one of the many projects that's going on that will affect that.

But I'd be happy to find out an exact opening date and get back to you.

It doesn't even have to be exact, just quarter.

Sure.

And then I share your frustration about some of the concerns we've had about timings, you know, originally specifically around oil trains and when they're coming through our city.

And I have not heard any new information from BNSF as far as willingness to share that information, either for traffic concerns or safety concerns.

So I just would like to just reemphasize, and if anybody from BNSF is listening, how important and valuable it is and would be to the city of Seattle if we knew when the trains were coming through.

And it strikes me with all of the technology we have, like Waze for roads, that that shouldn't be that difficult for us to identify and to get that information.

Great.

Very good.

What's that?

Early 2020. What is going to be early 2020?

The opening of Lander Street is about a year from now.

About a year from now, early 2020. Thank you.

Okay, if there are no further questions, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Bagshaw?

Aye.

Johnson?

Aye.

Moraes?

Aye.

O'Brien?

Aye.

President Harrell?

Aye.

Five in favor, nine opposed.

The bill passed and the chair is silent.

Please read agenda items 5 through 11.

Agenda items five through 11, appointments 1062, 1209, and 1210, and appointments 1225 through 1228. Appointment of Michelle Ziedeman as a member of Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2019, and appointments and reappointments of Barbara A. Wright, Kaiko Buda, Elizabeth Lynn Hubbard, Marcy Carpenter, Ingenina Day, and Andrew P. Martin as members of Seattle Transit Advisory Board for a term to August 2nd, 2020. The committee recommends these appointments be confirmed.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

I gotta say I'm really excited about this crew, a couple returning and a bunch of new volunteers willing to serve on the Seattle Transit Advisory Board.

Just stating what you all know, but for the public, Seattle is really leading the nation as folks are shifting modes to public transit.

And obviously, we need more because what we see is a lot of our transit options are very full, especially during rush hour.

And I imagine during the next three weeks, as that Seattle squeeze kicks off, we're gonna see it even more.

But there's a group of folks that are really dedicated to making sure that we're maximizing our transit system and making sure it works for everyone.

Really briefly, Michelle is a transit commuter, currently works at the Brainerd Foundation.

Barbara, many of you probably know Barbara Wright, a long-time transit advocate and public health expert.

She's also previously served on transportation levy oversight committees.

Kaiko was a Get Engaged member of the Planning Commission previously and now works at Transportation Choices Coalition.

Lynn has a certificate in sustainable transportation and serves on a number of local boards.

Marcy is a lifelong advocate and current president of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington.

Angelia is a transportation planner with expertise in multimodal corridor planning.

We have a lot of that coming up.

Andrew is a reappointment, currently the vice chair and a longtime transit advocate and works as a data scientist at Zillow.

Very good.

Any questions or comments?

Those in favor of confirming the appointments, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, vote no.

The motion carries and the appointments are confirmed.

Please read agenda item number 12.

Agenda item 12, appointment 1174, appointment of Selena Rinez, member of Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board for term to August 31st, 2020. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Council Member O'Brien.

Selina's appointment comes up after a slate of appointments we did at the end of last year.

Selina was unable to make it to the original committee meeting, so had a chance to meet with them right before the recess.

Selina works at Transportation Choices Coalition.

Previously, they worked at Bike Works, and they are a multimodal transportation user.

Very good.

Any questions or comments?

If not, those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, vote no.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Please read agenda item number 13.

Agenda item 13, appointment 1211, appointment of John, excuse me, Ron John Postumo as member, levy to move Seattle Oversight Committee for term to December 31st, 2021. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Very good, Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

Ron has a quite extensive career working in transit, has worked both at the Federal Transit Administration and King County Metro.

He also previously served on the Levy to Move Seattle Oversight Committee, but as a representative of the Transit Advisory Board.

So he is no longer part of that board, but this will give him a permanent seat on the transit, or the Move Seattle Oversight Committee.

Very good.

Any questions or comments?

If not, those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, vote no.

Motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Adoption of other resolutions, please read it into the record.

Resolution 31859 relating to committee structure membership meeting times and duties of the standing committees of the Seattle City Council for 2018 and 2019. Allowing for temporarily changing the committee meeting times and superseding resolution 31789.

very good I'll speak to it and Councilmember O'Brien may want to say some words as well on December 13th you may recall I sent out a sort of a department-wide memo sort of describing because of the the Seattle squeeze That's the first time I've used that expression, by the way.

You just rolled off your tongue, Mr. President.

It doesn't feel right.

Why we may want to allow our employees and the public some flexibility dealing with the traffic impacts that may occur.

So, in essence, what this resolution will do is look at our standing committees and those that typically meet at 9 30 we'll have start times at 10 including our council briefing our full council meetings will start at 2 still start at 2 but the and the meetings that start at 2 the standing committee meetings generally start at 2 we'll start at 1 30 and again flexibility is a key for the many employees that may be impacted on this and so that's basically what this report should do.

Council Member O'Brien, would you like to say a few words about the resolution?

Yeah, thank you Council President and colleagues, I really appreciate your engagement on this.

For the public, just to reiterate, we We'll be moving this will move the committee start times for morning committees from 930 to 10 a.m For most of the committees, but not all The planning land use and zoning committee will stay as a 930 start time and then for afternoon committees that would start during this three-week period Traditionally at 2 p.m.

They're going to move up till 130 As I mentioned, the point of this is to create a little more flexibility for folks who work for the City of Seattle or need to come and be part of those meetings or the public who wants to show up and be part of those meetings to try to get their either commute in or commute home outside of the most constrained window between generally 7.30 and 9.30 in the morning and kind of 4 to 6 in the afternoon.

As I mentioned, one of the committees we're not changing because that wasn't really feasible.

And I think the reality, as we ask employers around the city, is where it's feasible and you can show some flexibility for employees or others to spread out the crush time in those morning and afternoon commutes, it's great.

And we also recognize that some places there's going to be less flexibility, and we see that on our own committees too.

And so this is a bit of a reflection of what hopefully will happen across the board.

This is obviously not going to drastically change commute patterns across the city, but it's a small step and we're really urging employers across not just the city of Seattle, but across the region to try to think creatively and come up with some ways they can be a little more flexible.

not just for their customers and their employees, but frankly for everyone in the region who's likely to feel some impacts of the next three months and what will likely be the next couple years.

But talking just about the next, sorry, next three weeks, not three months.

Talking just about the next three weeks here today.

Very good.

Council Member Johnson.

allow me to defend my inflexibility council member o'brien absolutely we have i support you in it too so we have a lot going on we have one committee discussion on the planning land use and zoning committee time slot in these three weeks it is a discussion about the mandatory housing affordability program implementation in four of our council districts we anticipate that meeting could last Upwards of the full four hours between the 930 times slot start and councilmember Juarez is 130 times slot start so We felt just to be fair that on the off chance that this meeting does run three to three and a half hours that having a little space in between the meetings would be good for colleagues who have to attend both and also a little time for the room to get turned over in the meantime.

So flexibility is something that I was hoping we could have, but unfortunately in this case, I think the logistics of meeting attendance and the wherewithal for my colleagues to sit through what could be potentially six hours of meeting straight was more prudent for us to stay at the 9.30 time slot.

Really appreciate that councilmember Johnson and I I absolutely support that decision and I think it's just a reflection that that the reality is some things can move and some things can't and I hope others around the community will will model that where they can Very good Okay, there's no further comments.

I will move to adopt resolution three one eight five nine It's moved and seconded the resolution be adopted any further comments.

I Those in favor of adopting the resolution, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries.

The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

Is there any further business to come before the council?

Okay, if not, we stand adjourned and everyone have a great rest of the day and happy new year.