Well, good afternoon, everyone.
Today is July 15th, 2024, and the City Council briefing meeting will come to order, and the time is 2 o'clock.
Will the clerk please call the roll, and I just would like to note that Council Members Kettlesaka and Moore are excused today.
Council Member Morales.
Council Member Rivera.
Council Member Strauss.
Present.
Council Member Wu.
Present.
Council Member Hollingsworth.
Here.
Council President Nelson.
Present.
Five Council Members are present.
Thank you very much.
And we will note if Council Member Rivera when she comes in.
I would like to acknowledge, first of all, that the World Affairs Council is here today, and I want to welcome them to our council briefing.
Hello, everyone.
I know we have a delegation of government and professionals from over 10 countries.
Welcome.
They've requested a photograph with council members afterwards, so I'm hoping that we can gather when we're done with this meeting and we can take a photo together.
So welcome.
Thank you very much for coming today.
Please note that normally there are more people at this table.
It's just summer months and other things are going on with family, et cetera.
All right, if there's no objection, oh, I would like to note that Council Member Rivera is now present.
If there's no objection, the minutes of July 8th, 2024 will be adopted.
And hearing none, the minutes are adopted.
All right, what's going on tomorrow?
Well, we don't have any proclamations or presentations or executive session today, so let's just go into a preview of tomorrow's council meeting.
There will be nine items on the introduction and referral calendar, and they are the weekly bill payment ordinance, an ordinance related to the city's priority hire program, an appointment to the Seattle Indian Services Commission, four appointments and reappointments to the Seattle Planning Commission, A resolution authorizing Parks and Recreation to submit grant applications to the State Recreation and Conservation Office and an appointment of the, the appointment of the Chief of the New Care Department.
So that's on the docket for the IRC.
The consent calendar will include the weekly bill payment ordinance and an appointment to the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners.
And then we'll round out the agenda with two pieces of legislation from committee.
That is Council Bill 120806 from the Public Safety Committee related to street racing and Council Bill 120807 from the Parks, Public Utilities and Technology Committee.
And that authorizes SPU to execute an agreement between Seattle Public Utilities and King County Flood Control Zone District for the South Park Interim Flood Preparedness and Response Program.
All right, so that's up tomorrow.
As I said, there are no proclamations or letters for signature today.
So we'll just go right into our round robin, our blue sky.
And the roll call starts with Council Member Morales.
So please go ahead.
I've never heard of blue sky.
That's what they used to call it back in the day when I was a staffer.
And it just popped into my mind and came out my mouth.
Okay, well, good afternoon colleagues.
There are no items from the land use committee on tomorrow's school council agenda.
The next land use committee meeting is Wednesday, July 17th.
We have three items, the annual report on the status of the attached and detached accessory dwelling units ordinance that passed in 2019. We'll have an EDI briefing.
This is, we'll delve into three grantee recipients.
So we'll hear from the Lake City Collective, the Yeehaw Indigenous Creatives Collective, and Estelita's Library.
with an update of what they've done with their EDI funds.
We'll also have, as I've mentioned at the last briefing, the first of our comprehensive plan round table discussions.
So this one will be focused on housing and we will be hearing from Representative Nicole Macri, Parker Dawson from the Master Builders Association, Sol Villarreal from the Seattle King County Realtors, and Liz Underwood-Boltman from PSRC.
She'll be talking about sort of a more regional perspective on growth management and how we set housing targets.
So as I said, this will be the first of four.
And it's a shame we don't sit at the committee table, because this will just be committee, this will just be conversation for this portion of the agenda.
But I know we're working on that.
So that's- If you would like to.
Maybe.
We'll talk.
Okay.
Later this week, I have the PSRC Growth Management Policy Board Meeting.
This week, I met with Sound Transit to get updates on their Graham Street Station infill project, as well as safety upgrades that are being considered for Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard.
well, the train tracks and station crossings on Boulevard.
We also talked a little bit about some of the other projects that are in the works, West Seattle, and there is also another infill station being contemplated that is part of the plan at the Boeing Access down in Rainier Beach on the border with Tukwila.
So just to...
get a little bit more understanding of where all of those projects are in the process, which is to say pretty early for a couple of them.
This week my team attended the Brick by Brick, which was a joint event with MOHAI and OPCD to engage young people in the comprehensive planning process.
I had intended to go and couldn't make it, but it was a project with Legos, trying to get young people to use Legos to understand build out their own ideas for what the city could look like.
And really, we're really interested in trying to understand from young people's perspective what they think the city needs in order for them to be able to move around the community and get access to the goods and services that they want.
Tomorrow, my team will be attending Sound Transit's open house on Graham Street Station.
This is an open house for community members to come and share with the Sound Transit team what they think that station should look like.
Wednesday night, we'll be attending the Yesler Terrace Community Council meeting.
And Thursday, I'm going on a tour of the Corvidi Co-op.
an innovative affordable housing project that brings affordable home ownership to neighborhood residential zones.
So looking forward to learning more a little bit, learning a little bit more about that.
That's all I have, colleagues.
If there are no questions, I'll hand it to Council Member Rivera.
Thank you, Council Member Morales.
Well, last week, I chaired the library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee, where the Department of Education and Early Learning had a presentation on their 4.5 million mental health investments.
The main takeaways are that the investments were just actually implemented earlier this year.
And the second takeaway was, and that was because deal worked.
It was a new line of business for the department and it took them some time to work with public health, Seattle Public Schools, parents and students to determine where the investment needed to go.
And so we got some good information about that.
and look forward to hearing more as this actually gets implemented at the schools coming up in this next school year.
I also last week attended the Seattle received an All-American City Award.
I attended the award ceremony, which was hosted by the Department of Neighborhoods.
The award, presented by the National Civic League, recognizes 10 communities each year for their outstanding civic accomplishments.
The theme this year was Strengthening Local Democracy.
Seattle's presentation highlighted various initiatives, including the creation of the Indigenous Advisory Council, which is, of course, in the Department of Neighborhoods, to influence policies affecting indigenous populations and also department of neighborhoods collaboration with community-based organizations to tackle issues such as generational wealth and environmental justice within the native black latinx asian american and native hawaiian pacific islander communities uh you know congratulations for uh to don for engaging in the and the organization that led to this Seattle being awarded, sorry, Mayor Harrell was there to accept the award, and it was really a great celebratory gathering.
I also, speaking of another celebratory gathering, was privileged to participate and be invited to former State Representative Don Mason's famous funeral, Fish Fry was my first year attending each summer.
Dawn brings community members together and with some elected officials as well to her home for a really fun space-sharing event.
It was a great way to meet community leaders from across the city.
I'm very pleased to support Dawn.
She's such an asset to the our community, to our city, especially through her work to empower youth.
She always works to create positive experiences so our kids can be engaged.
And this was a particular fun gathering because she had Buffalo soldiers there to bring horses and the youth there got to ride the horses and it's really an empowering way to engage kids in this pot, what I call positive way.
And so I was very happy to, to, like I said, privileged to have been invited and very happy to participate.
Then this week, earlier today, I met with King County Metro to learn more about their decision-making processes surrounding routes and route changes.
As more rail stations open, Metro continues to look at systems to provide access where it's needed most.
We will continue the conversation as changes occur so we can help answer constituent questions around any route changes.
This week also, like many of you already have, I'll have an opportunity to have an introductory meeting with Congresswoman Jayapal to discuss areas of concern and interest to D4 residents.
And then lastly, I will be participating on an education panel tomorrow.
I got an invitation from the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
where the school board president Liza Rankin will be there and representatives from Western Governors University and Online College and the Children's Alliance to discuss topics including school funding, school safety, IA in schools and workforce preparedness.
So I look forward to learning more as part of that panel conversation and to what folks are doing both at SPS and what folks and partners are wanting to hear about in this space, particularly when it comes to workforce development and apprenticeship programs.
I know that's something that's really of importance to our external partners and it is, I know many of us have talked about the importance of apprenticeship programs.
To me, given that the Department of Education and Early Learning administers our Seattle Promise, which is that two-year, a free community college for kids, universal across the city, I'm also interested in having a conversation around apprenticeship programs because we know that We have a shortage of a lot of professions like construction workers and teachers and social workers across the city, just to name a handful.
And apprenticeship programs are something that is really a great way for kids who, you know, would like to learn a trade and go into that space.
It provides that opportunity in a more robust way.
And so I'm interested.
both at the city and via, like I said, this conversation with the partners.
So looking forward to sharing more next week.
after I participate on this panel.
If there are any questions about all that I just reported, if not, passing it over to Council Member Strauss.
Thank you, Council Member Rivera.
And I know that Route 20, which borders both of our districts, is of top concern.
Metro Route 20 is up for changes based on the new light rail systems coming in place.
So I'd love to work with you to make sure that Well, I don't need to take our communal time here.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And I will apologize up front.
I've lost my voice.
On Friday, I started losing my voice by cheering for Ballard FC as we went against the number one seed in our division, Uh, we are now the number one seed.
So because of a goal, not my cheering.
And then on, uh, Saturday I was serving salmon at the seafood fest for about six hours.
And I believe that there is a requirement for yelling when serving salmon and Ballard.
And so, uh, It did not stop me from judging the lutefisk eating contest at Seafood Fest on Sunday.
I did not have any.
I learned my lesson.
I will say that it was hard.
There's some dispute about who won.
So we had Alan and Dan.
Alan is a four or five year reigning champion of the lutefisk eating contest.
And Dan came in.
It was photo finish.
So best of luck to both of them next year.
I've got a pretty meaty presentation, and I've also sent a lot of this out by email last week, and will be resending by email again.
As Council President mentioned, we have two items on the introduction and referral calendar.
Robert Howard is a member of the Seattle Indian Services Commission.
and then a bill council bill 120815 which is the priority hire program to modify the methodology for determining which zip codes are economically distressed areas for the priority hire program excuse me as my crack my voice cracks priority hire will be briefed in committee this week but not voted on until september so you've got time to come up to speed i've still got a lot of outstanding questions Within the Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments, as well as select budget committees, the next FNC meeting is this Wednesday, July 17th.
There are six items on the agenda.
I'm requesting that you don't, if you're on the committee or planning to attend, please don't schedule meetings directly after committee because I expect...
THE COMMITTEE TO LAST LONGER THAN TWO HOURS.
I'M HOPING WE CAN FINISH ON THE 17th BY NOON, BUT JUST GIVING AWARENESS THAT IT MIGHT GO TILL 1230, AND THAT IS BECAUSE WE ARE TAKING UP THE SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET PACKAGE.
As always, I welcome everyone to attend the FNC committee.
And if you are not on the committee, please make sure to get the briefing before the next select budget committee because they roll one into the next.
For just FNC items, we have the appointment of Jamie Carnell as the director of of the city finance director, in short, in plain language, our comptroller.
The appointment was already heard.
We will be having a public hearing.
I'll ask to suspend the rules so that we can also vote on her appointment this year, or this meeting.
We will also vote on Robert Howard's appointment to the Seattle Indian Services Commission.
And then we will have a briefing tomorrow regarding the priority hire legislation from FAS which includes updates to the priority hire zip code methodology.
That's just the FNC stuff.
Now we're moving into what is FNC that then becomes select budget.
We will be having our briefings, our initial briefings on the supplemental budget package.
There are three bills.
There are the annual wage increase adjustments ordinance.
There's the actual budget of the mid-year supplemental budget ordinance.
And then the third bill is a mid-year grant acceptance ordinance.
Within this package, we will be hearing from the Seattle Care Department Acting Chief, not so much longer now that it's on the IRC that will make her a permanent chief, Amy Smith from the Care Department.
We'll also have Deputy Mayor Audium Emery and Director of Innovation and Performance Leah Tivoli to present on the mental health and violence intervention spending.
Thank you to Council Member Rivera for having a committee meeting about what's been done to date.
That tees everything up so that we can keep moving forward.
So I appreciate the teamwork.
For background, the 2024 budget includes a $20 million in Jump Start payroll expense tax funding for the mental health services.
However, mental health is not part of the funding allocations for Jump Start under the current law.
So it's a little bit longer of a conversation.
I'd say regarding all three of these bills, please do feel free to request a one-on-one briefing with central staff.
The three bills are dense and require your attention.
Like I say every time, if everyone asks all of their questions, we'll never get out of committee.
And I know you all love committee, but I also know that we all have other things to do.
So ask the tough questions.
Come prepared to put anything on the record that you want to put on the record.
But please also receive a briefing beforehand.
I'm also now going to talk about the amendment deadline for the supplemental budget package, which is Thursday, July 25th.
I brought this up the day before the bill was transmitted to give everyone...
calendaring awareness this is just about a week after we hear the the bill and it's much like we do with amendment deadlines always this is for this is for you to flag for central staff that you have an idea it's almost better if you don't have it fully fleshed out so that you can work with central staff to get it detailed and in the right way but the July 25th deadline is for you to alert central staff that you have an amendment idea.
If you're welcome to it, I would always love to have an awareness that you're working on an amendment.
You will need to send your amendment requests to Ed and CESIC with Tom Mikesell on copy.
The amendment deadline is real.
I have provided over a month advance notice, and I also know that This is an achievable deadline because all you have to tell them is that you have an idea about something.
I would say if you be more liberal than conservative, if you think you might possibly want to, could do a thing, say so.
And then you can always pull that back, right?
The mid-year supplemental budget package will be voted on on the August 7th Select Budget Committee.
Okay.
Moving into my external committees, I chaired the Seattle City Employee Retirement Services Board of Administration meeting.
and represented the City of Seattle at the Sound Transit System Expansion Committee where we voted on a number of amendments.
Council Member Morales brought up some of the work around Rainier Avenue.
It was good to hear from Sound Transit that they had done the cost analysis on either undergrounding or elevating the rail in Rainier Valley because that's what eventually needs to happen.
If we had finished the primary job of getting our light rail to Everett and to Tacoma, I don't believe that there would be any question right now that that's what we need to do, either raise it or lower it because the cross traffic is not safe.
We have not achieved that number one outcome yet, which is getting to Everett and to Tacoma, which makes the cost estimate prohibitive at this time.
I also applaud Sound Transit for saying that's not good enough.
We need to do more now.
And so I know that you and Council Member Zahalai, who's a board member on Sound Transit, are working.
Please, as always, let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
And then...
just you know in district I'm always meeting in district having office hours and then I'll be taking SPU and SDOT on site visits to places that have drainage and street issues because no better way than to see it in person.
With that colleagues any questions?
I'm seeing none so I'll pass it to Councilmember Wu.
Awesome, thank you.
So this week in committee, this morning, we had a special committee meeting.
Thank you colleagues for coming in to listen.
On comprehensive briefings on a Monday morning, right after a weekend, we heard from Seattle City Light on their strategic plan and rate path.
I mentioned in committee that we'll see them back in August 2nd for more discussion and vote, but they may be back this Friday as well for additional question and answer about their rate path and rate plan.
So we're in discussions right now.
We also heard from OSC on their clean heat program.
I'm always proud to ensure all departments in my committee are heard from.
And for our upcoming Friday committee, our monthly roundtable will divert from the arts and culture discussion a bit to provide context on the county's Door Open program.
And so we're going to talk about the greater arts and culture without understanding the lens of individual artists.
We will focus on their perspectives.
In August, we will resume the arts roundtable with Economic Development and Downtown Seattle Association.
who also have a briefing this Friday and discussion of Seattle City Lights integrated resource plan and their financial report audits.
I had mentioned last week that we were going to vote on the wholesale energy risk market, also known as City Lights worm policy, but we have moved it to August 2nd.
Highlights of this week, I also attended with Council Member Rivera the All-American City Awards Ceremony.
Congratulations to the Department of Neighborhood and Director Jennifer Chao.
Also attended the Fish Fry.
Council Member Strauss and I joined Seattle City Light on a tour of the System Control Center, which was really informative.
I also had a breakfast with the Master Builders Association and got to engage with builders and developers and answer their questions and concerns.
I was excited to tour Youth Care Orion Center and learned how they are helping youth deal with homelessness by providing a safe space that includes medical care, education, and skill training.
I also this past week toured the Henry Arts Gallery Love Rules exhibit from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation.
The exhibit features 90 works from some of his most iconic arts.
I also attended the monthly art CEO roundtable.
Members of larger arts organizations such as SAM, STG, Museum of Flight, I appreciate the leadership of this roundtable and heard about all the different challenges.
I also had an introductory meeting with the Muggleshoot Tribe and learned about all the community programs they contribute to and got to round out the weekend attending with Council Member Hollingsworth the Wilden Park Zoo Jungle Party fundraiser, which was very successful.
And with that, if there are no other questions, I will hand this over to Council Member Hollingsworth.
Awesome.
The one thing I do like being last is when I join events with you all, you remind me where I went.
So I'm able to write them down.
I did do that because sometimes I forget.
So I just appreciate that.
Good afternoon, colleagues.
Parks Utilities Technology Committee will be next Wednesday, July 24th at 2 p.m.
We are finalizing the agenda.
Last committee we heard from the second presentation from SPU.
and central staff regarding the strategic plan rates infrastructure affordability key topics from that we also had a seattle parks department fields presentation about the current status of their fields we had a very engaging conversation i know that was a concern to a lot of council members i'll follow up with you council member morales regarding the question regarding the um field in district two.
Also coming to council meeting, like council president said, the appointment of Emmanuel, I always mess up this gentleman's name and I'm gonna get it tomorrow when I'm speaking about him, but he's up for a member of the board of parks and commissioners.
And then also council bill 120807 between Seattle public utilities in King County flood control zone district for South Park.
This morning I attended the regional water quality committee meeting.
That was great.
Usually our meetings are on a different day, but it got rescheduled to today, this morning.
So had that meeting.
We also have the King County board of health meeting.
I'll be joining that with council president Nelson and council member Kettle, and then also the regional transportation committee.
That's this week, and I'll be joining that with Councilmember Saka, and I'll also be bringing up Route 20 in that meeting as well, and we'll follow up with Councilmember Strauss and Councilmember Rivera regarding that, can also bring that up in that committee.
Real quick, last week, I was with, obviously, some of my colleagues at the fish fry with former Representative Don Mason and The Black Buffalo Soldiers were probably my favorite.
I had a meeting with Senator Saldana as well to talk about things in the district.
One of the biggest pieces were obviously like youth engagement and connectivity and going to be working with her when session comes up.
Also had a tour of the Pike Place Market.
Colleagues, the market was bustling on Friday.
It was pretty amazing to see all of the people coming and you know obviously from here and know how great the market is but it was like the perfect day i know we had experienced a lot of heat um last week and this was like the perfect temperature this weekend for different stuff so honestly it was great muckleshoot tribe um met with them as well and then joined the jungle party uh for the woodland park zoo fundraiser with council member um Councilmember Wu, and I had a great time.
This week, I'm gonna be visiting the Arboretum in our district.
I'm also gonna be going to the Jewish Family Services Food Bank 4 Tour, and finally, my probably favorite is a meeting with Seattle Parks Department.
Ramel Witherspoon is their Youth Mentorship Development Director.
He's running a series where he brings different people in to talk to youth, and they have about 50 people signed up this summer, so it's a summer camp, at Garfield High School.
And so I'll be joining them on Friday with that group.
And if there's no other questions, I don't see any notes on the back of my paper, I will pass it off to Council President.
I do have a question.
So three people today have mentioned Route 20, which happens to be a block away from my house.
And so I do, I have that, I know Route 20, so...
and we've received other emails about it.
So who is taking the lead if I have questions about this?
What's happening to Route 20, I guess?
If you don't want to tell me right now, then maybe at some point, but.
Well, Council President, if you're offering to take lead, I think we'll all offer to take that opportunity.
No, I'm not.
No, I just am curious.
Anyway, why did you all mention it?
I hate to bring up Council Member Saka, but I think it's a transportation.
Under transportation, probably Metro fits the best, but it doesn't matter.
We all work to partner with Council Member Saka and with King County on these issues because I met with them today.
I'll say that Again, as I reported earlier, as light rail has come on track and they're doing connections toward light rail to really enhance that experience and do more connections, they've had to re-look at the routes.
They also are looking at equity and folks that are furthest from, you know, who have most need, excuse me, folks who have most need, because those are the folks that are actually riding a lot of the Metro buses and light rail as well.
And so they are redoing, my understanding is they're redoing Route 21. to accommodate all of that.
Most of Route 20 has a connection to a close, or not a connection, but most of Route 20, there is an alternate bus route that folks can take.
There is a small portion of Route 20, and this is why I reached out to Metro, because it happens to be in the D4 around Latona that does not have a bus route very close, close, but not as close as any of us would like.
And so I was talking to Metro about what do you do when this happens and folks lose.
There are about 130 people that are impacted by this change.
And so we had conversations about what do you do and how can you help folks identify alternatives, if you will.
I do know that they, when they did these changes, that they consulted with community and they continue to, and they committed to meeting again with the 130 folks or a subset of those folks who are interested in meeting about that particular route.
But the route was redone to accommodate.
And of course, they can't do, because of limited resources, they couldn't keep 20 and the other connections.
So they really re-racked that route in order to have better connections to the light rail and to the folks that really needed the service the most because they're riding it.
There are about 1,800 riders of that route.
And like I said, the 130 are the ones that are the most...
impacted because there isn't an alternative nearby route to direct them to.
So I'm continuing my conversations with them on that.
Does that answer your question, council member or council president Nelson?
Does anyone else have any questions I can try to answer?
Obviously I'm not Metro and everyone knows Metro is separate from the city of Seattle.
But we partner with them.
The city gives funds, obviously, to King County for Metro service.
And so that's our relationship with Metro.
But they are separate from the city.
We work with them to make sure that our residents are getting the service that we're paying for, in essence.
Thank you.
All right.
That's quite complete.
Appreciate that.
Great.
Okay, folks, so...
We had a great Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee meeting last week, and I want to thank the people that came out from the community to provide comment about one item on the agenda, which I'll just summarize in a moment.
The other things we did in that meeting is that we voted out two appointments to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, and we also voted on two appointments and three reappointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission.
So we've been slow to get our our commission appointments and reappointments done, and we made a good step last week.
And then we also unanimously recommended passage of Council Bill 120781 that aligns the Seattle Municipal Code with the state's updated definitions of cannabis and cannabis products.
Again, this was a technical cleanup bill, and we voted that out, and that'll be coming to Council not tomorrow, but in a week or so.
And then finally, we had a presentation on the city auditor's latest report titled Addressing Places in Seattle Where Overdoses and Crime are Concentrated, an Evidence-Based Approach.
So in case you missed it, it identifies already existing resources and also strategies that other cities have implemented that have proved successful in addressing both the drug crisis and overdoses and its impact on communities in the form of crime, et cetera.
And it also kind of drew on past research of other audits and reminded us what some of those recommendations were.
And it put forward eight common sense recommendations, starting with the mayor's office should take the lead on coordinating the efforts of all city departments and also external agencies, and also assign a point person to make sure that we're operating in a concerted fashion on all of these issues.
also noted that Snohomish County is a good model of this and actually has a framework that we could emulate for coordination of efforts.
It also made other recommendations such as, hey, there's a framework that is put forward by these substance abuse and mental health services administration that we could take advantage of.
And at the table were staff members from the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which is the region's, it's a federal agency and it's the regional office of the what's commonly known as the drug czar.
And so there are protocols that they have that we could use if we really wanna crack down on overdoses and mapping where overdoses and crimes are happening and also perhaps treat overdoses as crime scenes if it seems as though there is enough evidence to do so as LA and some cities in King County are already doing.
And it just really, The takeaway was for me is that if you walk down 3rd Avenue any day, and it's, I think, painfully and shamefully clear that something's not working or not working well enough right now with the resources that we have.
And the fact that SPD is so historically understaffed is a big part of the problem.
And I think that hiring more officers will make a big difference.
And, you know, everybody knows how much I've been working on that.
But also...
We have already existing resources and we're missing out on opportunities to take advantage of them.
And so, yes, this was an audit that put forward recommendations, but it garnered a lot of, this presentation garnered significant media attention because it is so clear what's happening downtown is untenable.
And it argues for taking a place-based approach to solving some of these problems because we don't have unlimited resources.
But if we target them more effectively and more strategically, and understand the conditions that are going on on the ground.
Interrupt the business model of people who are selling drugs to people on the street and also in permanent supportive housing facilities, for example, and also provide more recovery-based services there.
So in any case, significant media attention on this issue.
I know in your inboxes that is echoed and I urge I urge collaboration and swift action to implement some of these.
And I have to think that the new lead on public safety in the mayor's office, Natalie Walton Anderson, was present and did speak of taking the active role in this effort.
Also members, so Plymouth Housing, YWCA were not blaming Our providers, they are coming to us and saying, let's work together.
There's a shared recognition that things need to change.
And again, I will say that there were members of the federal office of the, they call it HIDA, and the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.
We have resources.
Let's do it.
And hopefully we'll be seeing some follow-up action.
And I do want to say that I have had conversations with the interim chief, Sue Rahr, and really encouraged with the attention that she's putting, and I'm looking forward to seeing her actions in the few coming weeks as well.
So that was my committee.
oh, I forgot to thank the most, perhaps, the authors of the audit, Claudia Gross Shader and David Jones, I've been working with most, but really they did a phenomenal job, not just of producing the audit, but of presenting it.
Okay.
Things also that happened last week.
Participated in a training put on by the Office of Emergency Management on what I should do as president and what the legislative department does if the mayor declares a proclamation of civil emergency.
This is a required training, and there was leadership from the city attorney's office, the mayor's office, the leg department, et cetera.
So don't worry, folks.
We've got it down just fine.
As any proclamation of emergency, you never know how detailed it is until you really get into it.
So that was really informative.
Met with the leadership of We Deliver Care because I wanted to learn more about that program.
Got a briefing from Deputy Mayor Audium Emery about the Mayor's Youth Mental Health Initiative.
Sounds like the rounds are being made, and that was good to hear more about that.
And then I had dinner with the Consul General of India and learned about how important it is to have that new consulate in Seattle and the economic development opportunities that are opened up from having that here and looking forward to helping connect some dots between him and members of our community.
All right, that's pretty much it for me.
Are there any questions?
Okay, well then, if there are no questions, I will say that we can conclude our regular business and then extend a welcome to our guests as well.
So hearing no further business, the July 15th meeting, council briefing meeting is now adjourned and it is 2.40, which is approaching a record of early termination, I would say.
In any case, thank you very much, everybody.
I appreciate it.
meeting is adjourned.