Seattle City Council Community Economic Development Committee 3/16/21

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Good afternoon, everyone.

The March 16, 2021 meeting of the Community Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Tammy Morales, Chair of the Community Economic Development Committee.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Peterson?

Here.

Sawant?

Present.

Chair Morales?

Here.

for in attendance.

Thank you.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

At this time, we'll open the remote general public comment period.

It is my understanding that we do not have anyone signed up.

Is that still the case?

There are no public comment registrants.

OK.

Very well.

Then we will close public comment.

and move on.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Item one, equitable recovery overview briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

So colleagues, today we'll be hearing from the Office of Economic Development and the new Interim Director Pamela Banks.

I invited Ms. Banks to the committee to share the 2021 work program for OED.

As we'll see in the presentation, we know there's lots of work to be done to ensure an equitable economic recovery as we move out of the pandemic.

So we'll be hearing about some of those plans.

We'll also be hearing from a panel of community members.

I wanted the committee to have a chance to hear from folks on the ground who are supporting our neighborhood businesses and business districts who are supporting workers and from a small business owner directly.

So after the presentation from OED, we will hear from them.

Before I hand it over to OED, I do want to say it's very clear that we'll be working on an economic recovery for some time.

We know that our business community has been devastated, particularly those who are customer facing, our restaurants and bars, our music venues, our tourism industry.

And many in the retail space, while they may have been able to struggle through the last year, we know that their workers have been in harm's way as they navigate mask rules, deal with customers who may be resistant or lax in maintaining physical distancing.

So all these things have made it enormously challenging for our business community and our business neighbors.

I'm hoping to hear about how the work program for 2021 will change to address some of those challenges, and look forward to the conversation today.

So with that, I am going to hand it over to Interim Director Banks, and we will get started.

Thank you, Council Member Tammy Rouse, for inviting me here today to talk to you about, in the committee, our vision for an equitable recovery after COVID-19.

Next slide, please.

As you know, the city has had substantial impacts revealed after COVID, after a little over a year.

Our vision on recovery is to ensure that it is equitable and that we bring Seattle back as a vibrant, innovative, and diverse an inclusive economy that ensures all Seattleites can thrive and share in the new opportunities of the future.

We don't want to bring Seattle back the same like it was because we weren't as equitable as we know we can be.

And so our equitable recovery effort aims to build a thriving city as a whole as we implement intentional strategies and meet the varying needs of our neighborhoods and communities.

So we've divided up our equitable recovery under two buckets.

This recovery effort for the next four to six months is definitely focused on the equitable reopening, recovery, and revitalization downtown.

But we also know that this is going to have what I call a ripple effect, not a triple down effect, but a ripple effect across the city as we also focus on strategic neighborhood and business districts as well.

These two buckets include economic recovery and community resilience.

Next slide, please.

The recovery timeframes, we know that we have to think about the recovery timeframes in three broad areas.

Immediate strategies, things that we can do now prior to widespread vaccination to restore interest in neighborhoods and the business communities.

Our near-term strategies are things that we will roll out once we achieve the widespread vaccination and coordinate returning back to our new normal.

And then, like you said earlier, Council Member Ramos, The long-term strategies, this has got to be a multi-year strategy as we address the lasting impacts of COVID on our community and the changing nature of the office work and the workforce in general across the city.

Everything we talk about today is dependent on vaccination.

So we know that we can't do certain things unless we're vaccinated and unless the city and the county and the region gets to a certain level of openness.

So under potential revenues, excuse me, excuse me, under potential resource streams, we have equitable recovery in the middle.

And then we have looking at reallocating city resources to meet this need, federal stimulus money, partnerships in philanthropy, investments from the Community Investment Fund, specifically focused on black and indigenous and people of color.

And then of course, we're gonna be looking at public private partnerships.

All of these will funnel into equitable recovery as we move forward.

Next slide.

If I could stop just for a moment, I just wanna acknowledge that Council Member Lewis and Deputy Mayor Washington have joined us.

Thank you.

Our first bucket under community resilience is, excuse me, these efforts want to ensure that the city and our partners are investing in our community so that all Seattleites have access to opportunity.

This includes access to additional resources or revenue for bringing small business back, This is ensuring that our young people that are in Seattle Promise, when they graduate and go on to Seattle Central or go on to college, that they are going into fields where, when they come out, they're going into fields where there are jobs and they have ability to have those jobs.

And so creating internships or mentorships in the private sector for them, as well as the community investments that we will see with the $100 million community investment fund.

Next slide, please.

Under our second bucket of economic recovery, these recovery efforts have to bring together government, community, businesses, philanthropy, and nonprofits to revitalize our economic engine, which is, excuse me, the heartbeat, is the downtown area.

And so by doing this, and especially the work in OAD, it's supporting business and industry, and it's also meeting our neighborhoods, meeting their neighborhood needs.

So I like to say that This shows that we are interconnected, interrelated, therefore interdependent.

We cannot do this work in silos.

It has to come together.

And we have to create what I call a mastermind in order to get this done.

We want to foster innovation in the creative industries and culture and retail because we know what COVID has exposed is that there is going to be a different way that people work.

For instance, we are going to see probably a large number of vacant office space downtown.

In order to address that, we are, Deputy Mayor Washington is convening two subcabinets, one on community resilience and one on economic recovery.

Externally, we're putting together a working group of representatives from business, culture, community, and service organizations that reflect the diverse interests in downtown and to help develop and implement our public-private strategies to meet those needs.

So we have external and internal working groups.

Next slide, please.

What we've been hearing from the business community, done a lot of phone calling, a lot of meetings, and I've done a lot of walking and going into businesses downtown.

Public safety is the number one concern, especially for downtown.

There is a large concern about rent debt.

That's for not just personal, not just for people, but for business owners, small business owners.

And we know there's gonna be an excess of office, empty office and commercial space.

I know a month ago, Nordstrom's announced they were leaving, I think over 280,000 square feet of office space downtown.

COVID has really changed the way people buy and has shown buying online.

And that has really impacted the retail space, especially downtown.

And we've also seen a greater digital divide with young people, especially around school.

There's been children that don't have access to internet or didn't have the tools that they needed.

So there was a greater digital divide during this time.

We're also hearing about vaccinations.

Is there going to be enough, not enough?

And if there are, is there any chance that we'll have a reoccurrence?

Just yesterday, they shut down Italy again, the country of Italy.

And so it's concerning to folks to say, if we get too relaxed or if we get vaccinated, is there a possibility of a reoccurrence?

Commercial liability insurance is huge.

One of the things that we are providing OED is the ability to help with legal services around commercial rents.

And then finally, tenant encampments and how that's impacting downtown and the neighboring business districts, but also neighborhoods as well.

Next slide, please.

So focusing on the downtown revitalization effort, again, I said we've convened a working group of external partners that meet biweekly with the goal of bringing downtown back to life.

We actually had our third meeting today, and I wanna thank Council Member Lewis and Council Member Juarez for attending.

And they've made a commitment to continue to meet with this group to be a liaison between council and the group.

The group is going to focus on improving public safety.

We wanna create a room for innovation and creativity in the arts and culture and retail, because that is really the livelihood of downtown if you think about it.

We also want to ensure that key infrastructure projects move forward, completing the waterfront all the way to completing the convention center to Climate Pledge Arena.

All of those are key projects and not only keeping people and especially people of color working, but also to the success of the reopening and revitalization of downtown.

And not last but not least, bringing workers and patrons back downtown safely.

And again, we have to focus on Metro or the transit system as well, because if we get it reopened, we've got to make sure that people can get down there.

Or when we get it open, we've got to make sure people can get down there and get down there safely.

So one statistic that DSA has shared with us is prior to COVID, there were 350,000 office workers pre-COVID.

Currently, about 15% of that number is working downtown.

And our working group would like to get it up to 30%, which is a little over 100,000 people.

And that would be the beginning of a successful reopening.

So we've got a lot of work to do on that end.

Next slide, please.

We have not just focused on downtown as the downtown core, which people think.

have a strategy around creating downtown as the boundaries being from the Seattle Center, including South Lake Union, all the way to the stadiums, which include Chinatown, Pioneer Square, from the waterfront, all the way to the convention center.

The guiding principles for the group, for this external group, is to ensure that we have the ability to effectively recover citywide in a large part is the ability to revitalize our economic and cultural activity downtown.

So the task, as they're still, like I said, we just had our third meeting, but we want to do activation.

We would like to see activation done in every one of these neighborhoods sometime summer to fall.

We definitely want to improve public safety, and we definitely want to address the empty commercial office and retail space.

These are just a few of the strategies.

Like I said, the external working group just had their third meeting today, and this is going to get more flushed out, but we pretty much agreed on these are the neighborhoods for the downtown core, and this is the strategy that they want to use in order to start the activation and the reopening and revitalization process with an equity lens.

I don't want to forget that at all.

Next slide, please.

In addition, as we're doing the work downtown, we also are going to be looking at specific neighborhood strategies.

We need to better understand neighborhood specific challenges and needs to develop strategies to help revitalizations of our neighborhood business districts as well.

So we're going to put together some.

small working groups to do that in each of these neighborhoods.

They will have representatives from the Small Business Advisory Council, the Equity District neighborhoods, and the BIPOC business owners.

We will also look at neighborhood and community groups.

That is not just, that's not an exclusive list, but these are just the core group that we're going to put together as an OEG staff and department neighborhood staff are going to be working hand in hand with outreach with these groups in order to effectively address the neighborhood specific needs in order to help revitalization and reopen our neighborhood business districts as well.

Next slide, please.

I got room for questions.

That was a really high-level overview, and I'm more than willing to take questions.

We had a really good meeting today at the external stakeholder group, and I think we are going to have definitely a framework built out in the next couple weeks to give you more detail on how they plan to move forward.

And like I said, Deputy Mayor Washington is on the phone, and she's convened the two community resilience and the economic recovery interdepartmental teams that are going to address the work from the inside.

Thank you, Interim Banks.

I do have several questions.

I'm going to start on the last slide, I think.

But before I do that, I do want to acknowledge there are a few guests listening.

Council Member Juarez, do you want to introduce

Yes.

Got on?

Yeah, thank you so much, Madam Chair.

And I had a chance to talk to Director Banks.

We have listening a lot of tribal governments, but in particular, I want to give a big shout out to the Snoqualmie Nation.

Chairman Robert D. Los Angeles is watching, Council Member Jolene Williams, and Council Member Susana Salito.

They are part of King County.

They are a major employer and they provide health care.

They're part of our tribal government group.

and like Suquamish and Muckleshoot and Tulalip and Cowlitz, as I shared with Director Banks, are interested in the recovery of downtown Seattle and, of course, continually to do business with the city of Seattle, which is, of course, named after their people.

So thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Okay, colleagues, I'm sure there's lots of questions.

I do want to start, if I could, back on slide three and wonder if there are specific examples of what an immediate term strategy might be.

what we're doing for this space for displaced workers or for retaining existing businesses or assisting new micro-businesses.

I know there's a lot of work to be done sort of big picture in thinking about this recovery, but I'm really interested to know what the priorities are, for example, you know, workforce development, industrial lands, the Only in Seattle program, the kind of existing programming that is there at OED right now, and how that fits into this.

So Marie Kurosi, our Workforce Development Council CEO, she's at the table with us, as well as working with the Seattle Jobs Initiative.

So we are in the process of working with Marie around retraining, especially workers, workers that were in the restaurant hotel industry.

So she's gotten some money and again, she's at the table with us.

As far as supporting small business and our small business stabilization fund grants, I'm pleased to say we've given out over 1,400 small business revitalization grants, stabilization fund grants for restaurants and bars and other small businesses.

We have about another 2.5 million that we're in the process of getting ready to distribute this year, supporting the mayor on the eviction moratorium on commercial spaces.

We want to continue to see that happen.

With our partners, we've developed resources to help businesses negotiate commercial leases and have support for legal services.

That's really important right now, as we know that the commercial rent is going to be a huge issue to our small businesses.

We will continue to provide technical assistance in eight different languages to help businesses navigate city resources as well as state and federal resources that are available and continue to become available.

Working with SDOT, we're going to continue to connect businesses with permits to expand their operations that include like outside dining and retail.

And under the thought of this long-term having all this office space and retail space, we really can get creative and innovative around what we can do with that with temporary permits.

Having incubator spaces, I think of the Macy's building, that's the first one that comes to mind, first and second floor, that we could have some space there that maybe it can be an incubator space for small business development, because we know that we've lost 40% of African American businesses across the country, providing opportunities for that, or do more live work spaces in those spaces, artists and cultural spaces.

Today on the walking tour, we're going to go look at a temporary art gallery that's going to go up in Pacific Place.

It's focused on artists of color, but specifically African American artists honor of International Women's Month.

We had created the Shop Your Block retail map and supported online marketplaces to connect shoppers and small business retailers throughout the city.

We'll continue to do that, especially coming up with the holidays, and continue to provide small business and technical assistance for PPE loans.

And I think one of the most creative and innovative programs that we did what OED did with the Urban League was the Small Business Youth Web Design Program, where we took 16 youth from Garfield, 16 African-American youth from Garfield.

They took a six-week class on web development, and they were paid a stipend, and they got matched up with an African-American business, and they were able to create websites or redesign websites or new websites, and it kept the 16 African-American business in business during COVID.

The stories were amazing.

The business owners got online and talked to us and cried and just said they would not have been able to stay in business had they not had this web support from the young people.

And we're gonna serve an additional 60 black owned businesses this year through that program.

So those are some of the things that we are continuing to do and then we can do without having widespread vaccination.

So, colleagues, if you have questions, please use the raise your hand function.

I don't see any now, so I will ask another question.

Well, first, I do want to say these are current strategies, and I'd be interested to hear how if it's necessary to pivot to address some of the cliff that's coming of back rent and assisting small businesses to scale up.

Absolutely.

If that's not something you're prepared to talk about.

And I understand, Interim Director, you...

I can't hear you.

You went off.

I can't hear her.

Council Member Morales froze on my screen.

He's frozen on our screens.

Yeah, she's frozen on all our screens.

Okay.

Let's give her a second and see if she can hop on.

Pamela, the Snoqualmie thanks you and Chairwoman Morales.

for us giving a shout out to them, they're all listening.

Oh, Tom, thank you so much.

They're listening.

Thank you for doing that too, Council Member Juarez, it's such a short notice.

That was a great idea and I appreciate the partnership and the reaching out.

Yeah, my phone's kind of blowing up because there's other tribal folk now are like, why didn't you say our name?

okay i'm only doing leadership tribal leadership not my cousin not my sister-in-law deputy mayor washington do you have anything to add as far as um work plans for oed moving forward around yeah i have answers to the council members questions but i want to

we can take other questions, but I do have a response to her most recent question.

Thank you.

Internet's been really shaky today.

Yeah.

Well, Council Member Morales said yesterday, I guess they're remodeling in her house, so she moved to a room where she was closer to her internet, and it was echoey because they had taken all the furniture out.

Is Council Member Lewis on?

He is the vice chair.

Perhaps he could facilitate the meeting?

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello?

I can hear you.

Oh, looks like he hung up.

Well, I might have to step up.

I don't know.

I know I'm not the vice chair of the chair, but you know, I am the elder here.

Can you guys hear me?

Hello?

Hello?

We can hear you, Council Member Lewis.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, sorry.

I guess that for some reason I was muted.

So are we not expecting Chair Morales to be back soon?

I mean, I guess, is she in communication with IT?

If IT can maybe let us know, is she actively working to get back on or is it still unknown at this point?

We do not know her situation.

We just know that she dropped off.

Okay.

Well, I think at this point, if there's other questions from other council members for Interim Director Banks, we can proceed to answer questions in the Chair's absence, and she could resume her line of questioning when she comes back.

Great.

Council Member Lewis, this is Council Member Peterson.

I've got a question for Director Banks.

Council Member Peterson, you are recognized.

Thank you.

Director Banks, thanks for being here with us today.

One of my, you know, a lot of us are on the phone here on the committee, our district council members, so we're very familiar with the many neighborhood business districts that we have and how important they are to the city and to our districts.

Downtown, though, has such a large proportion of jobs and supports our tax base in such a strong way.

And so it does have a major impact on the rest of the city when the downtown needs to be revitalized and recover quickly.

to provide that tax base to then provide the programs that we want to provide to those who are most vulnerable throughout the city.

So I'm interested in seeing that economic engine restarting.

And one of my concerns is that businesses will will not necessarily re-sign their commercial leases in downtown office space because the COVID pandemic has enabled a lot of businesses to have their employees work remotely.

So I'm concerned about them potentially relocating to lower rent areas in the Puget Sound region and then removing them from our tax base, basically.

And we need that tax base to support these programs that serve the most vulnerable of our residents.

So you don't have to answer it today, but I'm interested in knowing the data on whether businesses are re-signing their commercial office leases downtown.

Council Member Peterson, thank you for that question.

And actually, that actually came up to date in our external stakeholder group meeting.

John Scholes from the DSA and Rachel Smith from the Chamber have been in discussion, and they're going to have some data, they said, in about three weeks to address that, to give us more information around that.

And I thank you, Director Banks, and to the extent what we see from them, you know, I would also support us, you know, independently getting the information as well, whether that's a us, you know, we hire a survey firm or something to do it methodically, you know, throughout the, among employers that provide the most to our tax base, or employ the most people, or happy to support that in upcoming budget discussions, it would be a really good investment to hire a survey firm to ask those businesses objectively, are you going to renew your lease?

If so, why?

If not, why not?

So that we can then learn what do we need to lean into in the Office of Economic Development to retain those businesses and attract new ones.

And to have the city, I'm sorry, to have the city and the county do that as well, because we're major employers too.

So as we come back, are we going to be coming back 30%, 40%, 50%?

So I think a lead by example would be kind of a cool idea around that idea as well, because we're a major employer as well.

So thank you for that.

This is Council Member Morales.

I apologize.

Yet another example of my terrible internet connection.

So Interim Director Banks, I do have a couple more questions.

I know you are trying to go, but I would like to go back to slide four.

I was trying to do that before.

I will have to stay on the phone to do the rest of this meeting just to be safe.

So you identify, you know, different potential revenue sources.

The jumpstart spending plan for use of the payroll tax revenues in 2022 and beyond does include resources specifically for economic revitalization, but there's no reference to that as a potential source to support that here.

Is that something that you're including somewhere else?

Good afternoon.

This is Tiffany, Deputy Mayor Washington.

We are currently working through that process with the Budget Office and when that information becomes available, it will be added to the workgroup and to future presentations, but it's not there at this time.

Okay.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Colleagues, if you have a question, please, let's do like King County Council, just say your last name and I will be happy to recognize you since I can't see right now or see you.

Okay, so I will move on then to the next slide.

The Times recently had a report on the racial wealth gap that is increasing in the city.

And one of the takeaways for me is that the systemic policies that are not focusing on people is sort of what's leading to the need to repair the harm.

So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about some policy examples of kind of intentional community investment and access to opportunities kinds of strategies that would really help Seattle in achieving that kind of inclusive, resilient economy.

Yeah, I'll take this one again, Director Banks, and then you can jump in if you would like to.

Thank you for bringing the community resilience part back into the conversation.

Just as a reminder, we didn't forget about it.

We were focusing on downtown recovery today, but as Director Banks said earlier, there's economic recovery and there's community resilience, and we believe it takes both of those to recover equitably.

So to your point, some examples of immediate things that we could do, that we are doing is working with the school district to ensure that students furthest from educational justice have access to laptops, that they're actually connected.

So Seattle Public Schools tracks how many young people actually log on.

And then if there are young people that aren't logging on, partnering with the school district to figure out what's happening to those young people.

So that's, That is one example of immediate strategies that don't require widespread vaccination.

Another is the food vouchers that we are providing to families through HSD.

And I want to just back up and say, the reason we don't have solutions ready and up as it pertains to downtown recovery is because we are trying to be intentional to ensure that the solutions come from that I just wanted to say that.

Oftentimes the city we show up and we have all the answers and the workgroup wants to know why there is a workgroup.

If we have solved everything, why do we need them?

There will come a point in the near future where there will be tangible examples of actions that we will take to revitalize downtown.

I just wanted to say that.

In addition, we are working with the small business advisory How have neighborhoods been impacted?

And then what are the communities and neighborhoods that have been impacted the hardest?

And that will be looking at race, ethnicity, to just, because all things aren't equal.

And then once those, I've said to them, I think it's wise to only choose five neighborhoods this year.

We can do another five next year.

Then once we've recognized those neighborhoods, so pretty sure Capitol Hill will be on that list.

The local BIAs and the SBAC members from that community will work together on a set of recommendations on how to revitalize that local neighborhood.

And so I believe, Council Member Morales, you're trying to get at the equitable part in recovery.

And I just wanted to give two examples of how the work that Director Banks is overseeing is addressing race.

I'll give one more.

The strategic land acquisition work that OPCD, Office of Civil Rights, I think OED is on that group.

It's working with the community group around strategic land acquisition.

As you know, the mayor's equitable task force is working on the 30 million.

We also, we also, um, included participatory budgeting in the community resilience bucket.

So the whole hundred million is in that bucket because the intention of all of that money on both the executive side and council side was to address racial inequities.

And so those are just some examples.

I can give more or answer additional questions.

I appreciate that, and I'm definitely interested to know more about the participatory budgeting element there, but we can follow up on that.

It does raise a couple other questions for me about the list of issues.

I think it's slide seven that has a list of issues, and I'm curious if the list is the same for downtown and neighborhood businesses or if there's any sort of notable difference in the concerns or what they would be advocating for.

And sort of how you got that information, if it was a survey or, you know, how that list was generated.

That's one question.

And then another question is about the workgroup itself.

You've mentioned BIAs and different neighborhood business districts.

So if you could talk a little bit about Who was invited to participate in that group?

Are the meetings open to the public?

What kind of strategies are you considering there for downtown versus neighborhood districts?

So those are kind of two general questions I have.

So I'll answer the first question and then I will let Director Banks answer how she got the information on this slide.

So this is downtown revitalization focused.

We kind of, to what Council Member Peterson was recommending, we need to hear from local, we need to ask the folks, whether it's downtown or Capitol Hill or Columbia City or Rainier Beach, what they feel are the barriers to revitalizing their local community.

And so we are doing that through the BIAs and Small Business Advisory Council in neighborhoods and then doing it in downtown Seattle.

through the external working group and would love to take Councilmember Peterson up on an idea of doing a survey so that we can get more people are more willing to answer questions if it's an anonymous survey than being asked by folks.

And so that is so the distinction before I pass it over to Director Banks is downtown revitalization is being worked on by a group of folks who have I want to say vested interest, but who work downtown or employ folks downtown or who provide services downtown.

The community resilience in terms of neighborhoods and communities, that is being worked on in a variety of ways.

One being through the BIAs and SBAC.

Another way is through the Mayor's Equitable Task Force.

Another way is through the participatory budgeting process.

Another way is through the $12 million that HSD put out in an RFP for reimagining community safety.

And so what we have right now in all neighborhoods across Seattle is multiple streams of revenue going out, asking community, whether it's PB in the Black Brilliance Project, the Equitable Task Force, Community Safety, where we're specifically asking communities, what do you need?

And then focusing those dollars to invest in what the community says that they need.

And so, Director Banks, if you want to talk about how you like who told you these things on the slide and how you gather that information?

Correct.

So first off, I personally probably have talked to, I'm going to say, between 75 and 100 people that live or work or play downtown.

Michael Wells, small business advocate, he spoke to over 300 different people And then John Schools from the DSA also spoke to several people.

So while this is stakeholders admittedly anecdotical, this was the themes that came out of the conversations that we all had.

I would love to do this survey that Council Member Peterson suggests as well.

And what Deputy Mayor Washington just said, but I'm telling, Today, in our external stakeholder group, we had a presentation from the mayor's office on public safety and homelessness, because those are two of the big issues that downtown stakeholders are saying we must address before we can even start talking about bringing workers back and activation and such.

The working group comprises representatives of business, cultural, community, and service organizations that reflect the diverse entrants of downtown We have reached out intentionally to these groups, just as far as trying to cover any group that is down there.

So, you know, downtown has the Residence Association, we have labor unions, we have large business, we have small business, we have retail covered.

And it was just a really diverse group that we put together.

And actually, I was literally at home thinking about who would be good to bring together and vetted the group around.

And so it wasn't like picking or choosing.

It was just trying to find the most diverse folks that we can.

And having all those neighborhoods represented was crucial.

So we got the Pike Place Park at PDA on there.

and the Pioneer Square Alliance.

And so having a representative from each of the seven neighborhoods, as well as business organizations and nonprofits and cultural institutions and labor that all converge down there.

That's how the group was really chosen.

Okay.

So I'll stop one more time.

Colleagues, are there any questions?

Okay, I guess I want to go to slide 10 then, and it sort of relates back to what both of you were just talking about, which is that this list is sort of a list of people to talk to, but it seems to me that the department has been working really closely, especially in the last year, as they talk to folks about the Small Business Stabilization Fund and those different opportunities.

It seems like there should be clear strategies or, you know, concerns identified already in different neighborhoods.

Is that not the case?

I would say not cohesively, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's why.

Sorry, Director Bank.

The difference is this is just the economic circle.

What I've learned from today is we have to better explain how the two fit together.

So to your point, Yes, there is rich information from communities on what they need.

But what has been missing in all of the data sets, I believe, outside of downtown Seattle is what do the small businesses need and the BIPOC business owners in order to ensure that their community continues to thrive economically.

I feel very confident in the community resilience side.

we have an overflow of data from the whole time that I've been at the city.

And I'm a believer that if you go back 15 years and look at what black and brown people said they needed 15 years ago, it's the same things you see in the black, like it hasn't changed.

We put new names on it and we describe them differently.

But the reality is that black and brown communities need the same thing today that they needed a hundred years ago.

So community resilient side, I think we have an overflow of information.

We don't have enough information.

on the small business side in local neighborhoods.

OK.

Thank you.

I appreciate y'all being here.

It turns out that CenturyLink is just out in the Rainier Valley.

So we understand have also lost Kamala Saxton, who is going to join us for the next panel.

I am hoping she's able to call in.

and let me advocate yet again for municipal broadband.

If we can start to deal with some of these digital divide issues.

Colleagues, are there any other questions for the Deputy Mayor or for Interim Director Banks?

I don't hear any.

So I want to thank both of you for joining us.

I will say that, again, this is, you know, it's clear that this recovery is going to take a while, that we have some serious work to do, big picture.

And I'm really hoping to hear more about, you know, for 2021, how the department's priorities may have shifted for that we have in place.

And we're going to continue to work with key industries and industrial lands and all of the programming that we already have, how that will pivot or expand to make sure that we are supporting our small businesses throughout the city.

So I appreciate the overview here, and look forward to receiving additional information from the

Have a great rest of your day.

All right, have a good day.

Thank you.

Bye-bye now.

Okay.

Will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record?

Item two, COVID-19 Economic Impact Community Roundtable Briefing and Discussion.

Thank you.

We have invited some community members to join us.

I want to thank Angela Castaneda from the Beacon Business Alliance for being here, Rachel Lauder from Working Washington.

And my staff is working to try to get Kamala Thackton from Marination back on the line, and we will hope that that happens.

So as I said, there's a lot of talk right now about how we save our small businesses, how we save downtown.

But it is important to remember that we have hundreds of micro businesses and small businesses throughout the city who do need our support and who contribute to the vibrancy of our neighborhood.

Yesterday, I mentioned an article that Josh Wright wrote in Coca-Cola this week, where he said, quote, what we've actually learned during the past year, not spending much time downtown is that neighborhoods are the magic quadrants of the city.

The past year has energized business districts outside the city center and alerted us to a new Seattle model.

The post-pandemic focus for making Seattle vital again should be on harnessing the new neighborhood energy.

So I am excited to have some neighborhood folks here.

I would like to ask y'all to introduce yourselves, take a few minutes to share some of the economic impact that you or your workers or your organization members have faced in the last year.

And if you've got some ideas for policy or program changes that the city can take to support or maintain or grow our small businesses and to support workers in the region, I'd like to have a conversation about that too.

So I will go ahead and open it up Why don't we start with Angela, and then Rachel, and if when Kamala gets back on, we will ask her to join us.

Hello.

Thank you, CM Morales, for having me and everyone.

I'm a Seattle-born Chicana, white, she, her.

I'm the director of the Beacon Business Alliance, nonprofit organization, and also a community development consultant.

in southeast Seattle, specifically working with the neighborhood CBOs to connect small businesses with resources, advocating for equitable development, and building relationships through multilingual, multicultural, intersectional programming projects and events.

Beacon Hill is an equity district in the OED, Only in Seattle program.

which partially funds some of the programmatic work we're doing.

I put an example of something we're doing in the chat with a live stream from this morning's event.

Powerful conversations and stories from business owners on the outreach that we do in advance of the event.

is specifically around bridging that digital divide with interpreters, Department of Neighborhoods community liaisons.

I'm working directly with them to reach out to the language groups that we serve in this multilingual five channels.

Amharic, Somali, Vietnamese, Spanish, Mandarin, English, and so that we see people bring voices in from the fragile communities, the small business, the BIPOC women, immigrant family-owned businesses that we are prioritizing in our work.

Pamela spoke I just got me all excited in a lot of slides.

I was really dialed in.

Multi-year funding, participatory funding, tri-sector efforts is what we need to be doing.

The on-the-ground, the grassroots work that we do with businesses like this project that I shared in the web stream in the chat.

is to help businesses know, learn, be aware, and be connected to the resources that are coming available.

So that is my big concern, which is getting that information where it needs to go.

And then, which, you know, it's the small CBOs in Southeast Seattle that I work with through the Central Southeast Seattle Collective, which is a group of five small CBOs and home site, creating an online e-commerce marketplace, but also that the components include deep outreach into the community, and ongoing relationships that are multi-year, right?

This is not just a one-off, hi, what's your feedback?

These are really key pieces that I know you're talking to today, you're speaking to, but I guess what I would close, I would close by saying that the connection to those business owners and really guiding them to be part of the conversation is the thing that's always missing.

Great.

Thank you, Angela.

I know the work you're doing up on Beacon Hill is really critical to the small businesses up there.

When you took me on a tour of some of the businesses up there, it was great to meet with them and hear about you know, at that time, this was just before COVID hit, you know, there were already some challenges.

And now I know, um, it is, it is even harder for some of those folks to be, um, staying in business.

So thank you for that.

Um, uh, and I will say, you know, we, my staff and I had a conversation this morning with, um, an organization that is really trying to help make connections with these as a business accelerator for small startups, right?

And one of the things we talked about was this need to ensure access to the resources, the information, the mentors, the technology that can help build capacity quickly so that folks can sort of vet their idea, validate what they're working on, mitigate any identify as many risks as possible before launching and kind of de-risk their ideas so that they don't end up losing their shirts on something that might not be working.

But once we actually get folks going, we also need to make sure that we are supporting them and providing the kind of technical assistance or access to information that will allow them to stay in business and thrive.

So I want to hand it over to Kamala Saxton, who I understand is back on now.

Is that right?

I am.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

It sounds like we both got kicked off.

So I'm really glad that you were able to join us on the phone too.

So I would love for you to go ahead and introduce yourself.

I don't know how much you heard of sort of the introduction, but I'm asking folks to introduce yourself, take a few minutes to share about some of the economic impacts that you and your workers have experienced in the last year.

And then if you have ideas for policy changes or programmatic ideas that the city can take to support small businesses, we'd love to hear about that, too.

Great.

Thank you for inviting me to this call.

Again, my name is Kamala Fax, and I'm one of the co-owners of Super 6 restaurant in Columbia City as well as Marination.

We started out as a food truck 11 years ago and have since expanded to three locations.

We have shut down our location due to COVID in Capitol Hill.

And we had a large catering arm of our business that obviously there is no large group gatherings anymore.

So that has been shut down as well as our bar.

in Pioneer Square called Good Bar, but with our existing locations, I'm proud to say those doors are open, our staff is back, and those locations are solid right now.

I'm also a resident of Columbia City, a proud resident of the South End, and I feel pretty tied to other businesses in our neighborhood, and obviously tied to this neighborhood.

It's where my son will go to school, And when we talk about program changes, I want to say that as a business owner, I feel incredibly lucky that I can reach out to my council member and she will hold a meeting with me on her anniversary.

One of her staff attended the same meeting, staff members, Alexis on her birthday.

And when we we've heard this thing over and over again, we are all in this together.

I felt all of that statement when they both took time out of their their very special day and occasion in their life to meet with me as a small business owner and as a member of South Seattle.

So thank you Council Member Morales and Alexis for doing that.

I really it meant a lot and it it really reconfirmed and reaffirmed your stance that we are all in this all together.

And so thank you again.

One of the things I mentioned in that meeting, and I think it can have the most immediate impact, and it's not really sexy, and it's not rocket science, but Roz and I, my business partner, have understood just some of other business owners' struggle in what was really going to save us, and it's not from the city or state level.

It's from the feds, and the grants that are around, whether it's PPP or the restaurants, restaurant recovery programs, that is what's going to save my industry.

And so what we've learned from them is that they don't, it's very, very difficult.

And this latest round of grants that have come out, it's really difficult.

You need certain numbers.

You need a SAM number and a DIN number, unless you actually, and even the majority of business owners I know, they don't know what that is.

It's a very difficult thing to navigate, and so Roz and I have just been door-knocking.

It's a very grassroots level, just reaching out to business owners, saying, do you need help doing this?

And did you even know of this?

And do you know what a SAMS number is?

And when you go to this website to get the SAMS number, it looks like, it doesn't look legit.

It is legit, though, and that's where you get the SAMS number.

I genuinely believe that the city, the best-paced effort The rest, Jennifer Tam, Michael Wales, OED, I contacted them on last Friday.

They're going to meet to just figure out ways, maybe it's even an online tutorial, and working with smaller nonprofits, for instance, Wall Block in the South End to, can you just do some door knocking to businesses?

Here's a website, what help do you need?

But it's a really grassroots campaign because these grants that are available, again, this is very specific to my industry, restaurants.

But also restaurants have a large number of people of color who work for restaurants, who own restaurants, and women.

But if they, just a store knocking, grassroots effort, this grant is available.

Here's how you access it.

And do you need help doing this?

That is work for, in our neighborhood approach.

But the time's expiring.

I mean, this one's going to expire in three weeks, the latest one.

So, from a city level, I mean, I'm not sure how fast things can act on a city level, but I think the neighborhood level, things can happen.

So, you know, the other thing that I want to mention, I think, is in a decision maker and policymaker's hands is this growing unemployment insurance benefit.

I mean, it is.

We had to lay off at one point 50% of our staff.

We have brought back 70% of our staff, but I mean, we had one of the lowest unemployment insurance rates for restaurants ever because we don't, we just typically don't have to, you know, knock on wood, fire or lay people off, but our unemployment insurance rate is going to skyrocket.

Thank goodness.

It's, they're slowly going to, I mean, I get that you also have to build that, fund up again, but there's got to be some assistance there because it's a killer.

It's incredibly high.

So I will stop there because I hope those are two tangible pieces of information.

And instead of going on, I will stop there.

But thank you again.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, Kamala.

I really appreciate your being here and sharing from a business owner's perspective some of the challenges that you're having.

And I think you're right, the restaurant industry has particular challenges as well because of the very customer-facing nature of the work that you do.

I want to move on to Rachel and then open it up for questions from my colleagues.

So Rachel, can you introduce yourself and share with us what you've been experiencing this year?

Sure.

Thank you, everyone.

Good to see you all.

Thank you, Chair Morales.

My name is Rachel Lauder.

I'm the Executive Director of Working Washington and the Ferrett Work Center.

We build worker power through education, organizing, advocacy campaigns, and legal services.

We work to raise and uphold workplace standards across industries.

And I really appreciate you including me in this space.

As you all know, COVID has been devastating for low-wage workers and workers of color.

unemployment, concerns about health and safety at work, continued issues around wage theft, you know, they're all exacerbated.

They've all been exacerbated during this past year.

I think it's been hard for us to prioritize in the last year, but some of the things we've been focused on are really getting people paid and health and safety.

So under getting people paid, one of our major priorities this year is going to be our pay up campaign.

which is an effort to raise pay for app-based delivery workers, which are some of the lowest paid workers in our community.

If we pass a law that provides permanent protections and pay standards for them, it would be the first law of its kind in the country.

Now, these are workers who have been delivering us all of our food and groceries this past year.

They have become essential.

And while it is excellent and we thank you deeply for passing emergency laws that provide paid sick and safe time, and hazard pay for these workers, we really think that for there to be a fair recovery, we need to make some of these protections permanent.

We've also been instrumental in the advocacy and in administering the Washington Immigrant Relief Fund, which is the state fund that provides cash assistance to undocumented workers.

And we've done significant advocacy around unemployment insurance reform.

Basically, we have to figure out ways to get cash to people as quickly as possible.

both in moments of crisis, like we've been experiencing for a year, and during regular times.

You know, the UI system is designed to reject people from the system, like the whole way it's designed is to keep people from getting it, and we really have to change that paradigm.

From a health and safety perspective, I just, I can't stress enough, it's vaccines, vaccines, vaccines.

Anyone who is essential enough to be compelled to work in person should have equal access to the vaccine, We're hearing lots of concern from folks, particularly in the food service industry, that they don't have access to the vaccine.

That is really important.

We also need effective enforcement of our existing health and safety laws and the expansion of some of them, right?

So we'll be fighting this year to extend the paid sick and safe time laws to domestic workers.

I think we're also always happy to talk with the city about ways that we can do more on health and safety at the city level.

such as things like better anti-retaliation laws.

I'll also add that under the sort of buckets of get people paid and health and safety, investing in the Office of Labor Standards and OLS is really critical during economic recovery periods.

Some very interesting recent studies show that wage theft increases during recessions and particularly impacts black and brown women.

So we have to ensure that we can enforce our strong worker protections that we have in Seattle.

by ensuring that OLS has what it needs to do its job.

And then the final thing I'll say is just, you know, to us, a just recovery is making sure that there's no austerity budgeting, that we find new sources of revenue and progressive sources of revenue, which the city has really led on.

And we thank you for that.

And we're very much engaged with that on the state level.

We have to invest in our community and build the economy from the middle out.

And that's what a just recovery is going to look like for low-wage workers.

So I'll stop there.

Thank you, Rachel.

So I've got a couple of questions, one for you and maybe one for Kamala.

I'm curious about the unemployment insurance reform, I guess, especially since Kamala mentioned that rates will be going up incredibly and how we can, what kind of assistance folks will be needing to address this.

Those rates will be going up, and folks who are self-employed, for example, don't have access anyway.

And then I have a question about the business permitting issues.

We know that we are having lots of conversations in the city about how businesses get permitted.

I know food-related businesses have additional permit requirements with the public health department.

And I'm curious what Kamal, if you can talk about some of the issues that you've experienced and how that can delay the work that you're trying to do.

There's issues, build-out issues, working with the Department of Planning.

I mean, there's been long delays.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be building out any restaurants in the next year.

And so that is actually, the people will be.

While you're paying rent for the time that you're waiting on permits, that is just, it's a ticking, you just, every day you don't get that permit, you are paying rent on a building that you can't use.

And so if there can be a way to expedite the permitting process around construction and build out would be fantastic.

And I also appreciate that there are rules and regulations as to build out, but there's gotta be a way to expedite this process.

As far as unemployment insurance, again, I get that this fund needs to be replenished.

And they are going to extend the amount of, instead of asking for our rates to go up, maintain the full increase of the rate hike next year.

It's going to be extended over a number, several years.

I believe it's three years.

It might need to be extended further out.

But again, I understand that that fund needs to be rebuilt.

It will take a while.

When your rates go up 3,000%, that's gonna take a while to build.

There are, you know, I think, so it's the permitting process and extending the unemployment rate hike would be, again, immediate things to help small business owners in the restaurant community.

Yeah, I'll just add.

I, the state legislature did, as you mentioned, just address some of the rate hike timeline.

I'd be curious to hear more about sort of what a better timeline would be.

I think for us and sort of our interests, you know, we hear from thousands of workers who have experienced just unbelievable delays in getting even their case adjudicated by the state.

And so that's been really where our focus has been, which is we need to get these decisions out quicker.

Another thing that we've been focused on is overpayments.

So what will happen is folks who've been unemployed for months are getting notices from the state that say, you now owe Washington State $15,000 because we adjudicated your case incorrectly and you shouldn't have gotten unemployment.

And these folks are like, we didn't even get unemployment ever, right?

So there's been a lot of inconsistency in overpayment notices.

And we're really trying to bring some reason like clarity to this process.

So there's, I mean, that's a, it's a long term project to reform ESD.

But I think for us, the most important thing is, you know, when you're unemployed in the middle of a crisis, you need that money now, right?

So what are all the ways that we can resource the various levels of government to support getting cash to people as quickly as possible?

So that'll be some of the advocacy that we do at the state level, for sure.

But you know, I know that there are some really good city programs that happen, too, for emergency cash assistance, and I just always encourage everyone to continue to invest in those because we just saw that the need was so great and has been.

It's just been this high-pitched need for over a year now.

I will tell you two things.

One, I've never been prouder of being a small business owner in my life than during COVID because we were able to provide additional loans to our employees who went months without getting unemployment checks.

I will have to say this is the power of an individual.

There's an individual, we got her name and number from one of our employees who said this woman was fantastic.

She cleared up my unemployment insurance claim within a matter of two days and I got paid.

We took her name and phone contact information.

And all of our employees, our 15 employees who did not get, I mean, they were just without an insurance payment.

This woman within, again, two to three days solved these claims.

I've written a letter on her behalf, but this is the kind of person, I mean, we need 1,000 of her and people will be fine.

People will be paid.

It was an unbelievable, and I know she is working outside of her normal hours to help people, but I know that this can be done because this one woman eased the lives of 15 individuals within two to three days.

Thank you, Kamal.

I think it is important to remember there are so many city and state workers who are trying really hard to keep up with all of the challenges that that our community is having.

So I appreciate you acknowledging one of the people who's working hard.

Colleagues, are there any other questions or issues that you would like to address?

Okay.

I do have a final question for Angela.

If you could talk a little bit about what, from your perspective as, you know, the business alliance up on Beacon Hill, what the city can do, not just to support current businesses, but to really invest in the next generation of businesses.

We know that, you know, for many folks, there is an entrepreneurial spirit.

People are creative and want to, you know, bring their ideas to life.

For many people, starting their own business is one way to generate income for their families.

Do you have ideas about how we can, as a city, start to invest in that next generation of entrepreneurs?

I really have to speak just from my little focus and my lens is in working with businesses that are that are struggling to launch something, or legacy businesses that are struggling to stay alive.

To me, it comes down to the same thing, and that is making sure that the mentors, advocates, and the CBOs that are doing that work and helping support through those steps are supported by the city, by government, through funding.

Because often I find that we are not, unless I, I'm not a policy person and I'm a program person, but so I need to have that relationship with you and But if I'm, right now I've got a business owner that was displaced, a family that was displaced out of a spot on Beacon Hill in 2017. And we are, she is working on, the younger generation of that family is working on signing a lease into a brand new construction spot on Beacon Hill.

So watching, going through that transition of supporting that family to build trust with that family that didn't have trust around government resources and right, you've been speaking to that today, requires somebody being there for that and working with bringing, working all the different components together including negotiating with the builder, the landlord, all the different components.

It's critical and you can't just do it overnight.

It's understanding what that need is.

It's so complicated for you can't just get it off of.

So I don't know who the business advisory I'll just say it, I don't know who those folks are.

The Business Advisory Council Committee, they are appointed.

And I don't know who, you know, listening, being in the room with you all today and Pamela Banks' delivery of the talking about the scope of where things are and what you're thinking sounds beautiful.

But on the ground here, there's still the struggle of calling that business owner, calling that entrepreneur with a new idea that wants to go into a physical space.

But all those ducks aren't in a row yet.

That funding isn't in the business plan and all those pieces.

It's overwhelming.

Yeah, I get that.

And I hear the frustration in your voice, Angelica.

Thank you.

I think, you know, from my perspective, if we're talking about an inclusive economy and talking about an equitable recovery, that means that, you know, that we give someone who has a good idea a chance.

which means that we need to make sure they have access to the technical assistance and the mentors and understand what it means to access capital because folks may have a great idea, but they still might also need some skills to turn that idea into a product or something that they can really market and turn into a business.

And not everybody has access, has the background, the knowledge, the understanding of the ecosystem that exists to support starting a new business.

But that doesn't mean that they don't have a good idea.

What it means is that if we're really going to have an inclusive economy, we need to make sure that those folks get access to the kind of technical assistance resources that are available and really elevate that ecosystem so that folks are able to benefit and, you know, go down the path, take that kind of step-by-step learning that it takes to turn your idea into a successful business.

So, happy to keep talking with you about how to, you know, bring that, elevate that discussion and the resources that are available, make sure folks are much more aware of them and able to take advantage of that.

Colleagues, last call, if you have a question, this is the time.

Comments?

Okay.

Well, I want to thank everyone for joining us today.

Again, thank you to Interim Director Banks and Deputy Mayor Washington for joining us earlier.

And thank you to Angela Castaneda, Kamala Saxton, and Rachel Lauder for joining us this afternoon and sharing your perspective on how we can support our community better.

With that, if there are no other questions, then this concludes the March 16, 2021 meeting of the Community Economic Development Committee.

Thanks for attending, everybody.

We are adjourned.