Seattle City Council Briefing 3/22/2021

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome back.

The March 22nd, 2021 Council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9.32 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Morales?

Here.

Mosqueda?

Present.

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Present.

Strauss?

Present.

Herbold?

Here.

Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Present.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much.

Approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of March 15th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

I'm going to dispense with the President's report.

In the interest of time, we do have a very long agenda today with a state legislative session update, followed by a presentation on the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. And then we are going to do a preview of this week's activities.

And then we do have a rather long executive session that we need at least 45 minutes for.

So just asking folks to keep that in mind as you are giving your presentations today.

So with that being said, I'm going to hand it over to Director Lily Wilson-Codega with our Office of Intergovernmental Relations to do introductions, and we're going to dig right into the state legislative session update.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Lily Wilson-Codega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, passing it to Robyn Koski.

Robyn Koski, Deputy Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, handing it to Quinn.

Quinn Majewski, State Relations Director, OIR, handing it to Hana.

Hana Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

Thank you, team, and we are going to try to keep this to a very brief 20-minute state legislative update, so if folks would be willing to Hold your questions to the end.

We're happy to answer them or follow up with you online if that works better.

But we are very excited to have our federal team joining us here today.

So given that slight change in the agenda that Council President Gonzalez referenced, we will start today's briefing with a state legislative update from Quinn, Robin, and Hannah, followed by a federal briefing from Sierra Hallett-Brown, our federal affairs director, and Leslie Polner, our federal lobbyist, who will be joining us live from Washington, D.C.

for a briefing on the American Rescue Plan, the massive $1.9 million congressional rescue package, and they will unpack some of the critical resources that will bring to our community in the form of everything from state and local assistance, public health funding, small business, housing supports, UI benefits, et cetera.

And in other exciting news, in the legislature, budgets are coming out this week with legislators dividing their time.

both in committee and on the floor, and Quinn will review budget activity more in depth during his report.

Before he starts us off with a full legislative briefing, though, I first wanted to note that while Senate Bill 5051, the decertification bill, continues to move along, having passed the Senate already and was exacted out of House Public Safety last week.

The specific amendment language that we were seeking no longer has a path forward.

And a special note of appreciation to Council President Gonzalez, Council Member Herbold, and Council Member Morales for working so closely and furiously with our team in an effort to incorporate this language.

We weren't able to get there this session, but we really do appreciate the partnership.

And again, while we are trying to hold questions to the end today, given time limitations due to our federal and state briefings, I'm happy to follow up with any of you on this in more detail offline if you'd like.

And with that, I will turn it over to Quinn Majewski, our State Relations Director, to start us off with an Olympia update.

All right, beginning in the budget and revenue space, last Wednesday, the State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released their updated revenue forecast.

As we expected, it showed a increase in projected revenues and sort of improvement in the overall state budget situation.

I think that increase was larger than myself or many others predicted.

The current biennium, the 19 to 21 biennium, increased by 1.3 billion.

The revenue forecast and the revenue forecast for the following biennium increased by 1.9 billion.

essentially erases the rather massive shortfall that has steadily shrunk since summer and into the start of legislative session to the point where the current biennium that we're in has about $500 million shortfall and the next biennium, 2123, has a $81 million shortfall.

million dollar surplus.

So as I mentioned previously, this is a bit of a double-edged sword.

It does mean that the programs, the key programs that we want to see funded and benefit from at the state level are likely to at least continue at their current funding level.

if not see some targeted enhancements.

However, it does mean that the need for new revenue and especially more progressive revenue is likely to see a further drop in momentum.

I think that anything beyond the capital gains tax and potential carbon pricing is sort of distinct from this, but anything beyond the capital gains tax or carbon pricing is unlikely to see significant movement this session, given the lack of need for new revenue based on this current forecast.

As Director Wilson-Kodega mentioned, with the revenue forecast, that's sort of the final piece for legislators as they craft their budgets, knowing sort of how much money they have.

And so this week we expect the budgets to be rolling out.

That's the operating budget, the capital budget, and the transportation budget.

All of those are scheduled for hearings starting with transportation on Tuesday and then capital and operating later this week.

So we will have more for you and follow up over email as those budgets are released.

As Lily mentioned, in the interest of time, we're going to hold questions until the end, so I will pass it off to Hana to discuss education.

Thanks, Glenn.

The Fair Starts for Kids Act 12-13 and 52-73.

The House version has a public hearing tomorrow, and both versions are scheduled for executive action later this week.

So really exciting that both continue to move.

Also, Senate Bill 53-21, expanding the college-bound program, is scheduled for an executive session later this week.

Those were the big updates.

A lot of our education priorities continue to move, and I'll pass it back to Quinn for environment.

In the environmental space, the legislation that we are following that is still alive, has made it past the various cutoffs to this point, all continues to move.

House Bill 1099, which incorporates climate action into growth management and comprehensive planning.

Senate Bill 5022, which has to do with producer responsibility and recycling, as well as the HEAL Act.

Senate Bill 5141 are all slated for They all had hearings last week and are slated for executive session committee vote this week.

And the Climate Commitment Act, which is the governor requests significant piece of legislation dealing with setting up a cap and invest program, is also scheduled for executive session on Tuesday.

In the general government space, there's quite a few bills in here.

I won't highlight all of them, but The vast majority have already moved out of committee.

That includes 1056, the future public meetings and states of emergency legislation.

1173, this is armory PDA legislation.

And House Bill 1189, tax increment financing.

And then one other that I think is worth highlighting, House Bill 1258, the micro kitchen legislation has a hearing this week.

in the Senate Agriculture, Water, and Natural Resources and Parks Committee.

I will hand it over to Hana for health care.

House Bill 1477, that's the bill that establishes the national 988 suicide and behavioral health hotline passed the House on March 17th in a 78 to 18 vote.

And it has a hearing in Senate behavioral health last Friday and is scheduled for executive session later this week.

So moving quickly now that it's in the other house.

And Senate Bill 5068, which expands the postpartum Medicaid coverage, has an executive action scheduled in appropriations tomorrow.

A lot of other bills continue to move, but those are two big highlights we're tracking closely.

Now we'll scroll down and get us to housing.

Good morning, everyone.

Perhaps the biggest news in the housing field last week was that Governor Inslee extended the eviction moratorium to June 30th, 2021, allowing time for the legislature to pass tenant protections and allocate rental assistance funds and get programs up and running.

Additionally, I just wanted to thank the council members who were able to sign on to the letter on Councilmember González, Councilmember Herbold, Councilmember Lewis, and Strauss for all signing on to that letter.

It was very well received by our delegation.

Also, executive action was taken in the Senate Housing and Local Government Committee on the Just Cause Eviction Bill, House Bill 1236, and was amended with changes that I would characterize as technical in nature.

So that bill is moving along and will go to the Senate floor now.

House Appropriations also took executive action on House Bill 1277, which would give 100 million, would create an additional 100 million in document recording fees statewide for homelessness and rent assistance.

I'm gonna move on to police reform now.

Executive action was taken on House Bill 504 in the Senate.

That's the tactics bill that addresses chokeholds, pursuits, military equipment, and a few other things.

There were some additional amendments made to that bill that have resulted in an ongoing conversation, but I do expect any issues that have been created by that amendment to be resolved and for the bill to move along to final passage in the Senate.

Executive action was also taken in the Senate Law and Justice Committee on House Bill 1267. That's the governor's request legislation that would establish statewide centralized investigations for use of force, and that was referred to the Ways and Means Committee.

And finally, wrapping up the public safety for today, executive action was taken on Senate Bill 5051. Lily actually mentioned earlier the Oversight and Accountability of Peace Officers Bill that would change rules around decertifying police officers.

That had a hearing in the House Public Safety Committee on Thursday.

and an executive action was taken.

Also, just shortening my report for today, you can see from the bulletin that there are several other police reform bills that continue to move.

Finally, I just wanted to update everyone on Senate Bill 5038 that would prohibit open carry at the state capitol in public demonstrations.

Executive action was taken in the House Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee last week, and that is now being referred to the House Rules Committee.

It was amended with some clarifying language on the definition of a weapon and definition of demonstration and added a severability clause, but otherwise the bill remains intact in its mostly original form.

And now I will hand it back to Hannah.

Thanks, Robin.

The Civil Legal Aid Funds Bill 1072 and the Restoration of Voting Rights for People Convicted of a Felony, House Bill 1078, were both placed on second reading.

And the Paid Family Leave Bill, House Bill 1073, and the Working Families Tax Credit, 1297, were both voted out of their policy committees and referred to Ways and Means.

Those are the big highlights, as a lot of our other Safety net issues continue to move forward.

And pass it back to Quinn.

Finally, in the transportation space, not much on legislation here, but I will note the transportation budget is sort of the first up with hearings in House and Senate transportation tomorrow.

I do want to make a distinction that the baseline current law budget is distinct and separate from a potential new revenue package.

The baseline budget won't include any new revenue, and so it's unlikely to include probably much of note, except the one thing we'll be looking out for is that transportation revenues have not largely bounced back the way that the operating budget revenues have.

And so what we'll be on the lookout for is any deferred or delayed projects, but we're hopeful that that does not occur.

So I just do wanna make that distinction that this is not the big revenue package that we've been following that is continuing to be worked on behind the scenes.

That concludes our presentation and we're happy to take any questions.

And thank you state team.

I think if the state team can stay on, we'll take questions at the end after Sierra and Leslie finish their federal presentation, if that sounds good to everyone.

Yeah.

I think that sounds great.

Colleagues, if you don't mind, if you can save your questions until the end of the federal presentation, we can take all state and federal comments and questions at the end.

So let's let's plan to do it that way.

Has Leslie Palmer joined?

Yeah, I don't think she's on yet, so we may actually have time for a couple questions we have.

There we go.

the best laid plans.

So colleagues, any questions or comments on the state update?

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Just very briefly, I want to say thank you again for all of the work that you have done on the housing bills and the legislation.

And for our colleagues who are thinking, you know, hey, I wanted to sign on that letter.

We worked quickly with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to circulate a letter at the Housing and Finance Committee to make sure that we express support for House Bill 1220. And doing so in a public forum to try to get as many signatures as possible, especially from the Housing Committee, seemed appropriate.

So apologies if you wanted to have signed on to that and you're wondering why you weren't included.

It was because it came from the Housing and Finance Committee members in a way for us to circulate a letter and get it to the committee members before their hearing early Thursday morning.

So thanks again to OIR for that.

Apologies, we weren't able to get in in front of the team on Monday.

That would have allowed for our full council to sign on, but I do appreciate the Housing and Finance Committee members.

And if there's another opportunity, Robin, for us to express support for House Bill 1220 as it progresses, I'm sure that there's other members on council who would be interested in that as well.

Thanks all, just wanted to provide that update.

Yeah, thank you for that clarification, Council Member Mosqueda.

We were moving very quickly, so we just did what was most expedient to make sure Seattle's voice was heard.

So thank you very much for that clarification.

Council Member Salant, please.

Thank you, OIR staff, for all the presentations these many weeks.

It's been extremely helpful.

I understand that House Bill 1236, which passed the House and is now in Senate Rules, includes a loophole that was added in the House.

It was an amendment that was added to the original bill.

This loophole provides that that where the initial lease term is between three and 12 months, a landlord may terminate the tenancy without cause at the end of the term by providing at least 60 days written notice.

And just before I go on, thank you, Robin, for following up with me with my office.

On the questions I asked about the amendment last week and that's how we got this information from your email so I really appreciate it.

But this is obviously a significant loophole as it creates a gap in protection for every tenant in Washington state who is on an initial term lease.

So my questions were, again, following up is fine.

Do you know if House or Senate staff have an estimate on the number of tenants throughout the state that would be removed from just cause protection as a result of this loophole?

And just to make a note, I've asked the same question of our central staff this morning as regards the number of Seattle tenants in initial term leases, you know, just an estimate of that.

Also, it's my understanding that this loophole was proposed by Democratic Representative Strom Peterson of the 21st District, Edmonds, and McAuliffe.

Can you confirm that it was he who moved this amendment?

And we're also good if you can provide my office with a roll call vote on this amendment.

I understand you will need to reach out to house staff to get this information, but that'd be great if you can send it to me offline, because I think it's important for community members to understand who voted for and who opposed creating this loopholes that would potentially leave many tenants without just cost protections.

But also, of course, we want the data as well to understand how many of the tenants would be potentially affected?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Swant.

I will look into the exact mechanics of how the amendment happened, but I'm guessing that it was offered in an effort to make sure that the bill could move forward at all.

But I will check into the dynamics of that and get back to you as well as get you the roll call vote.

and see if I can find any information on the number of tenants who might be impacted by this change in the legislation.

Thank you.

And just to just to give further context, obviously, you know, the tenants rights advocates did they push for and win a ballot initiative, I believe, was in federal way, which does not have these complications.

It's straightforward, just cost protection for all people on leases.

And obviously, we we we would want that protection throughout the state.

So it's in that context as well that we already have a better sort of example of that which we we would want Seattle to follow, but we also want the state to follow that.

So thank you.

Thank you Council Member Sawant and thank you Robin.

Council President, we've learned that Leslie Polner, the other half of our federal team has joined us.

Would you like us to reserve the rest of our questions to the end and move on with the federal affairs presentation today?

I think so.

Let's let's go.

Let's go ahead and do that.

Council members, there will be an opportunity to address the state issues at the end of the federal presentation.

So just because we're on a very tight schedule today, and I'd like to get us out of here before.

1.45 p.m.

Let's go ahead and hand it over to Sierra Howlett-Brown and Leslie Polner.

Please introduce yourselves for the record, and then I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you for the presentation, and we'll start with Sierra.

Great.

Good morning, everybody.

Sierra Howlett-Brown, the Director of Federal Affairs for our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Leslie?

And Leslie Polner, co-chair of the local government group Holland and Knight.

So I'm just going to basically hand it over to Leslie, who's going to give us a summary of everything that's gone down.

I know there's a lot of planning and conversations happening both in the mayor's office and with council on how to use the funds coming in, questions on what funds are coming in.

So we don't have, we may not have a ton of specifics or the right answer to your questions, but we'll make sure to take down all your questions today and get back to you all.

So Leslie, would you like to get it started?

Great.

Thanks so much, Sarah.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez for having me here today.

So just two weeks ago, the American Rescue Plan was signed into law by President Biden.

And what an achievement.

You know, I think this is the bill that many of us had been waiting for, which really provides comprehensive relief across the board First and foremost, you know, I know so many of you advocated for, were, you know, made your voices heard in D.C.

about the importance of state and local direct assistance, and that has been provided to the tune of $350 billion.

Roughly $45 billion of that is coming directly to cities who receive CDBG, and that's being done via a modified CDBG formula.

And so, you know, still waiting on final estimates from Treasury.

The estimates from Congress have ranged in the 236 to 239 million dollar range coming directly to the city of Seattle.

And really, they've tried to be as broad as possible in their uses.

But of course, we're going to have to see how Treasury interprets this through its guidance, which we understand they are working on literally right now.

So the four main kind of buckets that are allowable uses are responding to the public health emergency or its negative economic impacts, to provide government services to the extent that they've been impacted by revenue loss, to make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure, or to include premium pay for eligible workers performing essential work.

And I just want to note on that final this premium pay issue, the way that the legislation has been written, both in terms of timing, how caps will work about this.

We definitely expect to see guidance on that piece in particular.

The way that aid is going to be distributed is that Treasury will do it in two tranches.

So the first tranche, they have 60 days from two weeks ago when the bill got signed into law to get the first tranche out.

And then the second tranche will be released 12 months after that.

So it's really being divided into two equal payments.

There will be some reporting requirements as well.

But again, the intention has been to keep these funds flexible, useful.

You've heard Treasury Secretary Yellen say what a priority it is to get this money out because she sees this as a core part of helping the economy to recover.

So really, we know that they're working as we speak to get the money out and the guidance out as well.

In addition, as I know you've all seen, a number of tax provisions that will be very helpful.

There's a child tax credit that's been included, an expansion of EITC, there's credits for paid sick and family leave, and these credits now will be extended to state and local governments.

There are stimulus payments, which many of your constituents may have already received.

Those checks are going out now to the tune of $1,400 per individual.

There's an additional $7.2 billion that's being released through an emergency connectivity fund.

Essentially, this is money that's going to be infused through the E-rate program to schools and libraries.

And the FCC just released public comment on potential guidance for that.

that your IT department is aware of and has.

There is a wide, there's an expansion again, 15% increase in SNAP benefits that has been included in previous bills that's been extended through September 30th.

There is 122 billion that's going for K through 12 to assist with reopening.

There's 40 billion going to higher education.

those funds are being given directly to 50% is being given directly to students.

The other 50% is going for institutions.

There's $40 billion available for child care agencies, an additional $4.5 billion for LIHEAP.

There's another $500 million that's being provided for water assistance grants to states to assist low income households.

And just a note on that, You know, that was a new program that was created in December.

Senator Murray was instrumental in helping to create that program.

We've been working closely with her office because HHS has gotten very bogged down in creating the guidelines for that program.

As a side note, to me, this is sort of an indication as to why Congress really tried not to create new programs because for this exact reason.

We're now several months in, the money's still not out.

Um, but Senator Murray's team is working very, very hard on this, um, to try to help us get those, get access to those funds.

There's an additional 7.5 billion for vaccines, um, an additional 47, uh, 0.8 billion for contact trace tracing and testing.

Um, and then there's a wide range of funding for housing, 27.4 billion for rental assistance, uh, an additional 5 billion for housing vouchers, um, that will go through public housing agencies.

There's another $5 billion for rental assistance and roughly close to $10 billion to assist homeowners as well.

And then finally, an additional $30 billion for transit agencies that will be flowing.

So, you know, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I know you all have our memo.

And again, you know, a lot of this, you know, we will be getting more details as the months continue.

but it is very exciting to see this.

I would say, you know, as you're also seeing next up on the agenda for Congress is going to be working through infrastructure.

Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is beginning to mark up their list act, which is kind of a wide range of climate change, broadband measures designed to invest in the nation's energy and broadband infrastructure.

You know, you're seeing hearings this week with the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about the administration's priorities around infrastructure.

So, you know, I think it's going to take them several months to kind of come together with a plan and come together with the right course of action.

Will they do this through reconciliation?

Will they do this on a bipartisan basis?

Maybe they do a little of both.

You know, so that will be kind of consuming the next weeks and months as we move forward.

Very exciting that they finally got the American Rescue Plan signed into law.

So happy to answer any questions.

Or Sierra, please chime in if I missed anything.

That's great.

Thank you, Leslie.

OK, folks.

Thank you so much, Leslie and Sierra, for that presentation.

So we're going to go ahead and open it up now to colleagues.

Any questions that you might have either on the state legislative update or the federal update?

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much, Madam President.

Thank you again, Leslie.

It's always great to see you.

Thank you for sharing good news.

We're really excited.

Thanks, Sierra, for the constant updates.

I just wanted to say how much we appreciate the play-by-play and updates in real time coming from D.C.

and appreciate how fast the administration is trying to move and how fast you, as advocates on behalf of cities like Seattle, are working to make sure that we get clarity.

And colleagues, again, the tranches that Leslie mentioned are really important, both in the near term and the long term, as we think about the buckets of funding to get us out of this recession and respond to the health crises in front of us.

And you'll hear more as we talk about it.

But one of the things that we are considering, along with conversations with the executive, is in tranche one alone, having an immediate relief plan and then a longer term, I should say, midterm funding as well.

Leslie, I'm wondering in conversations you're having with other cities, is there other conversations happening around using Tranche One and trying to identify those immediate programs that are looking to fall off a cliff in June, and trying to figure out some immediate dollars out the door as they figure out longer strategies for some of those near-term dollars just in Tranche One, because those are part of the conversations we've been having.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of cities are putting their plans together as we speak and sort of grappling with some of those exact issues, and recognizing, of course, that these dollars need to be expended by 2024, you know, but then, and also recognizing just how, what a unique opportunity this is, because again, you know, it's unlikely that we're gonna see another COVID package, let alone one that would have this kind of flexible funding.

So I think, you know, really people are grappling with exactly these kinds of issues, how fast to go, what kinds of investments to make, what's appropriate to deal with the emergency in front of us, versus where we might be six months down the line when some of these critical programs have expired.

Council Member Herbold, please.

Thank you so much.

Going to the state legislative agenda, if I may.

I want to echo some of the concerns I heard from Councilmember Sawant regarding the statewide Just Cause bill.

You may have heard me over the years refer to the Seattle loophole.

The Seattle loophole is the problem that exists in our state.

our city's Just Cause Ordinance that allows good tenants to have their tenancy terminated at the end of a lease agreement for any reason or no reason.

And so not only does the bill in the state legislature no longer fix the Seattle loophole, which is what the original version does, it actually places the problem language in state law.

Because there is no state law right now, there was an absence of language in the RCW about this problem that we have in our law.

There was a legal interpretation that I know some of my colleagues on the council were interested in.

pursuing a legislative fix that I certainly support.

But again, I think this language that is being proposed to be put into state law really just codifies the problem that we currently have in our city law.

And I agree that's really, really problematic.

On a different subject, though, I do want to say how much I've really appreciated working particularly with Robin and Lily on police accountability issues.

Really appreciate all the hard work you've done and all the assistance of many police accountability stakeholders as well as the progress that we've made this session with some of our labor stakeholders that I think is really important as well.

On a related but separate topic though, I'm wondering if you could enlighten us, what is the state's path forward to address the Washington State Supreme Court's ruling in, what is it?

State v. Blake as relates to drug possession.

What's the state's path forward in addressing that?

Are they looking at doing a special session or bringing it up next year?

And is there a way for us, like we do with our state legislative agenda, to give some perspective that the city might have about how that might be resolved?

Councilmember Herbold, I can address that for you, although I don't have a buttoned up answer for exactly how the state legislature plans to approach it.

There are definitely conversations underway.

I think there is, you know, some some diverging, or maybe not diverging, but there's some, you know, there's a discussion over several different approaches.

I do think that there is a desire to make sure that it is funded at the state level.

There are, I think, 126,000 people who are impacted overall by the change that the Supreme Court decision makes, and something like 7,000 people who are currently in Department of Corrections custody who will need to be resentenced.

So it is a significant issue, and legislators do want to make sure that there are alternatives available at the local level, so diversion programs, treatment programs, many things that we already have in Seattle, but they want to make sure that all of those options are available statewide.

So I will keep you updated and let you know.

I suspect we'll see something in the next week to two weeks on a proposal.

And I will make sure that everyone on the council is aware of what that is when it comes to fruition.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I just wanted to quickly follow up on Council Member Herbold's comments, which I really appreciate.

I wanted to thank her for weighing in on this.

And again, echo all the thanks to the staff for helping us follow up on this.

And just in response to what Council Member Herbold was saying, I know she herself as a tenant's advocate and Council Member Licata, who preceded us, have been looking into this.

Council Member Licata and I, together, as Council Member Herbold knows, our offices were looking into it, and we've certainly spent a lot of hours to work with the city attorney's office to see if we can find a legal pathway to close these loopholes.

And I agree that what we need is a strong law from the state level, which will actually provide a real way to do that in Seattle.

And in fact, federal way I think really provides a different approach where they actually close all the loopholes.

And so, yeah, I really hope that we can have a better path to closing all the loopholes for just cause protections.

I will do some additional background work for you council members and get back to you with any details that I'm able to glean.

Great.

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you very much.

Just before this gets wrapped up, I wanted to say thanks again for all of the work that you all have done on the federal information and for helping to package this for us.

As I mentioned in our committee meeting two weeks ago, we used to point to the The ACA, the Affordable Care Act, is one of the biggest pieces of human rights legislation in the most recent decades, and now I think that this Affordable Care Act takes us, you know, a seat back to all of the incredible work that's been done on the American Recovery Plan Act because it really does have the potential to help address generational poverty, especially for the number of kiddos in poverty.

So I'm really excited about that.

Obviously, you know, we all knew that the ACA was something to be built on for healthcare for everyone, but exciting to see when legislation passes and how instrumental that was, whatever it was 10 years ago now.

I hope that we will continue to see the benefits of this legislation playing out for 10 years.

And again, this is foundational for the work to come.

from our congressional partners in partnership with states and local governments.

So really excited about this legislation.

I also think it's really timely that you provided these details today.

We're on the cusp of passing our resolution this afternoon, which I'll hold my comments on, but that resolution provides the backbone to what the city's priorities will be when we allocate those dollars as a city directly out to communities.

you know, the 10 or 12 buckets that you see in terms of issue areas reflected in our resolution are intended to mirror what was in the ARPA bill.

And also, central staff colleagues, if you haven't already received the PowerPoint presentation from Allie and Tom, Mike Solon, central staff, who did a side-by-side of what our resolution says and what is specifically allocated.

or directed in the American Recovery Plan Act, we will recirculate that again because it complements much of what Leslie and Sarah shared today.

And I think it's a helpful way to show where we're hoping to get additional details filled in and where the council's priorities are aligning very nicely with what our congressional partners passed.

So thanks again for the update and I'm very excited to work with you all and learn from other cities.

We're hoping to hear more from some other cities soon.

about what they're planning to do, and we'll be back in touch with you, Leslie and Sierra, as we reach out to those cities as well.

Thank you for that, Council Member Esqueda.

Any other comments or questions this morning?

I'm not seeing any other hands raised, so Lily, do you want to close us out, and then we will continue through our agenda.

Thank you so much, Council President.

I just wanted to give a big thank you to the state team for their ongoing briefing and the federal team for joining us today.

And to all of you, we've had many hair on fire moments over the past several months where we needed you to contact members of Congress or a certain committee chair in the legislature and appreciate you always being available and willing to engage directly.

It means the world to our teams and we really appreciate the partnership.

Thanks for that, Lily.

A huge thank you to all of you for the hard work.

I know we are not quite done yet.

Much more work that needs to be done, but certainly a lot of really positive progress on our priorities, and I'm deeply appreciative of that.

So thanks to all of you for joining us.

Leslie, thank you for calling in from Washington, D.C. Really, really good to see you, and look forward to seeing you all next time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, folks, we're going to go ahead and continue agenda item five, which is a preview of today's City Council Actions Council and Regional Committee business.

Again, as a reminder, the roll call rotation for this morning's report out, we'll start with Council Member Lewis, and then we will hear from Council Member Morales.

And then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and get started.

First up is Councilmember Lewis and then we will hear from, hold on a minute.

I think my script is wrong.

I think we're actually starting with Councilmember Morales today.

Because Councilmember Lewis got to go first last week.

Sorry about that.

My script is a little outdated.

So again, it'll be Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, and Herbold.

Then Juarez, Lewis, and then I will conclude.

So first up is Councilmember Morales.

Good morning, everyone.

Sorry, Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, everyone.

I do want to say thank you again to our Office of Intergovernmental Relations for all the work that they are doing to keep us posted on state and federal legislation.

I do want to begin this morning by acknowledging the horrific tragedy in Atlanta last week Eight people, six of them Asian women, were victims of white supremacy and the violence that comes with it.

In San Francisco, we know that elderly Asian community members were viciously attacked by a man who thought he would get away with it.

He didn't anticipate that one of his victims would fight back.

Here in Seattle, the International Full Gospel Fellowship Church was targeted with anti-Chinese messages for the fourth time this year.

And in Beacon Hill over the weekend, several Asian women were harassed in their cars by a man who seemed to be driving around the neighborhood looking for young women to accost.

I don't care what the Cherokee County Sheriff says.

The attacks by these men were racist and absolutely inexcusable.

These men, their beliefs and their actions have shattered families, devastated communities, and in the Atlanta case, cut the lives of these women short.

They all deserve to feel safe in their communities and they all deserve justice.

We know that these attacks aren't rare and that it is really a great shame on this country.

It's painful how many young white men are growing up with white supremacist beliefs, and it's infuriating how regularly we see the tragic consequences.

So I want to, again, wish the families of the victims – send them all our blessings and really just hold our Asian Pacific Islander community in our hearts this morning.

There are no items from the Community Economic Development Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

Last week I attended the Board of Health meeting where Director Hayes reported a great update on FLASH, which is the sexual health curriculum in our community.

Really just wanted to share the big impact that has had on reducing teen pregnancy in our community.

Our rates are two and a half times lower than the national average.

Director Hayes reported that our young people have seen increased condom use, increased confidence to say no, and also an improved understanding that birth control is effective.

So I'm really excited to know that that program is working in our schools.

She also mentioned the Healthy Business Streets Guide.

which is a resource to help jurisdictions support restaurants during COVID and reminded us that even though we are now in phase three, outdoor dining is still the best option.

So this guide supports businesses and encourages the temporary street use for outdoor dining and I'm excited that we are doing that here in the city.

Regarding COVID, a reminder that even though we are continuing to open, we are in King County seeing our cases go up again.

So a reminder to maintain safety protocols, wear your masks, do not gather with people that you don't live with, and especially after watching what happened in Miami this weekend, this is not the time to start traveling or enjoying spring break with people you don't live with.

Regarding the vaccine updates, we now have about 400,000 people who are becoming eligible.

But Director Hayes is reminding us that right now we only have one dose for every eight people who are eligible.

So it's going to be a rough few weeks until we start to get more dosage in.

But she did also mention that in April, they expect to double the doses that Washington State is being allocated.

I know everybody's getting impatient to get their vaccine.

I have not been vaccinated yet.

I still don't qualify.

But we're all working on it and it's just a reminder to stay safe until you have received your vaccine.

On Wednesday, the King County Council Committee on Mobility and the Environment will be discussing the Strategic Climate Action Plan.

I did request that as a Board of Health, who has declared racism to be a public health crisis, that we submit a letter to support aircraft emissions in the Action Plan Greenhouse Gas Target Reductions.

Beacon Hill is one of the airport communities that is mostly people of color and has had tremendous health impact because of emissions and particulate matter that is a result of the increase in air traffic over the neighborhood.

So Council Member McDermott and I will be drafting a letter on behalf of the Board of Health to submit to that committee over the next week or so.

Last week my office met with the Department of Neighborhoods and SPU to discuss implementation of the street sinks budget action that I included in the 2021 budget.

The contract was moved from SPU to DON but we met with both offices and really want to thank SPU who has been working with the Clean Hands Collective to create different prototypes for how to make the street sink program work.

I did clarify that the legislative intent for this budget action is for street sinks with water, not just for hand sanitizer stations, which was something that had been discussed.

And just for a timeline, there will be an application for funding that is coming out at the end of March.

March 30th, there will be an info session via Zoom for organizations that are interested in applying to become part of this program.

And technical assistance will be provided to the recipients of this funding so that we can make sure we're tracking what's working and what's not.

This will be a contracting process, not a grant process.

And I'm told by Department of Neighborhoods, the goal there is to try to get the money out the door faster.

And the anticipated date for that is in May.

We also met with the Department of Early Learning to discuss implementation of the restorative justice budget action.

You may know that the Best Starts for Kids levy is up for renewal in August.

And as a result of that, the current BSK grantee contracts are expected to end at the end of December.

So given that, we discussed that the best use of the $550,000 for this might be towards supplemental funding to support organizations who might experience a gap in funding.

for the 2021-2022 school year.

And it will be important that these community-based models are invested in, especially if they are training young people in restorative justice and he'll make peacemaking circles so that they can help change the culture of the schools.

So it's really important that it's not just teachers and administrators, but young people also being trained.

Moving on to District 2, on Thursday I visited one of the vaccine clinics put on by the Somali Health Board.

We had about 150 seniors who were there to get their second dose.

And I want to share with you, for those 150 people, we had seven interpreters speaking Oromo, Somali, Swahili, Tigrinya, Amharic, Vietnamese, and Mandarin.

That's a lot of diversity for 150 people.

Most of the community members had walked to the community center from their neighborhood.

We had volunteers who had canvassed the neighborhood in the prior weeks leading up to the distribution.

Everybody received a phone call two days before to remind them to come back for their second dose.

They received another phone call a day before reminding them to bring their vaccination card.

And the folks that we spoke to who had come back and been vaccinated said that it was really that frequent touch coupled with having interpretation available and coupled with the ease of accessing the site.

that really made their vaccination process a success.

So I just want to thank again the Somali Health Board and all of the community-based organizations who are going that extra mile to make sure that they're reaching people who don't have access or can't get to the mass vaccination sites.

I think it's just another indication that we need several approaches to make sure everybody gets their vaccine.

I also met with constituents who are very concerned about the fact that our greenhouse gas emissions are not going down.

We are way off track in Seattle with our climate goals, and so folks are looking to know what we as a city council are going to be doing to really address this issue, and we'll be circling back with them over the next couple of days to talk about what that might be.

I think we all received a letter with a request to create a select committee on climate.

That's something that they are willing to have a conversation about.

I'm not sure that's exactly the right tool, but nevertheless, folks are interested in knowing what action we're going to be taking.

Yesterday I participated in a walking and rolling tour of the area around the future Judkins Park light rail station at the intersection of I-90 and Rainier.

That station is set to open in 2023 and it's expected to be one of the busiest transit transfer points in the city.

in the county really, and I can tell you that as I walked with our group of about a dozen people, some of whom work at Lighthouse for the Blind and are themselves blind, it was a very anxiety-provoking experience.

If you're walking or rolling to the new light rail station from north or south on Rainier, you will have to cross the cloverleaf on and off ramps to I-90.

These ramps have blind curves.

They're poorly lit.

They don't have signals that are adaptive for blind and deaf neighbors.

It was terrifying to try to navigate that area, even without having a disability or mobility issues.

So I am encouraged that our own State Senator Saldana is on top of this.

I know that Sound Transit is also talking about not just the improvements that are gonna be needed right at the station, but a block or two away from the station.

We will need to see some improvements there as well.

This week, King County Council Member Zahilay and I will be guests at the People's Town Hall, focused on community safety in the Rainier Beach Safeway parking lot.

Our community safety partners, including a beautiful safe place for youth, the organizations involved in that, will be discussing the work they do on the ground to support young people and to keep the neighborhood safe.

Council members Zahalai and I will also be sharing some of the work that we're doing as legislators to support a shift in investment in community-based alternatives and to other prevention and intervention strategies.

On Wednesday, I'll be participating in a Building Tenant Power workshop hosted by BCATL.

These workshops teach tenants how to organize their buildings, engage in the legislative process, and build a broader tenant movement.

At this workshop, I'll discuss the two pieces of eviction-related legislation that I mentioned my office has been working on.

in my briefing last week.

This is pandemic-related eviction defense and closing the lease termination loophole to grant just cause protection through the entirety of a tenancy.

And finally, next Monday, the 29th, I'll be joining members of the Tenet Workshop in my office's Accountability Council, plus several other organizers and advocates to launch the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy campaign.

And I'll have more to share about that next week.

That is my report this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Colleagues, any other, any questions or comments on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member Mosqueda will be Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, Council colleagues.

I hope you had a good weekend.

A few updates for you today.

There are two items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full council agenda.

This includes Resolution 31999. This is the resolution that I just spoke about as it relates to the American Recovery Plan Act and provides the pillars of what the council's priorities will be as we look at allocating federal funds that are coming from the truly historic investment in both responding to the COVID crisis and making sure that we're investing in an equitable recovery.

The priority investments in the resolution are informed by council's previous conversations that we've had over the last year as we've been grappling with the consequences of COVID.

The council included, the council resolution includes The 2020 budget revisions, it includes jumpstart COVID relief plans and the 2021 adopted budgets as touch points for what we use to inform the resolution in front of us today, this afternoon's agenda.

Even though this went through the Finance and Housing Committee, I want to thank Council Members Peterson, Strauss, Morales, President Gonzalez, and Vice Chair Herbold.

for all of their additions because this was truly reflective of the full council since we waited an extra week to try to get your feedback before introducing something.

Appreciate all of the work that you did directly with central staff to make sure that this was a document that was reflective of all council member strategies.

I want to thank, again, Yolanda Ho and Tracy Ratzcliff, Jeff Sims, Tom Mikesell, Ali Panucci, and Dan Eater, who made sure that the following considerations were kept in mind as we crafted the resolution.

First, a need to make sure that we were pivoting the city's efforts from acute emergency relief to longer-term economic and community recovery.

The second was the potential to leverage other state, local, and federal programs and partners to make sure that we had a multiplier effect for these new federal dollars.

And third, a recognition that the city's capacity constraints would limit its ability to deliver services if we started to scale back on any of those, wanting to make sure that we preserve programs wherever possible to make sure that it was efficiently delivered, the dollars were efficiently delivered out to the community quickly.

The spending priorities are guided by principles including equity, coordination, flexibility, resilience.

As you heard Leslie Polner mention this morning, I need to recognize that these funds are probably the last time we're going to get a amount as impressive as this from our federal partners.

We want to make sure that there's flexibility and that we're working to coordinate these dollars with community partners and really prioritizing equity.

Again, if you look through the resolution, the priority topics include vaccines and testing, food assistance, homeless and housing services, immigrant and refugee support, childcare, small businesses, community well-being, transportation, and revenue, and financial resilience.

I really appreciate the amendment offered by Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much.

That was included in the resolution as passed out of committee, and that adds investments in gender-based violence response services to the list of activities which may be funded.

Secondly, we have Council Bill 120019, which Council Member Lewis is the prime sponsor of, and I'm honored to be listed as a co-sponsor.

I'm very happy to have had that legislation in our committee and to see it move out with a full unanimous committee recommendation for passage.

I'll let Council Member Lewis speak to the details of this, but very briefly, folks, again, this allocates the $12 million needed to provide non-congregate shelter services into hotel rooms, tiny house villages, enhanced shelters for people experiencing homelessness who are at risk of contracting COVID or having severe outcomes related to living outside as a result of COVID compounding the stressors that they already experience.

Because this was amending a budget that we already passed, approval of this appropriation will require a three-fourths vote of the council this afternoon and looking forward to supporting this legislation and again thank the council president for her conversations with our federal partners at FEMA and also council member Lewis for helping to move this legislation forward so that we can continue important services and build off of critical services that have been proven like those offered through Just Care which have great examples of where we've seen data-driven solutions and true harm reduction strategies helping to move folks off the street and prevent folks from being out in the elements but also exposed to COVID.

Our Finance and Housing Committee is not actually scheduled to meet until April 6th, and that will be at 9.30 a.m.

The tentative agenda is forthcoming, but I do want to flag one item on that agenda for you.

That's Council Bill 120018. This is the bill related to rental assistance that we discussed in our committee the last time we met.

This has the ability for us to use federal funds that were approved last December.

As I mentioned, over the last two weeks, we have been eagerly anticipating this legislation.

But given the extension of the moratorium on evictions, both at the city and now the state level, we do have a little bit of flexibility and we wanted to take that opportunity to make sure that all council members had a chance to review the legislation before it was advanced.

We do plan to have a vote, a briefing discussion and possible vote on April 6th.

and encourage you to take a look at that legislation to make sure that it meets the priorities that you as council members, as our legislative branch has, before we just move something through.

I will reiterate the timeline.

The timeline for any amendments is Friday.

Please send any amendments to Central Staff by this Friday, March 26th, so that Central Staff, Tracy Rasliff, has the chance to work with you, and we can touch base back with Office of Housing, on any possible amendments would like to see that moved out as quickly as possible on April 6th so that we can get it to the full council the following week.

As it relates to the American Recovery Plan Act, colleagues, as you just had a great briefing from Leslie and Sierra from our federal team, I won't reiterate many of the points that they made.

Much of those highlights that you heard were also reiterated in the council briefing and also in the Finance and Housing Committee meeting that we recently had.

I do encourage you, if you have not had a chance yet, to look at the presentation that Allie Panucci sent around that provided the comprehensive overview of what is in the American Recovery Plan Act to go ahead and take a look at that.

We can recirculate so that all council members are familiar with it.

And it shows again what we know from the federal dollars that are available and at the national level, it's not city specific yet, but the national level.

And then we put a comparative column next to it on where the council priorities are already outlined according to the resolution that were slated to pass this afternoon.

It's a really helpful document to sort of ground yourself on some of the numbers that Leslie shared today, and I think it complements the memo that they have also provided.

We will be working with central staff and the council president's office, folks within my office, as we look to identify specific dates for you all to know when the next iteration of our conversations will continue.

But just as a reminder, as I mentioned in the last council briefing, Our hope is to pass at least a first ordinance out of the full council before June, before the end of May, ideally, so that any of the programs that we currently have in place that are slated to expire in June, that we have a runway to make sure that they are kept in place, and in some cases are merged into other programs.

Again, it's the next two months that we will be deliberating and discussing the American Recovery Act plan and the legislative and executive priorities as we look to get these dollars out the door as soon as possible.

This timeline aligns very nicely with what Leslie described this morning, which is that over the next 60 days, we hope to both have more information and we know that the funds will become more available in those 60 days.

So more information to come about that, but just wanted to provide you with those sort of broad pillars of the conversation to come.

In terms of other updates, we have the regional announcement from Director Bobby Humes.

Many of you may have seen this, and to the full city employees, I believe that you're getting an alert as well.

On Friday, the city announced that we are going to be paying all city employees for the telework allowance, which is up to $48 per month, intended to reimburse employees for costs incurred as a direct result of the telework directive.

This is how we have asked employees to stay home.

If they can stay home during this time, we have asked you to stay home.

And we also know that that comes with added costs, both for internet and light and heat.

And wanted to make sure that we were compensating for that additional cost for folks who were paying for those items out of pocket.

This is all related to your work expenses, and we are grateful that the city budget office, in addition to the council colleagues here, that we held $3 million for this purpose.

A thank you to the Coalition for City Unions and their advocacy on this item, and for reaching out so quickly to make sure that this was on our radar and the city budget's office, and the city budget's office worked very quickly to come up with an estimate.

Thanks again to Dan and Allie for their work on this during the budget and the employees for continuing to talk about the need to make sure that that cost was compensated.

I think it's a great way for us to show as employers leadership in this moment when we're asking folks who can stay at home to stay at home.

I understand there's ongoing conversations as well about how do we make sure to continue to respect and compensate those who are still needing to come to work and appreciate the role that the city unions are playing in that effort as well.

So thank you to all employees and I hope that this does help.

I want to say congratulations to our City Attorney's Office.

Thanks so much to the leadership of City Attorney Pete Holmes.

We're excited for the incredible back-to-back news last week.

We received news on Wednesday and Thursday last week of really important wins.

This includes dismissing the cases against two pieces of labor-related legislation.

First, the hotel worker legislation, which I had the privilege to co-sponsor with Council President Gonzalez.

This is Making sure that people have access to guaranteed health care is part of their job.

And this is incredibly important as we remember that hotel workers are more likely to experience back injuries at much higher rates of that than coal miners and building construction members.

So healthcare was a key component of the three or four part piece of legislation that we passed two years ago.

And really excited to see that healthcare component defended and congratulations again to Pete Holmes and our whole city family.

The second legislation that we received positive news about was hazard pay for grocery workers.

I have had the privilege to sponsor that along with many of you on council.

Thank you all for your support on this.

We acted quickly in the month of January along with many other cities up and down the West Coast.

And now grocery workers are able to know that they will be able to continue to access the hazard pays that they are owed because they are in hazard's way and greatly appreciate all of your work on that.

Congratulations to the hotel workers at Unite Here, Local 8, and also the grocery workers with UFCW Local 21, along with our entire community, because when we do these type of investments, it creates healthy communities across Seattle.

Finally, thank you to Governor Inslee for his work and his team's work to extend the moratorium on evictions from rental units.

I mentioned that I had sent a letter to Governor Inslee two weeks ago.

I know many of you have also been reaching out.

We, I think, are incredibly proud to have Governor Inslee in our state leading the efforts in response to COVID.

And our state is in a better place because we have been investing in worker protections and things like rental protections.

Making sure that we extended the moratorium on evictions through June is a huge component of making sure that there's more resiliency and stability for families as more of our economy opens up.

They have to have a place to call home.

and to be able to stay home, to stay healthy, and also to stay stabilized as we want our economy to stabilize and open back up.

So thanks again to Jim Baumgart, John Flanagan, and Nick Streliel, who I've worked with in the past.

And I can't believe I'm mispronouncing your last name.

I'm sorry very much, Nick.

But it's been great to work with you all and appreciate all of your work on this to extend that moratorium on evictions.

And last week in closing, I had the chance to participate in a national forum to talk about hazard pay, not just for grocery workers, but to recognize as well that hazard pay is part of the overall package of almost a dozen pieces of legislation that we as a city council have passed in response to the COVID crisis hitting, quote, essential workers the hardest, but recognizing that many of these essential workers, instead of being treated as such, were being treated as sacrificial.

Thank them for their sacrifice and let them continue to suffer higher rates of contracting COVID.

higher rates of death from COVID and be more likely to experience working in positions that are paying minimum wage at best and wanting to make sure that these types of changes that we have put into place, both in the city of Seattle and have done so, recognizing the consequence of COVID, this is all in response to the fact that we already had an unequal economy to begin with.

And that type of income inequality that we saw experience before COVID meant that we had to act quickly to step in to provide things like rental assistance, food assistance, additional protections for labor support.

And the conversation that I had the chance to participate in included members of the White House economic advisors from President Biden, Jared Bernstein, and was on a panel with the governor from Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf, who we all talked about how these are the type of investments that we need moving forward so that we have stronger economies to begin with, and we can weather economic downturns or future health consequences.

So it was a really exciting opportunity to feature the work of Seattle City Council, and I wanna Thank the members of the Brookings Institution for reaching out and featuring our city so prominently in that national conversation.

I also had the chance to join Council President Gonzalez as we were on a panel presentation for Latino Advocacy Week last week, which helps to advocate for stronger connections between the Latinx communities and make sure that we are providing updates from peer to peer, elected to elected as we respond to the crisis of COVID and think about how our recovery efforts must center the Latinx community in all of those efforts.

It was exciting to be on that panel.

I met with John from the Firefighters Health One team and got an update on how the Health Two van is going as we also position ourself for opening up the third van that we funded in the council's budget last week.

Looking forward to having more conversations about opening up additional vehicles.

Again, my goal would be to have at least five vans, but I understand from those conversations that it's important to have the capacity to open up the HealthONE vans.

It's not a matter of just directing the council to do it or banging your fist on the table and saying that we need to open up more HealthONE vans.

It's truly about recognizing what capacity HealthONE needs in order to open up these vans.

That's why we put in the budget last year more funding for mental health services, case managers, allocating additional firefighter slots to HealthONE and freeing our firefighters from being under the fleet reduction policy.

That's how we're creating greater stability and opening up more opportunities for HealthONE to respond to critical calls.

So I thank them for their work and we're gonna have ongoing conversations about how we create greater stability for HealthONE and future openings of vans for the different stations across the city.

I met with folks from the International Community Health Services Foundation regarding the capital projects that they're doing up on the Beacon Hill site.

That's the north lot of the Pac-Man Tower, and excited to continue to support them.

And then as Council Member Morales said, participated in the Board of Health meeting.

I want to reiterate one last point from the Board of Health meeting, and then I think I will stop, Council President.

As Patty Hayes said, we have seen an uptick in the number of cases with people relaxing their response to COVID.

And Council Member Morales noted that for every one vaccine we have coming to our city, there are eight people who need that vaccine.

Simultaneously, we've seen the number of COVID cases increase by 18% in King County.

So please continue to do everything we were before any of the additional openings happen.

Take the precautions that you need to.

stay within your own family unit, and to make sure to continue to double up when you're wearing masks and going out.

I'll save the rest of my comments from the departments to spare additional time for others, but do want to thank you for your time and FAS for all the work they've done at the Lumen Field.

If folks are interested in volunteering like Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe did, please go to communityvaccination.org backslash regmobile and you will be able to sign up to vaccinate, or sorry, to support at the vaccination clinics as well.

Thank you very much.

Thanks so much, Council Member Esqueda.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Peterson, and then after Council Member Peterson will be Council Member Sawant.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee has four items on today's full City Council agenda.

The first item is helping to connect part of the regional rail-to-trail project by having Seattle City Light grant a small easement to the City of Kirkland.

our committee held the required public hearing on March 3rd and then recommended it unanimously on our committee on March 17th.

The second item, co-sponsored by Councilmember Herbold, accepts a grant from the Puget Sound Regional Council for the West Seattle Bridge.

This is Council Bill 12017. Many thanks to Council President Gonzalez, Councilmember Juarez, and to our city government staff who enabled us to secure this grant to help pay for The restoration work for this bridge that is so important to the city, the region, and the state.

We look forward to the high bridge reopening, which is scheduled for the middle of next year.

The third and fourth items from our committee are related to technology.

After discussions on March 3rd and March 17, our committee regarding or Our committee, regarding these existing technologies from Seattle City Light and Seattle Fire Department, we unanimously approved the surveillance impact reports.

Thank you to Council Member Herbold for her amendment, approved that committee to better align the city's time period for retaining records with the state government's policies.

Councilmember Herbold, I know she'll speak to this later, she also has published a friendly amendment on today's agenda to have the fire department explore the feasibility of an additional computer security feature based on the fire department's responses during our committee.

So that's published online right now.

The surveillance impact reports are part of the so-called Group 2 existing technologies that we must examine, thanks to the city's 2017 and 2018 surveillance ordinance.

We agreed to have a third committee meeting on April 7 to finalize the surveillance impact reports on existing technologies relied upon by SPD.

Please note that the next introduction and referral calendar may break up these five technologies currently in one bill into five bills so that we can be more nimble at the April 7 committee.

As I mentioned during committee, amendments from committee members are due tomorrow to central staff, Lisa Kay, so they can undergo a double legal review, which includes the regular legal review that all amendments go through, as well as consideration of whether there would be any impacts to the federal consent decree.

I want to thank our Information Technology Department, Central Staff Analyst Lisa Kaye, and my legislative aide, Cara Valle, for their hard work at this stage of the Surveillance Impact Report process.

Just a reminder, we have Group 3 and Group 4 surveillance impact reports coming soon.

So this Group 2 will get us acclimated to what's involved in reviewing and approving these existing technologies after they've undergone a thorough review by our Information Technology Department and Surveillance Working Group.

The good news from an accountability perspective, it's not over when council approves these ordinances for the surveillance impact reports, because then our city auditor and office of inspector general will continue to review the technologies after we approve the reports.

At committee, we also accepted council 12015, which is Seattle City Light Rates.

The full council, however, will vote on that next Monday, March 29, instead of today, to give everyone more time to review this.

The bill reaffirms electricity rates for Seattle City Light this year and for 2022. I'm pleased that City Light has managed to take various actions that will amazingly result in no net increase to customer bills this year.

Each customer's bill is comprised of various electricity rates, pass-through power rates, surcharges, and through a combination of actions, we can continue to prevent an increase in bills this year.

In addition, Seattle City Light will be keeping their promise for next year, 2022, by sticking with the original rate path agreed to back in 2018 and possibly achieving a smaller increase if the pass-through rate from the Bonneville Power Administration comes in lower.

I appreciate both Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities focusing on affordability.

So you can take a look at that Bill, which is on our Transportation Utilities Committee agenda, and there's a great PowerPoint presentation in there, city lights available to answer any questions, as is Eric McConaughey from central staff before next Monday.

Our next meeting of the Transportation Utilities Committee is Wednesday, April 7th at 9.30 a.m.

The committee agenda will include an update on the implementation of our Internet for All action plan.

This past Friday, like every Friday, I have held virtual office hours.

I'd like to thank the constituents who reached out to discuss safety and homelessness in our city parks.

I'll have another round of office hours this coming Friday afternoon.

Last week, I visited the Wallingford Small Business District along North 45th Street, including outdoor seating at Murphy's Pub and the newly reopened Octopus Bar.

When I speak to business owners in my district, they tell me what they want now More than anything, our customers, they want to see their regular customers return and welcome new customers because obviously they generate ongoing revenue needed to rehire their workers and pay their commercial rent and other operating expenses.

So with phase three now officially in place today, To the extent you feel comfortable, mask up, head out to your favorite cluster of small businesses, whether it's East Lake Ave, Northeast 65th Street, Stoneway, University Way, or whichever neighborhood business district is closest to your home.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Council Member Herbold, please.

I just thought this would be a good time to address the amendment for full counsel.

Thank you so much.

So this is an amendment that was brought to my, or the need for it was brought to my attention during public comment.

And this relates to the authentication used by the Seattle Fire Department for the surveillance technology that we're working on there.

computer-aided dispatch system.

So, currently, the department uses an authentication system that is not a two-factor verification.

Instead, it's what's called a token-based authentication.

Um, and it works by ensuring that each request to a survey server is accompanied by a sign token, which the server verifies for authenticity and then only responds to that request.

Um, this amendment asks that the Seattle Fire Department report no later than the end of the third quarter on the feasibility of using instead what's called a two-factor authentication for access to data on the computer-aided dispatch system.

This adds a second piece of information or a second layer that is needed before access is granted to an account.

This prevents someone from logging in even if they have access to a password, thus adding another layer of security.

The Seattle Police Department has implemented a two-factor authentication for their system.

And the Seattle Fire Department has said that two-factor authentication is required by federal criminal justice information services on some of its systems, including the Fire Investigations Unit, but it is not a requirement for their computer-aided dispatch.

But they confirmed that it's likely possible to set it up, though they don't know how difficult it would be to implicate implement.

And that's why this amendment asked that question of the fire department.

How how difficult would it be to implement this two factor authentication system and report back to council at the end of the third quarter?

Thank you.

Great, thank you so much.

Any other comments or questions on either the amendment as described by Council Member Herbold or Council Member Peterson's report?

Okay, great.

Council Member Peterson, I did want to let you know, I think my office communicated with your office that we at this juncture do not have or intend to bring any additional amendments related to the bills that we were briefed on, but didn't take action on.

So I just wanted to close the loop with you on that.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

I know there are other bigger technologies we've got to deal with, and I want to make sure that there's time in your committee to be able to deal with those bigger issues.

Thank you.

OK, colleagues, next up is Council Member Sawant, and then we will hear from Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

Good morning and thank you.

There are no items on today's city council agenda from the sustainability and renters rights committee.

Members of the public will remember the right to council legislation which guarantees a right to every tenant facing eviction to have an attorney, which was scheduled for a vote last week, but unfortunately, The majority of the city council voted to delay the vote until March 29th.

So that vote is scheduled for next Monday, March 29th, not today.

The legislation on right to council that was brought forward from my office and from the renters rights movement and passed by the sustainability and renters rights committee is the, in substance, the strongest in terms of the outcome.

It will have the strongest possible legislation on right to council because it does not have loopholes like means testing.

And I appreciate many community organizations that have co-authored a letter and have sent it to the city council, so the city council members will have that, that urges that the city council not include means testing.

And they have included very sound arguments to support why they say that means testing will be bad, among other arguments that they have raised.

The eviction process in Washington State makes the use of means test unworkable.

And I think a means test is bad in general, but they are further also correctly pointing out that specifically in Washington State will be difficult.

Tenants do not access counsel until the day of their court hearing.

tenants do not come to court prepared to provide documentation or other proof of income.

And if a tenant is found to not be eligible because of the means testing or otherwise don't have documentation, there will not be another opportunity for the tenant to obtain counsel.

So I hope all council members offices are able to look at that letter because I think it's very provides very valuable documentation of why means testing has been a problem in various places, and why we should follow a city like San Francisco, which has a right to counsel without means testing.

The next meeting of the Sustainability and Renter's Rights Committee is scheduled for its regular time tomorrow, March 23rd at 2 p.m.

At that meeting, we will have a briefing on the end of lease loophole in Seattle's Just Cause eviction protections, and how that loophole was closed in federal way.

We will also look at the current House Bill 1236, which institutes just cost protection statewide, but contains seriously significant and troubling loopholes, especially the loophole exempting initial term leases, which was proposed by Democratic Representative Strom Peterson and approved by the House.

We just talked about this a few minutes ago.

That briefing will also provide the committee with overall background information so that we can benefit future meetings, which I plan to organize in the committee to discuss with renters and community organizers.

As a chair of the Sustainability and Ventures Committee, I'm certainly committed to closing the end of lease loophole this year.

And as I mentioned earlier, it's something my office has spent a lot of time over the last years thinking about and also looking for a legal pathway to do it.

Unlike the current House Bill 1236, of course, the legislation that my office will be fighting for will contain no landlord loopholes, no exceptions.

Every tenant needs to be covered by just cost protections.

And for that, it will not be enough to propose such a legislation.

We will need a renter's rights movement that will fight against corporate landlords.

Because without that fighting strategy, we see what happens.

I mean, we will end up getting something like what happened with the state house bill, which was a very good bill.

And then ultimately amendments got added.

On Tuesday in the committee, I will be announcing that we are drafting this legislation to strengthen the city's current just cause ordinance.

And I've asked the central staff to begin working with my office immediately on this legislation drafting.

And as I said, the legislation would have no loopholes.

And I believe the new federal way law enacted by voter initiative serves as a useful template.

And I, of course, welcome all committee members, including Councilman Morales, who would like to push for such a just cause protection so that we can remove all loopholes.

I also plan to announce at the meeting that we will begin drafting legislation banning the use of credit checks in residential rental applications.

As council members know, this is a demand that has come from the Seattle Renters Commission, who recently issued a press release urging the council to take this up.

And also my council office was really pleased to co-host the first be Seattle tenants rights training in 2021, which has been correctly reformatted to focus on building tenant power you know they're correctly pointing out that it's really about.

an imbalance of power between corporate landlords and individual renters.

And the only way we can build power is by organizing tenants.

And I'm really glad to see B-Seattle doing that.

And I'm glad that B-Seattle has invited Council Member Morales to attend this third training.

BC adults budget, by the way, has more than doubled this year due to the people's budget movement, which is a movement that my office initiated in our first year in office in 2014. And so it's really crucial to see that they are using this funding to make sure that renters know their rights, but not just that, how they can get organized.

At next, next at tomorrow's committee, we will also hear from the Office of Sustainability and Environment about Seattle's greenhouse gas inventory and their work this year.

After OSC presents, we will meet with and vote to confirm the first group of appointees to Seattle's Green New Deal Oversight Board.

There are two, oh sorry, there are four appointments on today's introduction and referral calendar.

Matt Rumley, Christoph Strauss, Jess Wallach, and Dabalina Banerjee.

In addition, I also intend to walk on to today's introduction and referral calendar, the appointment packet for Rachel Heaton.

And at the table tomorrow, we also hope to discuss and meet with a future appointee, Christina Chu, who works for the Sunrise Movement.

Finally, the committee will discuss with climate activists from Mazaska Talks, Climate Solutions, and 350 about electrifying Seattle's infrastructure.

I also wanted to express solidarity and congratulations to UFCW and grocery store workers who, as was mentioned, won a victory this week as a federal judge struck down the completely spurious lawsuit brought down by massive grocery store chains against workers receiving this hazard pay in the middle of a historic pandemic.

And also solidarity with all essential and frontline workers, all of whom deserve at least the same $4 an hour hazard pay.

and just wanted to reiterate that socialist alternative in my office stands strongly with all the workers and unions who want to fight for hazard pay and also for other workplace rights, especially in these times of extreme difficulty for workers.

The Washington Post reported, quote, Record-breaking profits at several top retailers have not been shared in large part with their workers.

According to a November analysis of 13 major companies by the Brookings Institution, a reflection of how the pandemic has worsened the country's already pronounced issues with inequality, The report found that profits rose at these companies some $16.7 billion or 40 percent this year, with the average pay for their frontline workers was up only $1.11 an hour or 10 percent since the pandemic began.

That's a quote from The Washington Post.

In dismissing the case, the judge's ruling noted that the corporate grocers are making, quote, record-breaking profits, end quote, and the Grocery store employees are at significantly heightened risk of contracting COVID-19.

So this is, I really agree, this is a very, very important ruling from the courts.

An op-ed from me was published this morning in The Urbanist, and most immediately this op-ed was motivated by the recent gas fire in the Central District.

But of course, the gas fire incidents brought up larger and pre-existing questions about community safety and ending the climate crisis.

Just to quote very briefly from the op-ed, as I say, when it comes to climate justice, PSE is a major problem.

Fully 66% of PSE's power generation comes from coal and gas, both of which are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

Only 33% of PSE's power generation comes from hydro, wind, and solar power generation compared to the 88% carbon-free energy production at Seattle City Light, a public utility.

Gas may be good for PSE shareholders.

The company boasts of nearly a billion dollars in profits between 2016 and 2019. But those profits are destroying the planet.

Gas is the fastest growing source of climate pollution in Washington, according to a recent report by the Sightline Institute.

And as council members know, I've called for the state commission to look into not only this incident, but also for an overall investigation on PSE's practices.

But the op-ed also makes the point that PSE executives will never abandon fracked gas and coal because those planet-destroying fossil fuels are what feeds the company's profits, and that we need to build a local and national movement to bring TSE and other major fossil fuel and infrastructure corporations under democratic public control of workers so that we can reorient these companies towards clean, renewable energy and serve people and the planet, not profits.

This demand must be a central part of any Green New Deal program because workers and communities, not private investors, need to own the resources democratically if we are to even begin the transition of fossil fuels.

Last Monday, my office brought a resolution to urge the mayor and the governor to extend the eviction moratorium to the end of 2021. And as we know, at least 48 organizations, community and labor, have advocated for this and extending the moratorium till at least the end of this year.

As we know, 43 minutes before the council meeting was to vote on that resolution, Mayor Durkan finally responded to our grassroots movement and extended the moratorium for three months to the end of June.

And then Thursday, Governor Ainslie did the same.

This is not everything renters need and the movement has been demanding, but it is a crucial victory and demonstrates that when we fight, we can win.

Our resolution is now on the city council agenda for the first week in June.

So if the you know, mayor and the governor fail to extend the moratorium to the end of 2021. Before then, renters rights activists and community and labor organizations will have that ready at that time.

Socialist alternative and I, like so many community organizations, are horrified by the murders of eight people, including six Asian American working class women in Atlanta some days ago.

Condolences and solidarity to the grieving family members and friends.

It is vital we all stand with our Asian American neighbors as we stand with our Black and brown neighbors against the spiking hate crimes happening across the country, driven by the far right's hate racist and xenophobic rhetoric around the COVID-19 pandemic.

And we know this uptick was stoked by former President Trump's xenophobic rebranding of COVID.

really horrifically as the China virus or the Kung flu, fanning the flames of existing racism against Asian Americans.

And we know that while details are still emerging, the perpetrator Robert Aaron Long has revealed that he targeted these businesses through a deeply held sexism as well.

So this is really a hate crime motivated by racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and also misogyny.

And horrifically, he said that he targeted these businesses for providing, quote, an outlet for his addiction to sex, end quote, insinuating that he purchased sex from the women he killed.

If this is true, this is an absolutely grotesque illustration of the extreme violence sex workers are exposed to and why it ranks among the most dangerous jobs.

Regardless of whether he patronized these businesses or not, We know that we have to really fight back against the fetishizing and over-sexualizing of specific communities, but women as a whole, and fight against sexual violence.

Even here, we've seen outright attacks, just going back to the Asian American question, on community members in the international district, and a community protest against violence in Hinkhay Park.

provided powerful testimony from the protest, and that link has been shared on a blog post from my office.

I urge all members of the public and also council members to look at that, because it demonstrates that these attacks were not financially motivated, but were based on bigotry, and it's very dangerous, and we have to push back.

And we have to make it clear the solution is – and this is something that I'm echoing from protests that broke out all the way from Los Angeles to D.C.

in response to this horrific crime in Atlanta.

As many people have said, the solution is not more police.

So in Seattle, the solution is not more police on the streets, as Seattle Police Chief Diaz has suggested.

Statistics show that increasing police is not what keeps us safe.

It is, as women and workers and immigrants and people of color, public safety is dramatically improved when substantial progressive victories are won against endemic inequality, especially racial and gendered inequality.

And so we really need to make sure that we address the inequality in our city and make sure that our neighbors are protected against such violent attacks.

And we really address the culture of bigotry and hatred.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

Any comments or questions?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and move down the line.

Next up is Council Member Strauss, and then we will hear from Council Member Rebold.

Good morning, Council Member Strauss.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

In line with what a number of – we – a number of us have said previously, I want to begin by expressing my deep sadness and anger at the anti-Asian hate crimes in Atlanta, Georgia.

Last May, my district saw two reported – experienced two reported anti-Asian attacks and an unknown number of unreported incidences.

I express my solidarity with the Asian American Pacific Islander community here and across our nation.

Moving on to more regular business at this time.

There are 11 items from the land use and neighborhoods committee on today's introduction and referral calendar 5 appointments to the community involvement commission 5 appointments.

to the Urban Forestry Commission and Council Bill 120021, which imposes landmark controls on the Swedish Club in Queen Anne.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full agenda, and the next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is this Wednesday, March 24, starting at 9.30 AM.

There are three items on the agenda, which is a briefing, discussion, and vote on Council Bill 12021, the Swedish Club landmark, a briefing from SDCI on their quarterly tree report, and a briefing from SDCI on their first permitting report.

We were supposed to have this in the committee last, at the last committee.

Report hadn't been released from upstairs yet, and I got my whiteboard out.

We were getting into it, explaining the permitting processes and chokeholds throughout the city.

But the committee ran long, so if that report is not released, I will turn back to the whiteboard.

Last week, I received an update from Presiding Judge Gregory about Seattle Municipal Court's reforms to their probation program.

And I just want to thank the Seattle Municipal Court and Presiding Judge Gregory for all their great work.

They accomplished quite a lot in 2020, and I'll be excited to hear more the next time I meet with them.

As reported last week, I was going to meet with Chief Diaz.

We had to reschedule that meeting, and so I'll be meeting with him coming up this next week.

I did check in with our City Budget Office Director Noble, and we discussed revenue updates and discussed the new federal funding.

On Wednesday of last week, I attended the Regional Transportation Committee.

And as always, I held resident hours from 2 to 6 p.m.

on Thursday.

As well as on Friday, I met with former council member Sally Clark, who's co-chairing or tri-chairing the Maritime and Industrial Advisory Group.

And I ended my week connecting with one of my favorite neighborhood blogs, My Ballard, for the monthly Q&A.

This coming week, I'll be attending the Fremont Neighborhood Council tonight.

Tomorrow, I'll be meeting with Acting Director Childers from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, as well as Superintendent Aguirre from the Seattle Parks and Recreation.

I'm looking forward to meeting with the Green Lake Chamber of Commerce, and on Wednesday I'll be meeting with the chief of police has just discussed.

Also I'll be a meeting with the assistant presiding judge, Adam Eisenberg about Seattle Municipal Courts, domestic violence intervention project.

And I'm excited for a two-hour in-depth briefing from Seattle City Light on their strategic plan and comprehensive approach to rate changes so that we can be prepared to vote next week.

And thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for providing that opportunity to take this week to learn more.

On Thursday, I'll be attending the Puget Sound Regional Council, and later that day I'll be joining the Maritime and Industrial Advisory Group meeting.

As always, I'll be hosting my office hours from 2 to 6 p.m.

on Thursday, and on Friday we'll continue to work on the long-term changes for the Leary Triangle.

Here in District 6, I continue to hold District 6 meetings, and last week I had conversations with neighborhoods from Greenwood, Finneywood, Finney Ridge, Olympic Manor, Crown Hill, and a couple places in Ballard.

We spoke about resident casework for an issue occurring in Greenwood, talked about the quality of life issues facing our community, first responder response times, and homelessness.

I had two conversations about the need and how to address homelessness at the scale of the crisis.

One individual brought up the functional zero and by name lists and another noted the fact that we need adequate places for people to go because from their opinion, pushing people around on one side and just the current situation of complete hands off, neither is working.

Another resident talked to me about the first-hand impacts of zoning changes made a few years ago and the extensive construction noise.

As well as another resident spoke about, same meeting spoke about an SDCI complaint on a neighboring property and then thanked me for the work on the yonder cider bill, which was again regarding an SDCI complaint.

Lastly, I did speak to a single mom who is an essential worker about the real impacts of not having child care.

She wanted me to share some of the conversation that we had because of how important it is and Councilmember Mosqueda, I think you've addressed this previously.

For the child care that this person uses here in District 6, After school child care goes for a rate of $220 per month and full time child care goes for $1100 per month.

That's with.

That's a five.

That's an $888 $880 difference.

There are scholarships available.

And so scholarship for after school brings 220 down to 120 per month.

or a scholarship for full-time childcare brings $1,100 a month down to $620 a month.

So even with that scholarship, that's an increase of $500 per month.

It might, for many people, $500 a month, if you have two incomes, you've got help at home, it might not feel as big of an impact as it feels to so many in our community.

because either a $500 or $880 a month increase in your budget without salary savings is an incredible burden to hold.

And this is why we need to have more affordable and accessible childcare across the city.

This was why my first bill was about reducing permitting, conditional permits on childcare facilities to site them so that we can get them in faster.

And I guess I just wanted to take this moment while I had everyone's attention to really share this firsthand impact that I heard about during office hours.

Because again, without a scholarship, the difference per month is an $880 increase.

With the scholarship, it's still a $500 increase.

And for a single mom who is having to work juggling child care responsibilities and then also having these costs skyrocketed, it has put an incredible burden on her shoulders.

So I want to thank her for her work continuing throughout this pandemic as an essential worker.

And thank you, colleagues, for taking the time to listen to this report.

Lastly, again, I look forward to speaking with D6 residents this Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m.

And Council President and colleagues, that is my report.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you so much.

Okay, colleagues, we're going to go ahead and move down the line.

Next up is Councilmember Herbold, and then followed by Councilmember Herbold will be Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Herbold, good morning.

Thank you so much.

The Safety and Human Services Committee does not have any items on the full council agenda today at 2. but the committee is meeting tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m.

There are two items on the agenda.

The first is the Office of Emergency Management will be with us to present their 2020 annual report.

Secondly, Council Bill 119981 regarding the Seattle Police Department budget.

I have a substitute version that I'm planning on proposing in committee tomorrow that I hope to circulate shortly.

The committee has met three times to consider the bill, and SPD and CDO and the mayor's office joined us at the last committee meeting on March 9th.

I've also shared with the Seattle Police Department and the City Budget Office the contents of the substitute bill last week.

We'll be having a presentation and discussion in committee, but want to provide a high-level summary here today.

First of all, of course, it's important to always underscore that this bill is not about funding for police officer staffing.

Seattle Police Department staffing and hiring plan is and has always been fully funded since November.

The substitute version fully funds the items that the Seattle Police Department has requested funding for, dating back to its January 25th memo, where it outlined needs for technology funding, civilian positions, including four community service officers, one community service officer supervisor, and two crime prevention coordinators, as well as 1.8 million in separation pay.

It also makes a substantial investment in addressing the public disclosure needs of the Seattle Police Department, of which there have been several high-profile findings around the shortcomings on public disclosure, adding staff for public disclosure response positions, as recommended by the city auditor in his 2015 report.

Chief Diaz has noted the challenges that SPD faces in responding to the high volume a public disclosure request that the Seattle Police Department receives, and hopefully the funding will help address that.

Some of the funding goes to fund public disclosure positions in the police department, but some also go to fund public disclosure positions in the Office of Police Accountability.

The chief had noted that SPD is responsible for responding to public disclosure requests that are actually directed to the OPA, and so this will allow OPA to fund the work that is specifically associated with responding to public disclosure requests to OPA.

It also funds a position in Seattle IT for public disclosure requests.

Another issue that SPD has noted is that every department in the city, or nearly every department in the city, has Seattle IT do its public disclosure email searches.

Seattle Police Department was an exception.

And so this funding would allow Seattle IT to do that piece of the public disclosure work.

It also provides funding for evidence storage facilities, as recommended by the Inspector General.

The Inspector General has found that Seattle Police evidence storage facility is inadequate, leading to improper destruction of DNA evidence and purging of evidence from an unknown number of homicide investigations.

And finally, it creates five new mental health crisis responder positions in the Human Services Department to assist police officers in responding to situations where there is an armed person in crisis and potential danger to the public and officers.

It also provides funding for $2 million for the participatory budgeting program.

And central staff estimates that the $7.7 million from unfilled officer positions will be available during 2021, and that is where the funding for fulfilling the requests from the Seattle Police Department, as well as fulfilling the objective of adding additional funds from the Seattle Police Department to participatory budgeting comes from.

It comes from $7.7 million in salary savings from unfilled officer positions that will be available during 2021. Also, as I've mentioned on numerous occasions, we are, of course, under a consent decree with the U.S.

Department of Justice.

The federal monitor and judge have expressed interest in the Seattle Police Department's budget and are following the ordinance.

Early this morning, the Seattle Police Department received a letter from the monitor that states The monitoring team asks that these questions, and they include some questions, be answered as expeditiously as possible and prior to further actions by the city on the budget of the Seattle Police Department.

Upon receipt of the analysis, the monitoring team will confer with the Department of Justice and advise the court.

So even with any committee action tomorrow, it's very likely that any final full council action will have to wait until the monitor and the DOJ have conferred and advised the court.

I do want to note that the questions in the monitor's letter are questions that, to a certain extent, are really focused on the introduced bill, not on the substitute bill.

So I, of course, will be sending the monitor a copy of the bill as well.

As far as our public health update, as we have talked about this morning, more groups of people have become eligible to receive COVID vaccination in Washington state last week.

People 16 years or older who are pregnant.

people 16 years old or older who have a disability that puts them at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness, and high-risk critical workers who work in concrete settings such as agriculture, grocery stores, corrections, public transit, and more.

And of course, Governor Inslee has announced another group that will become eligible on March 31st.

If you're vaccine eligible and have not yet received vaccination, you can join the city's notification list.

You'll receive an email when a dose becomes available to you and you can schedule.

And for any of the three of the three of the city's community vaccination sites, you can choose West Seattle Rainier Beach or the Lumen Field Event Center.

You can sign up at seattle.gov forward slash vaccine or call 206684. 2489 and of course vaccination is free.

Being my weekly update on the fire department, vaccination, vaccination teams have administered 28,242 vaccines through March 20th.

and 681,000 tests.

That's a cumulative amount of testing through March 20th.

I know that the executive has indicated that there may need to be some changes around test siting to accommodate more vaccination.

So, for instance, in Southwest, currently there is both vaccination and testing at the same site.

They're exploring having only vaccination at that site.

And if so, there may need to be, I believe there may need to be additional testing sites.

As some folks have noted today, the the infection rates in King County and in Seattle are not going down over these last six weeks.

So I think there is still a great need for testing and I'm looking forward to working with the executive on identifying additional testing sites if they do intend to eliminate the testing available currently at the Southwest facility.

As far as HSD updates, just a few things that HSD, the Human Services Department, has asked that I pass on this week.

The utility discount program has been extended, so if your finances have been impacted by COVID, the city will help keep the services on and offer relief to utility customers, both residential and commercial.

You can call 206-207-8000 684-3000 or learn more at Seattle.gov forward slash human services.

You can click on apply for utility discounts.

Also, HSD's Human Services Department's Youth and Family Empowerment Division hosted the Community Safety Capacity building RFP session on March 11th.

There were 61 attendees.

The presentation and a recording of the session, in addition to translating guidelines and application requirements, are posted to HSD's funding website, and they will continue to field questions through April 5th and post them to the seattle.gov forward slash human services site.

Click on funding opportunities.

And then lastly, the Human Services Department's Aging and Disability services case managers continue to contact clients that they have, uh, who need to receive, uh, or who are receiving long term services and supports for their, um, to assist them in doing sort of hands on, uh, efforts, um, with with these individuals for enrollment at mass vaccination clinics.

As we have all discussed, I know we all share the shock, the sadness, the anger about the murders in Atlanta last week.

This horrible hate crime where eight people were murdered, six of them Asian-American women, a echoing of recent violence that we have seen here in Seattle.

It's part of a nationwide trend looking at what has been going on here in Seattle.

I think it's really important to keep in mind the long history of Asian prejudice and violence in our own city, which dates back to the 19th century.

Discrimination legislation targeting Chinese residents in 1885, and this was followed by mob violence to expel Chinese residents from Seattle.

in 1886. It's important that we follow the lead of community in responding to this.

And, um, big thanks to Councilmember Mosqueda for drafting the letter that the council sent two weeks ago, stating solidarity with the Asian American community and condemning hate crimes.

Um, and, uh, really appreciate the the fact that we are all, um, working to do everything we can to center our feelings and our concern, and really working to lift up the voices of Asian American women who experience this violence in their day-to-day walks of life.

As far as events coming up this week, I have the Regional Law, Safety and Justice Committee meeting on Thursday.

On Friday, there's a special Regional Policy Committee meeting coming up.

I have office hours on Friday between 2 and 6 p.m.

And then also this week, I'll be attending the Highland Park Action Committee meeting to talk about public safety.

And then lastly, just a couple things I wanted to mention from last week.

Thursday, I attended Working Washington's Pay Up event.

This event was the launch of their campaign to support app-based workers and to set minimum standards for these contract workers.

We're really excited about this campaign and excited in working on some of the issues associated with app-based workers in Council Member Mosqueda's committee next month.

I attended an online community meeting that the Washington State Ferries sponsored last week.

Washington State Ferries has begun the process for replacing the Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal.

You can imagine there's a lot of interest in West Seattle and also in the surrounding non-West Seattle communities, the commuter communities, about the plan to replace the terminal.

They, uh, the meetings that they're holding are really to begin this process.

Um, and also, um, my staff has been tracking, um, this, this, this effort as well, and has been, um, working to, uh, attend all the meetings, um, to make sure that we're hearing from, from communities about their concerns around the impacts.

And that's all I have.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Uh, any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, Council Member Juarez, you're up next, and then after Council Member Juarez is Council Member Lewis.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council President and colleagues.

Before I be very brief, launch into my report, I just want to share which Council President Gonzales assisted me with.

Thank you very much.

We have the proclamation for the Snoqualmie Chief Andy de Los Angeles.

Andy de Los Angeles of the Snoqualmie Tribe passed away January 21st.

2021. He leaves behind a huge legacy for members of the Snoqualmie Tribe, Seattle residents, and Washington State tribes.

In his honor, I have invited members of his family to this afternoon's city council meeting, as well as the Snoqualmie Tribal Council, to accept a proclamation which describes Chief Andy's legacy.

And some of you will remember I talked about Andy last week, as I shared, I've known him since I was a young teen.

I'll share more of that at 2 o'clock.

Our office did circulate the proclamation last Friday, and I want to again thank Council President's Office for helping us schedule this important occasion.

Council President Gonzalez, I'm ready for a roll call vote in support of this proclamation when you're ready.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Signatures, as you just heard, colleagues will need to be affixed to the proclamation before it is presented this afternoon at 2 o'clock p.m., so I'm going to ask the clerk to confirm which council members would like their signature affixed.

But first, are there any questions before we go through the roll call?

Hearing no questions, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation honoring the life of Snoqualmie Chief Andy de Los Angeles for his civil and tribal rights contributions for future generations to come.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Yes.

Peterson.

Yes.

Salant.

Yes.

Strauss.

Yes.

Herbold.

Yes.

Juarez.

Yes.

Lewis.

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that.

Council Member Juarez, back to you.

Thank you.

So regarding the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee, there are no items from our committee on today's afternoon agenda.

In regards to parks, a quick update, as I normally do every Monday, under the Clean City Initiative from March 1st to the 7th, Clean City crews picked up 71,000 pounds of trash and about 2,000 needles.

They picked up at 60 encampments throughout the city, and this week they emphasized cleaning at Denny Park and Oxbow Park.

Food distribution at Rainier Beach Community Center, Food Lifeline distributed emergency food to about 1,500 individuals and families on March 17th.

In regards to childcare, the Parks Department served 290 children at 17 sites.

So, it looks like our numbers are getting are really stabilizing.

So that's a good thing.

Car key, the car key pedestrian bridge replacement feasibility study on March 12th parks received a final report of the car key pedestrian bridge replacement facility feasibility study led by engineering.

The report details the condition of the current bridge and lays out recommendations for bridge replacement.

There'll be more to come, I believe, in my next Monday update.

Native communities, as some of you know, I had to leave a council meeting early last Monday, so thank you for letting me go first, Council President.

The Seattle Indian Health Board and the Seattle Public Schools Vaccination Partnership.

Seattle Indian Center Board vaccinated 155 frontline staff from the Seattle Public Schools on Monday, March 15th, including custodians, nutrition services staff, special education teachers, and instructional aides.

This vaccine effort was the result of conversations between Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Denise Juneau and Esther Lucero, CEO of the Seattle Indian Health Board.

They coordinated an extra supply of vaccines and simply targeted a crucial population of frontline workers.

Again, the city must continue to empower our trusted community messengers, like the Seattle Indian Health Board, to distribute vaccines.

Update on the National Archives.

On Wednesday, March 17th, my office participated in a conference hosted by a number of federal agencies to listen to the concerns raised by over 20 Pacific Northwest tribal governments impacted by their location on the proposal.

There was an overwhelming concern for the absence of tribal consultation.

If you recall, three weeks ago, Judge Kuhnauer did issue a preliminary injunction, and that's where it stands.

I'm guessing talks will continue with the Biden administration.

Last week's highlights.

Last week I had an opportunity to meet with the downtown revitalization folks.

I attended the meeting and the work group consists of industry leaders from Seattle's largest corporations, artists, advocates, and elected leaders to come together in support of Seattle's downtown.

I also had a chance to meet with the Seattle Restaurant Alliance to discuss economic recovery, public safety, and concerns about downtown.

and the hotel community.

Um, in regards to the Asian American community, obviously, we all share the same concerns of the racist and hate attack that occurred toward the Asian women in the community in Atlanta.

And we are witnessing a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans in our community.

Of course, across the country, the International Full Gospel Fellowship Church in District five experienced a hateful graffiti for the fourth time this year.

My office and I have reached out to the church to share our concern and solidarity and support.

I'm hopeful that I will meet with them this week to discuss what the city can do to support Asian Americans during this difficult time.

And again, I'm sorry and sad to hear that.

Um, we had actually heard about the first, first two times, but I did not know that it was four times until last week.

Um, as I've been saying again, our friend on representative Holland was confirmed.

and has officially become Madam Secretary of the Department of Interior.

The Senate approved her confirmation 51 to 49. She was ceremoniously sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday morning, making her the first Native American and U.S. history to serve in a president's cabinet.

I think Jeff Bennett of NBC News said it best, I quote, in 1851, The Interior Secretary Stewart said the only alternative left is to either civilize or exterminate Native Americans.

And in 2021, Deb Haaland is confirmed to lead Interior, becoming the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history.

It took 170 years to bend that arc.

I'll leave it on that note.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll hear now from Council Member Lewis, and then I will abbreviate my abbreviated remarks at the end of today, because we still have an executive session that is slated to last approximately 45 minutes.

So you all should expect to be in executive session until close to 1 p.m.

before we transition to full council.

Council Member Lewis, please.

I will endeavor to be your abbreviation warm-up act, Madam President, to get us closer to that goal.

So I will try to keep it just to the highlights of last week.

As a reminder to everybody, the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investment Meeting is canceled.

for this week, so don't do anything too crazy on your free afternoon on Wednesday, but we look forward to hearing from our partners at the Human Services Department and the Mayor's Office on the Council's extensive investments in standing up homelessness shelter at our April meeting.

I've been led to believe there will be significant updates on the hoteling and rapid rehousing assets that are being stood up, I believe, before the end of March.

and we should have some preliminary information on how those efforts are going when we convene for that meeting in April.

That's a good segue to talking about this afternoon's bill that I am prime sponsoring, Council Bill 120019, which will appropriate $12 million in spending authority with the expectation that those resources be ultimately refundable through FEMA reimbursement for shelter for people experiencing homelessness, who also are presenting with comorbidities or are 65 years of age or older.

I look forward to expanding a little bit more on this this afternoon and look forward to passage of this bill.

I want to thank Council Member Mosqueda for her co-sponsorship and I want to acknowledge now in open session that Council President Gonzalez also is interested in co-sponsoring and I do apologize for wires crossed and that Council President's name has not yet been included on the legislation, but as Council President was very instrumental in shaping it, I certainly welcome the co-sponsorship for the work that she did in convening the parties, convening a meeting with FEMA, and squaring a lot of the circles that had held this conversation back.

So thank you, Madam President, and look forward to making sure you're duly included on that bill as a co-sponsor, as your efforts clearly warrant.

So thank you.

Similarly, I attended the downtown revitalization meeting group with Council Member Juarez.

We kicked off a very broad-ranging conversation with stakeholders around numerous challenges downtown is facing on its road to recovery.

Prime among them being concerns around public safety, around chronic homelessness, The reactivation of a variety of different storefronts and having a smooth transition back to congregate work to activate the downtown core again.

I look forward to continuing those conversations as we continue to ramp up the recovery and as we see numerous businesses start to plan firmer return to work dates and hope that we can productively resolve a lot of that work and planning in coordination as a business community, provider community, and city government through that effort and appreciated the opportunity to participate and to participate in that work going forward.

Last week, I had the privilege, along with Council President Gonzalez, of voting to confirm Mark Doans as the CEO of the Regional Homelessness Authority for King County.

This, as many folks in the community know, has been a long-delayed process in standing up this critical regional collaborative effort to finally address as one united King County community the crisis of homelessness in our region.

Mark Dones is the Executive Director of the National Innovation Service.

He's worked on a number of very critical projects, including a landmark youth violence prevention initiative in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for former Governor Deval Patrick.

I really look forward to Mark taking on this leadership role, the energy Mark brings, and just the real can-do attitude that is going to be necessary to stitch together this really important effort and was proud to vote for his confirmation and to see reported recently in the Seattle Times that Mark has accepted the offer and is expected to start work by April 26th.

So look forward to welcoming Mark to the King County family.

With that, Madam President, I don't have any other updates today, and we'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, for that report.

Really appreciate it.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, I'll go ahead and conclude this section of the agenda before we transition into executive session.

Just really quickly, there's nothing from the Governance and Education Committee on this afternoon's a full council agenda, nor is there anything from my committee on today's introduction and referral calendar.

And just want to acknowledge that I will be attending the Puget Sound Regional Council meeting this Thursday at 10 o'clock a.m.

together with some of my colleagues here.

And then also want to acknowledge that I will be joining the cohort of the Youth and Young Adult Advocacy Program on Thursday.

operated program by Choose 180 and Community Passageways.

The fellowship program is a two-year curriculum for BIPOC youth between the ages of 15 and 24 years old who have been personally impacted by the criminal justice system.

And so they've recently been discussing issues impacting their communities, such as gun violence, education reform, policing, and transformative community safety alternatives.

And I'm looking forward to being with that cohort of young leaders.

in our community this Thursday evening and to help learn from them about what the city can do to best support their opportunity to succeed and thrive in our community.

So looking forward to that.

I had a few other things I wanted to say, but I'm going to go ahead and dispense with those because we are running rather behind this morning.

And I'm going to go ahead and move this into executive session.

As presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

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

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

I expect the time of the executive session to end by no later than one o'clock p.m.

this afternoon.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I'll announce the extension and the expected duration.

Thank you.