Seattle City Council Briefing 3/13/23

Everybody.

Today is Monday, March 13. It is 201. And we are going to go through our council briefing me, call our meeting to order.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold.

Okay, we'll come back.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Herbold.

Present.

Council President Juarez.

Present.

Eight present.

Thank you.

I don't come up cast members herbal does here so there she is.

Do we hear.

We're good.

Yeah, I said here, I actually said present but I'm sorry.

It's daylight savings time people it's killing me.

Okay, so let's move on to the agenda to approval of the minutes if there's no objections the minutes of March six will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

I'll go right into the President's Report.

On today's agenda, we will again welcome OIR Director Gail Tarlington and her staff to provide the update of what's going on in Olympia, also known as the State Legislative Update.

Let's see, moving on.

We have one proclamation to sign today.

It's a proclamation commemorating the life of our beloved colleague and friend, Malik Davis.

Malik, as you all know, served with honor and generosity as a staff District 4 Director to Councilmember Peterson.

Councilmember Peterson will be speaking to the proclamation and you should have all received a copy of the proclamation last week.

We will hold off on that one and I'll let Council Member Peterson speak more to it when we get to it.

Following the proclamation, we will then have individual reports by each council member.

You should have received a copy of the roll call.

We are going to have a switch up today.

Council Member Herboldt was gracious enough to allow Council Member Mosqueda to go first today.

So instead, you kind of know what the lineup is.

It will start with Council Member Mosqueda and then Herboldt.

And therefore, you all know how it works.

We have no executive session today.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills.

As you all know, we take one vote on the consent calendar unless one of our colleagues wants to remove a item from the consent calendar and it would be voted on separately.

There are six items under committee reports on the agenda tomorrow.

The first is Council Bill 12051. relating to Seattle's criminal code and specifically property destruction.

Councilor Herboldt will speak to this.

This item was referred to committee for review due to time sensitivity.

Jasmine Marwaha on central staff has provided each council member with a memo.

Please feel free to ask Jasmine for any follow-up information regarding the vote tomorrow.

Item number two is resolution 32085 in support of the King County Crisis Care Center's levy urging voters to vote yes on the passage of this levy.

It is sponsored by Council Member Lewis and Council Member Mosqueda.

And I'm guessing tomorrow they will each will be speaking.

I'm sorry, they will both be speaking to this resolution today.

Items three and four ordinances one two zero five two three and one two zero five two four are MOUs.

That is members memorandum of understanding represented by city employees, specifically the Council of County and City Employees and IBEW Local 77. Karina Bull on central staff has reviewed these and has provided council members with a memo on each.

Please check with Karina if you have any questions prior to tomorrow.

Item five on tomorrow's agenda is Council Bill 120522 relating to the downtown transit tunnel.

It is also time sensitive Calvin chow on central staff has reviewed it and is available to answer any questions and counselors Peterson is a sponsor of that bill and I'm guessing he will be speaking to that as well.

The final item on tomorrow's Council agenda is Council bill 120518 relating to the surveillance technology and specifically the forward looking infrared real time video, also known as floor.

It has been recommended by the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

Council Member Nelson is the sponsor.

I understand that there's going to be an amendment.

And I also want to thank Lisa Kaye, who was in our committee last Wednesday and also wrote a detailed memo explaining FLIR on the technology and any legislative issues that needed to be addressed.

Again, that was in Council Member Nelson's committee on Wednesday, March 8th.

And after that, the next council briefing will be at two o'clock, as you all know, Monday, March 20th.

So with that, um, let's move on to the state legislative session update.

I'm going to let director Tarlington, um, go ahead and, uh, introduce herself and her staff.

And thank you very much for the documents that received on the bills that have, have gotten that are alive and the ones that are dead.

Uh, thank you, council president and members of the city council.

I'm Gail Tarleton.

the Director of Intergovernmental Relations.

And here we are, about to enter the next phase of the legislative session in Olympia.

And my State Relations Director Sameer Junaid-Joe and State Legislative Liaison Anna Johnson will fill you in on what's still kicking and what is going to have to live to fight another day, perhaps next year.

It's a really important month ahead of us as the budget writers prepare their budget drafts, and they'll be waiting for the revenue forecast on March 20th for the state before they reveal their budgets from the Senate and the House side.

And so our team is going to be working on bills, policy bills, as well as budget.

issues in both the appropriations, transportation, and capital budget environments.

But I'm going to turn it over to Ana Johnson, who will begin today's update for you.

Go ahead, Ana.

Hey, good afternoon.

Ana Johnson, State Legislative Liaison for OIR.

Gail kind of touched on it, but I'll just give you a brief update about where we are at this week.

Today's the 64th day of the 105-day legislative session.

Last Wednesday, March 8th, was House of Origin cutoff, which means bills that are not necessary to implement the budget.

So policy bills had to make it through their original chamber by 5 p.m.

last Wednesday.

The next cutoff we're looking at is March 29th, and this is the opposite House policy committee cutoff.

So bills from the House are now heading over to the Senate.

to have a hearing and executive session in their policy committee.

Those bills will need to move out of the committee by March 29th.

As Gail mentioned, next Monday is the release of the state revenue forecast.

And then following that revenue forecast, we will see each chamber, so the House and Senate will both release their versions of the operating capital and transportation budget.

And we expect all six of those budgets to be released next week and the week following.

So I'm going to start by giving an update on a couple bills in the climate and environment space.

Last Saturday, the House was in session and they took action on right to repair, which is House Bill 1392 from Representative Gregersen.

There was a number of amendments defeated on the floor, but the bill passed 58 to 38. So with some bipartisan support.

House Senate Bill 5144, which is extended producer responsibilities for batteries past 42 to 6. So this is broad bipartisan support, and it already is scheduled for a hearing this Tuesday at 4 p.m.

The House passed HB 1589 from Representative Dolio.

This bill focuses on transitioning Puget Sound energy to clean, affordable and reliable energy.

This bill passed along a party line vote.

Hi, everybody.

My name is Samir Janajo, State Relations Director for OIR.

Moving on to the general government section.

A bill I mentioned in a previous briefing related to municipal annexations passed off the House floor 96 to zero and moved to the Senate Local Government Committee now.

As a reminder, it modifies the existing law, allowing cities to impose a sales tax against the annexed area credited against the state sales tax and lowers that population requirement.

of the annexed area from 10,000 to 2,000.

Another bill that I had previously mentioned relates to funding for the Pioneer Square International Development Community Preservation Development Authority.

This was House Bill 1510, sponsored by Representative Santos.

Did not move off the floor of the House.

However, there is currently an amendment posted on the floor that would change the funding source for the CPDA from the $1 admissions fee.

As a reminder, the original bill would have equated a $1 fee on admissions tickets at T-Mobile Park Inn.

Newman field.

So it changes that to 2% of the state sales tax on any sales at those two stadiums.

So if adopted, that amendment would make the bill not subject to cut off because bills impacting state revenues are not subject to cut off.

So in theory, that bill is still alive and moving.

Moving on to health care and behavioral health of one bill that the house moved late Saturday night is a house bill 1155 also known as my health my data bill.

This is relates, it's passed off the house for 5739 so party line vote after consideration of many floor amendments.

The legislation would block websites and apps from collecting and sharing sensitive health data.

This is of concern for people who use search engines or health tracking apps and also prohibits the sale of health data.

The use of geofences to send unsolicited messages to people at health facilities and require any company that collects personal data to create, maintain, and publish a privacy policy for consumer health data.

Another bill related to psilocybin is Senate Bill 5263, sponsored by Senator Solomon.

It started out as creating a new regulatory system for legal psilocybin use in the state.

It has now been scaled back, so it now just creates an advisory board and an interagency work group to work on developing a comprehensive framework for regulated psilocybin system in Washington.

That bill passed the Senate 41 to 7. Moving on to housing, the high profile bill that many folks are aware of is House Bill 1110 related to middle housing.

That bill passed the House floor 75 to 21, so strong bipartisan vote for 1110. The requirements of this bill as it stands now, it has changed a lot on the floor.

So the requirements of the bill vary across different types of cities.

None of the bill applies to cities with a population of less than 25,000.

For cities with a population between 25,000 and 75,000, they must allow two units per lot or four units if one is affordable or if it's within half mile of a major transit stop.

For cities with a population of 75,000 and above, so Seattle, that would require four units per lot, six units per lot if two are affordable, and also six if within a quarter mile of a major transit stop.

Those requirements also apply to cities that are within a continuous urban growth area within the largest city in certain counties.

So cities surrounding in the Seattle metropolitan area or the Spokane metropolitan area would also be subject to requirements.

The bill does have language that allows cities with an affordable housing incentive program to not preclude them from expanding or modifying their affordability requirements.

The bill, as it passed off the House floor, also included an alternative density requirement, which generally says that cities may choose to adopt the requirements of the bill to 75% of lots primarily dedicated to single-family housing.

And so the 25% that the that the density requirements do not apply to may include areas identified as higher risk of displacement.

House Bill 1167 is a bill sponsored by Representative Dewar.

It has a number of residential housing regulations in it.

One of them relates to design review.

The bill states that cities may only require administrative design review to determine whether a housing development application is in compliance with design standards.

This was in House Bill 1026 before.

That bill did not pass, but was put into House Bill 1167. In addition to that, 1167 also prohibits cities from imposing regulations on middle housing that are more restrictive than detached single-family housing, and also directs the State Building Code Council to convene a work group to recommend ways that the International Residential Code can adopt certain provisions related to multiplex housing in the International Building Code.

and also requires the State Building Code Council to recommend modifications to allow single exit stairways to certain multifamily residential structures up to six stories.

The House also passed a bill related to accessory dwelling units requiring cities in a UGA to allow ADUs on any lot and prohibit certain regulations on ADUs.

That bill passed 81 to 15. Moving on to bills related to regulated substances.

Senate Bill 5448, sponsored by Senator McEwen, removes the expiration date for liquor license privileges related to alcohol delivery and requires the LCB to create an alcohol delivery endorsement.

That bill passed 38 to 10. Two bills related to cannabis also passed the Senate.

One restricts LCB's authority to regulate retail signs and billboard advertising and places that regulation under authority of local jurisdictions.

And another provides LCB authority to regulate some non-cannabis products also containing THC.

Both of those bills passed 49-0 off the Senate floor.

All right, and switching over to public safety, starting with three priority bills for gun violence prevention.

So Senate Bill 5078 from Senator Peterson establishes duties for the firearm industry.

Specifically, it requires firearm industry members to establish and implement and enforce reasonable controls regarding the manufacturer, sale, distribution, import, use, and marketing of firearm industry members' firearms and related products.

It also authorizes the Attorney General to investigate suspected violations of firearm industry members' duties and enforces those actions against the industry members.

House Bill 1143 from Representative Berry is known as the training and waiting period bill.

This enhances requirements for the purchase or transfer of a firearm by requiring firearm safety training and establishing a 10 day waiting period.

It also prohibits firearm transfers prior to the completion of a background check.

House Bill 1240 from Representative Peterson is the assault weapons ban.

This bill was the House of Representatives five o'clock bill last Wednesday.

Typically, each chamber reserves either a controversial bill or a bipartisan bill to introduce at 5pm to conclude the House of Origin cutoff.

So all three of those gun violence prevention bills passed a long party line vote.

Last Friday, the Senate took action on Senate Bill 5536. This bill is related to the Blake decision and possession of controlled substances.

This bill passed 28 to 21. However, 15 Democrats voted no on this bill.

The bill that passed out of the Senate increased the penalty for knowing possession of a controlled substance or counterfeit substance to a gross misdemeanor.

It created a pre-trial diversion program for individuals charged with possession.

It requires the courts to impose minimal jail sanctions on defendants convicted of possession who refuse treatment or willfully abandon substance use treatment or consistently fail to comply with treatment.

It also requires the courts to vacate convictions of possessions for defendants who successfully complete their treatment.

Um, next I'm going to talk a little bit about, um, vehicular pursuits.

Um, but I'm going to, it requires a little bit of backstory.

So.

Two house bills didn't make it through the 5 PM cutoff last week.

Those included, um, uh, the house bill 1363 from representative rule.

This was related to vehicular pursuits as well as house bill 1513 from representative street.

And this was related to traffic stops.

Late on Tuesday of last week, the House Republicans attempted a motion on the floor to move House Bill 1363 out of the Rules Committee.

This forced the entire chamber to take up a vote on whether to allow that bill to move out of the Rules Committee.

This motion failed on party lines.

So following that, there was an attempt to add amendment to Representative Street's bill on traffic stops 1513. to incorporate pieces of the pursuits bill, but the bill was still stuck in rules.

So in that time period, the Republicans added an additional 23 amendments to that bill.

So the chances of that bill coming to the floor in the House were pretty slim, given that it would require a lot of time.

So on Wednesday afternoons, this is House of Origin cutoff last week, a procedural move was taken by the Senate to take up Senate Bill 5352. This was another bill related to vehicular pursuits that had not received a public hearing in the policy committee and was not under consideration in the Senate.

But a procedural motion was made on the floor to take up that bill.

There was a lengthy debate and a lot of controversy.

The bill ended up receiving support from some Democrats and Republicans who suggested the bill was better than no action at all.

It ended up passing 26 to 23 and most of those who opposed were Democrats or Republicans who felt like the bill didn't go far enough to address the issue of vehicular pursuits by law enforcement.

And now I'm going to move on to some social programs and education.

I just want to highlight two bills related to food security.

One you already are well aware of.

This is House Bill 1238 regarding universal free school meals.

This passed off the House floor 93 to 3. You may remember in our last briefing, the bill was scaled back to implement the bill for K through 12 elementary schools and for school districts that have 30% of students who would qualify for free and reduced lunch.

This bill is implemented in the 2024-2025 school year and would affect about 58 students nationwide or statewide.

Another bill related to food insecurity is House Bill 1784 by Representative Gregerson.

This bill passed unanimously off the House floor.

This bill addresses an issue that's going to start in March where Washington will face what they're calling a hunger cliff because federal emergency SNAP allotments will be ending.

The emergency allotments were granted during the COVID pandemic and this bill creates a funding stopgap measure to appropriate $20 million in food assistance through the rest of the biennium.

And I think that is the end of our council briefing.

And so if there's any questions, we're happy to take them.

Thank you, Anna.

Oh, I'm sorry, we see Councillor Nelson has her hand up.

Thank you very much.

There are two bills that are still moving forward that I'm excited about and which I'd love to see the city support.

The first is Senate Bill 5199, requested by Attorney General Ferguson, which would provide B&O tax relief for newspaper publishers to ensure that we still continue to have some quality journalism.

And I've spoken with you about that one in the past.

And then the second one is Senate Bill 5259, which would help retailers take steps to prevent product theft.

It would give retailers a B&O tax exemption of up to $3,000 to match the amount of money that they invest in physical security improvements to prevent theft in their stores.

And those include things that our own SEPTED Coordinators recommend security cameras and merchandise security equipment barriers in some cases, and the bill would also give a similar exercise tax exemption to cannabis retailers.

So, can you speak a little bit about those 2?

Yeah, those two bills are still alive, both of both of them are not subject to the cut offs last week so both are still moving the, the newspaper bill is ready for a floor vote, I suspect they won't take action until after the budgets come out.

And then also with respect to the 52-59, I received a hearing in Ways and Means late last week.

So we will keep track to see if it will get scheduled for a vote at Ways and Means.

And we signed in support of both bills.

Thank you.

What was the number on the newspaper bill?

None of you said, told me what number it was.

I said it was 5199. OK.

What's that under?

Government?

budget section, I think.

Okay.

Thanks.

Oh, I see it now.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Are there any other questions to our team, except for, thank you, Council Member, or thank you, Director Tollington for getting back to me on House Bill 1110. I know that there was a different account in a bunch of amendments and I know that I asked you some questions about.

about transit oriented development and I was a little confused on the four plexes and six plexes and where Seattle stood on all that.

I know some of the banner headlines seem a little sensational to me that single family zoning would be outlawed.

I don't think that's quite the banner headline, but can you give me a little bit more on that?

I kind of like the real skinny was what people are saying in Olympia.

Yes, and I will preface it first and then have Samir share with you some of the deeper insights that we're getting.

Just for all of the council members, Council President Juarez was concerned that all transit-oriented development issues were were being abandoned after cutoff.

And in fact, they are not.

There is a Senate Bill 5466 entitled Transit-Oriented Development, which is looking at the transit-oriented development aspects of land use and zoning and housing associated with those areas.

And that 5466 is moving back into the House now, as well as 1110 moving forward in the Senate.

Samir and Ana have been tracking very carefully the amendments that were introduced on House Bill 1110 regarding the the density options that would be still available to all cities, as well as the cities that Samir described, 25,000 to 75,000, and then above 75,000 population.

And Samir, maybe you could share some perspectives on how we are trying to analyze the real impact of some of the amendments on Seattle's current policies, as well as some of our planning thinking.

Yeah, I think one of the major changes that happened on the House floor was this alternative requirement where you can apply the requirements of the bill to 75% of the single family areas in your city.

And so, but they also put, you know, there's a number of strings attached to that and where that can and can't be.

And so we're still in the midst of talking with OPCD and also our attorneys as to how exactly that would impact the city.

And especially, we're interested in also the areas that have been identified as high risk of displacement.

So we're analyzing that and hopefully we'll get maybe even a map of where exactly this would help us and where exactly it would not impact us.

Hey, you know, Samir, a map would be great.

I mean, whenever you get it together.

And Council President, the mapping for Seattle is particularly crucial right now.

Not a lot of cities went to neighborhood zoning, okay?

And we were one of the first to adopt the accessory dwelling units and detached accessory dwelling units.

And so what we're trying to do mapping that integrates both the housing options and the land use options in House Bill 1110 Overlaid on the transit oriented development, very specific conditions of what areas constitute transit oriented development requirements.

And so these maps are essential and our office of planning and community development.

need to help guide us.

And Samir, I know it may have happened between last Friday and today.

Were either House Bill 1110 or 5466 scheduled for hearings in their respective committees yet?

Yes.

So 5466, the transit-oriented development bill, is scheduled for a hearing on Thursday in the House.

And House Bill 1110 is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate on Friday.

Okay, can I, I'm going to ask a kind of a dumb convoluted question because I'm still trying to.

And thank you, Gail for getting back to me and explaining some issues.

I guess just in as a general policy issue what I was concerned about was that for and we talked about this about zoning and planning decisions, you know, aren't always best handled locally.

Um, I think a lot of this is just my opinion but some of the single family zoning issues are relics and are tied to redlining.

And so my concern was this and I'm not pointing the finger at anyone.

I'm just saying going forward.

What we've learned from history is I don't want to see where we have an opportunity to have people get to live other places and maybe a little bit more density and that it isn't always just tethered to whether or not there's a bus stop or a light rail station there.

That is my main concern because then we're back to just the density and those areas that are already dense.

And that's my concern.

So I'm not saying that single family zoning isn't important.

I get that.

I understand that.

But that was what I wanted to kind of to parse out with you guys and seeing at some point if we could have that map overlay so we can just start seeing what it looks like.

Because I think both can be true.

I think you could have You can have density other places and it can also be tied transit I mean that you can do both.

So not either or.

I see customer herbal has her hand up.

Thank you.

I just wanted to say a few words about an another related issue on this bill.

Happily, though we don't have single family zoning in the city of Seattle anymore.

But as it relates specifically to some of the work that I are has done on this bill I really want to.

thinking and mentioning it in in past updates, but this seems like the right time to do so I want to thank.

Oh, I are for working to get a mandatory language included in the bill that clarifies very importantly.

that cities that have affordable housing incentive programs like Seattle's mandatory housing affordability program that we, even with the requirements of this bill, we can still impose our own affordability requirements.

So thank you so much for your behind the scenes work getting that language added.

Seems to be the only thing about this bill that the Seattle Times Ed Board does like.

Just so I'm clear, I know that's true about single family zoning.

It may not be true on paper, but I'm concerned about practice.

I'm concerned about code words of character.

I'm just going to say it, that's what concerns me.

There's a lot of things that we don't have on paper that doesn't mean people don't do it.

So that's where I want to see the policy discussion, just being candid and honest about it.

So that's what I was getting at.

And I think one of the things that Samir and Ana and I, we spent a lot of time discussing these pieces of legislation over the last number of weeks, as you can imagine, and with our colleagues in the other cities, as well as with legislators and other stakeholders.

The City of Seattle is unusual, Council President Juarez, in that we have so much transit, buses, sound transit, and obviously rapid transit options with King County, that so many of our neighborhoods are actually served within the definition of transit stop as currently written.

Okay, and that's an important caveat, as currently written in the Senate Bill 5466. And that's why we're trying to do the maps.

Not all neighborhoods are equally served, as you can well imagine.

But the King County Metro routes and with expanded Metro that the city of Seattle purchases from King County Metro, it it changes our analysis of how frequently our residents will have access to transit within a certain distance.

OK, but Samir and Anna, 5466 also has some potentially concerning language about the distance to or the definition of a major transit stop.

Could you elaborate on some of that for the members of the council and the public?

Because this is the detail.

It is truly the devil in the detail that we have to pay attention to.

Yeah, and so the 5466 has language that I think it's still in the midst of changing.

There's the definition of what transit stop is, I think, very fluid.

And I think especially though, I think everyone agrees about light rail and bus rapid transit, but I think what types of bus routes are included in that definition is something that is still very fluid.

And a number of cities have brought up concerns and legislators have said they will work on it and continually work on.

And then also, the station buffer, so that area, the circle, I guess, around those stops, how far does that go?

The bill right now is three quarters miles from a transit stop and then a half mile from the bus stop.

And so those are also, if we have a map, then I think we'll be able to see that it cover a pretty large portion of the city.

Oh, good.

That's good to hear.

Thank you for clarifying that.

We've taken up a lot of your time council president and members of the council.

Thank you so much for all of the time you've given us today.

We understand that there are some time constraints on the meeting schedule for next Monday and we want to make sure, you know, that.

since the budget revenue forecast comes out next Monday also.

Usually it's in the morning, but we won't take up as much of your time next week.

And if you would like to have conversations offline, and also if you would like to testify or send in emails, please contact Samir and Anna, and we'll keep you as apprised as we can on when meetings are scheduled and bills are scheduled for hearings.

Really appreciate all of your engagement as we head into these final weeks.

Thank you, Director Tarleton.

All right.

And we'll see you next week.

So let's thank you guys for all chiming in as well.

Let's move on in our agenda on the signing of a proclamation.

So Councilmember Peterson has a proclamation recognizing December 2nd as Malik Davis Day in Seattle for signature.

And I'm gonna let Council Member Peterson speak to that.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, I circulated this past Wednesday a proclamation declaring December 2nd Malik Davis Day in Seattle.

And now we may confirm an open session that will affix our signatures.

Malik worked hard in my council office since 2020, and we all miss him terribly.

While Malik celebration of life will be on March 26 at the University of Washington's Conover shell house at 2pm.

His family requested that we honor December 2 on the proclamation because that's Malik's birthday.

The proclamation was approved by Malik's family and the mayor has confirmed you will sign it with us.

so that the public knows what I'm referring to.

I'll read a few excerpts from the proclamation now, though the full text is posted on the website of my council blog, and I circulated it a couple of times Thursday and then just recently.

Is that OK, Council President?

Should I do a few excerpts?

Absolutely.

I thought that's what you would do for a friend.

Great.

So, whereas Malik and crew Matt Davis made his hometown of Seattle a better place for all serving the city with distinction energy and love throughout his life and career.

Whereas Malik Davis was first and foremost a family man, a devoted husband, father, brother and son.

Whereas Malik Davis was born in Seattle on December 2nd, 1970, and attended Mountlake Elementary, Meany Middle, Garfield High, and the University of Washington.

And whereas Malik Davis earned a Master of Public Policy from the New School in New York.

And whereas Malik Davis raised his daughters to be compassionate, kind, and curious leaders with a fierce sense of right and wrong that will guide them as they develop their community responsibilities.

Whereas Malik Davis could be heard near and far cheering loud and proud to support his local sports teams, including the Seattle Seahawks, Garfield Bulldogs, and his beloved Huskies.

And whereas Malik Davis began his legendary work for the Seattle City Government with Seattle Public Utilities in 1998, before serving as a legislative aide for City Council President Margaret Pageler starting in 2001. And whereas Malik Davis worked tirelessly to expand the resources and local networks of the University of Washington and the nonprofit Mary's Place for women and children experiencing homelessness.

And whereas Malik's larger than life spirit lives on in his family as well as with his neighbors.

colleagues and friends who always remember and pass along his empathy, enthusiasm and lovable life lessons.

Now, therefore, the mayor of Seattle and the Seattle City Council proclaim December 2nd to be Malik Davis Day in Seattle.

And more information at www.malikdavismemorial.com.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Peterson.

Are there any other comments before I say a few words and we move on?

for my colleagues, Council Member Nelson.

So if I guess now is the time when we say a couple words about Malik, and I'm signing this because Malik took me under his wing on my very first day on the job as an LA for a council member Richard Conlin in January 2002, and he just introduced me to people and showed me around and told me what's what in.

in a way that only Malik can do.

And this was in the old days when City Hall was across the street where that hole is right now.

And the front area where LA sat didn't have any walls or doors or anything, which means that you could hear Malik all the way down the hall as he was always laughing, razzing people, council members and LA's alike.

And I just wanted to, and he stayed that way.

a mentor to me throughout when we were working together and helping out my LA's here in the office and he's still calling me out.

And I just want to say that he had that rare capability of being kind and generous, kind of a big softy as well as just being brutally honest and telling it like it was and calling people out on their BS.

And the reason is because he cared so much about the city and about people.

So I miss him very much.

And I'm happy to sign this.

And thank you very much, Council Member Peterson, for bringing this forward.

Thank you.

Are there any other comments?

Council Member Strauss.

Just tagging on to what Councilmember Nelson just said, I already miss being razzed by Malik.

He's always somebody that told you exactly what he was thinking.

And it was incredibly meaningful and important to me.

That's why I miss them.

And just amen to everything you said Councilmember Peterson.

It's a loss for our city, it's a loss for City Hall, it's a loss for his family, and I just want to honor his life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Just piling on what an amazing public servant Malik was.

We both came to work for the city the same year.

Me here in the Ledge Department, Malik over at SPU, but he wasn't long over at SPU before he came over here.

to the Ledge Department and we were both LAs together in the early days.

And yeah, like everybody has said, you can always count on Malik to advocate for his community, for city residents, and to say what he felt and what he felt needed doing when stuff wasn't getting done.

And just really, you know, again, great, great, great public servant and he will be missed by many here and we know how much he will be missed by his family.

Thanks Council Member Peterson for bringing this forward.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council President.

I also just want to briefly share my deep sadness at losing a family member on the second floor in Malik Davis, who was an incredibly consummate colleague in our office on the projects we interfaced with the Peterson office on as a consummate professional.

And toward the end, I'll always remember the last conversation that I had with Malik Davis was advice as a new father on swaddling.

I mean, the guy was an extremely friendly colleague and that passed over the threshold to being a mentor and a friend.

And I just cannot fathom the second floor without Malik's presence.

And I'm going to really miss him dearly and thank him for the time that I did get to spend with him.

And I'm going to dearly miss him.

So thank you, Council Member Peterson, for bringing this forward.

I'm very pleased to affix my name later in the program.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Councilor Peterson, I just have a question.

Did you.

I like the resolution that you drafted for the proclamation, I'm sorry, and I think what kind of made me.

When I was reading it is towards the end where you have Malik's favorite pie flavors were sweet potato pie and key lime pie.

It's funny, I'm glad you said that, because he had mentioned that to me one time about potato pie.

I don't know why, and you put it in there.

I can't say much more except, you know, Lynx is a good friend.

And I want to thank you for doing this.

So hopefully on December 2nd, we will have sweet potato pie or key lime pie in recognition of Malik Davis Day, December 2nd, 2023. So thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anything else you want to add before we move to the vote?

No, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

And with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on those that would like to affix their signature to the proclamation presented by Council Member Peterson, recognizing December 2nd as Malik Davis Day.

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

nine council members signatures will be affixed.

Thank you very much.

And thank you, Councilor Peterson.

And thank all of you for sharing your memories of our dear friend Malik, who will be missed here at City Hall and certainly in this world.

All right.

So let's move on on the agenda.

So we're going to go around, as we do every Monday, a review of city council actions Council and regional committees.

And as I shared earlier, Councilor Mosqueda will be going first today.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold, for allowing Councilor Mosqueda to go ahead of you as she has a prior engagement.

And then it will be Council Member Herbold, Lewis, Morales, Nelson, Peterson, Council Member Sawant, Council Member Strauss, and then myself.

So with that, Councilor Mosqueda.

Thank you very much Council President and thank you to Council Member Herbold as well for allowing me to go first and colleagues, I just have a few updates for you regarding the Finance and Housing Committee meetings.

There will be one this week on Wednesday, March 15th.

We have four items listed on our agenda.

This includes paid sick leave for briefing and discussion.

We will hold the possible vote on that for the next meeting next week.

Again this is paid sick leave for gig workers that we are extending given the COVID declared state of emergency is coming to a close and before the end of the month we want to make sure to And ensure these protections continue for really vulnerable frontline workers.

We will have the CBO quarter 1 grant acceptance ordinance for briefing discussion and it is listed for possible vote.

I'm aware that there may be 1 amendment.

So, if there's a needed time for discussion and possible amendments.

We are happy to just have the briefing and discussion this week and do the vote next week at our May 20th meeting.

We will also have a briefing from CBO, the City Budget's Office on the Seattle Rescue Plan for 2022, which will provide a year-end report.

We have quarterly report outs, and this will be an opportunity to hear the fourth quarter report out and to look back at the previous year in total.

And finally, we will have Any other updates, I'll make sure to note that for you, but I think that those will be the total.

The Finance and Administrative Services, I think I mentioned this before, but we have an update on the structure of FAS and the department, I believe, will be present to walk us through that as well on Wednesday.

Then our next meeting will be next Monday on Monday, March 20th at 930 a.m.

This is a specially scheduled meeting because I was out the 1st week of March due to sick leave.

And we want to make sure to get these 2 items out of our committee before the end of the month.

So we've added a committee meeting.

on March 20th.

This is the MFTE extension.

Again, this will ensure that we keep the program in place and avoid any impacts of expiring units while the Office of Housing works with the Council and stakeholders and more.

To update the program in 2024 at the request of the Office of Housing, we have gone ahead and included this MFTE extension legislation for 2023 to have that more robust discussion in 2024. Tracy Ratzliff from central staff will be reaching out to each of the committee members to provide a briefing and overview of the legislation.

And if you still have not heard from Tracy or would like to follow up on her offer for a briefing, please do reach out to Tracy Ratzliff to arrange such a briefing.

And as I noted, we will have the final briefing discussion and possible vote on the sick leave legislation that I mentioned before on the 20th at 930 in the morning.

and our intent is to vote it out given that the expiration is at the end of this month.

Excuse me, at the end of the upcoming month.

As the Council President noted, tomorrow we will be taking a vote in full council on resolution 32085. This resolution is listed on the introduction and referral calendar and it is posted for tomorrow's consideration.

This resolution supports King County's crisis care centers levy, and urges Seattle voters to vote yes on the passage of this levy by the April 25th, 2023 special elections ballot.

So again, April 25th.

of the upcoming month, we will have an opportunity to vote on this King County levy.

I want to thank my colleagues, including Councilmember Herbold, who has been a longtime champion and is our lead on council for everything public health and human services.

I know that she is a strong supporter of this and may have some additional comments as well.

Councilmember Lewis was of similar mind and thinking that we should bring forward a resolution on this levy.

So I have worked in partnership with his office on bringing this forward.

Colleagues, it was my honor to be able to work with members of the King County Council and the executive in the early stages of the contemplation of such a levy as we looked across the county in terms of the need for additional health services for our vulnerable communities and additional services and support for the workers who provide services to these vulnerable community members.

I want to thank Executive Constantine.

I want to thank Council Member Zahilay, who's led on this effort at the county and all of the King County Council members who helped to put this levy on the ballot for voters to consider on April 25th next month.

Briefly, the measure would create five crisis care centers throughout the county, including one dedicated just for children.

Currently, there are only 46 beds.

There is only one 46 bed center in the entire county.

and it would restore the lost treatment beds in the county.

In 2018, for example, we had 355 beds.

Now, today, we are down to 244 beds.

People across this county wait on average 44 days for a mental health residential bed.

And this levy will also do a tremendous effort in increasing and growing the behavioral health workforce by creating pathways into this sector by increasing opportunities through apprenticeship programs while investing in equitable wages for the workforce.

That's a little bit of the what, but here's the why.

Addiction is not unique to working class folks, but it is a problem that disproportionately faces many workers who are workers of all types, of all ages, and all incomes.

And it is for this reason that I asked for permission from the MLK Labor Executive Secretary, Katie Garrow, who shared this story about the impact of mental health needs and behavioral health needs within the labor movement, as she shared this story at the MLK Labor Delegates Meeting last month.

Katie shared a story similar to what many of us have experienced personally, and many of us know individuals in this area who have seen and experienced family members who need access to behavioral health and mental health treatment.

Katie's father has been to rehab three times, and she shared this story in her own words.

My dad, like so many men, worked manual labor for 35 years, had both knees and shoulders replaced, and got hooked on pain medications.

Over the course of his active addiction, he lost his home, spent his entire 401k, filed for bankruptcy, survived a life-threatening stint in the ICU, and was living in his car by the time he was ready to get help.

He never learned how to cope with his feelings, his divorce, his subsequent separation from his longtime partner after her mom led to the death.

of two parents came cascading at the same time, and he suffered deeply without the tools to survive.

Katie continues, he has six years now clean, and we have the kind of healed and close relationship that is unfortunately rare and deeply cherished amongst families where addiction occurs.

But there was a lot of pain and trauma to get here for all of us.

Katie continues, the first time he went to treatment, it was $30,000.

And he had union insurance at the time.

So his share was only $500.

And that was 15 years ago.

The wait time to get a bed for him was one day.

And let me tell you, it was an arduous and painful day.

For my dad, the withdraws began and he tried to bolt out of there.

He began detox at home, which we now know was very dangerous to do without medical supervision.

The desperation I felt that day would have turned to crushing hopelessness if my dad had to wait 44 days.

Treatment gave him a second chance at life.

They gave us a color wheel and thoughts on how to talk to each other about our feelings.

He went to therapy for the first time in his life.

My dad is now enrolled in medically assistant treatments program, Suboxone and Methadone.

Are both at programs, he lives with my brother, a couple of acres on in Thurston County, where he feeds the dog and pushes my 3 year old niece on her swing that he built.

We talk regularly about his online dating pursuits and even though he's no longer active.

In NA, he participates in group therapy monthly.

As Katie Garrow says, it is not lost on her that her dad did not have to wait 44 days for a bed, nor did he spend any time in jail.

That's because he had a union job and because he was white.

We all deserve to recover.

We all deserve to live full lives and to do better by our children than our parents were able to do for us.

This is not a weakness, it's progress, concludes Katie.

In April, when this shows up on the ballot, I hope that all of Seattle will do our part to destigmatize addiction and recovery and find healthy coping mechanisms in our own lives.

And I hope today, council members, you will join us in considering voting for Seattle.

the City of Seattle's efforts here through this resolution to endorse the King County behavioral health levy and to vote yes on tomorrow's full council agenda.

In doing so, we will be joining SEIU 775, MLK Labor, the 34th District Dems, SEIU 1199, the 36th District Dems, the Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Asian Counseling and Referral Services, the South King County Professional Firefighters, IAFF Local 27, Valley Professional Firefighters, Vashon Island Firefighters, and so many more, including the Gun Alliance, NAMI, Recovery Cafe, and Sound, the forefront of healthcare, along with the Bellevue Chamber.

Please find additional information at their Vote Yes on Prop 1 website, and thanks again for your consideration tomorrow.

I do not have anything else to add.

And I see Council Member Herbold ready to go.

So thank you, Council Member Herbold, for allowing for me to jump in early.

And I look forward to with you tomorrow and celebrating our support for this levy.

Thank you so much.

Moving on to my report.

Let's see.

There is an item.

It's not from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

But it is an item that I'm sponsoring on the full council agenda tomorrow.

That's Council Bill 120521. This did not get a committee hearing.

It is going directly to full council because this is a risk management bill proposed by the city attorney to mitigate a possible risk with our current code that has come to light within the context of a current lawsuit.

The legislation brings Seattle City Code more in line with state law.

That's RCW 9A 48090. And it does so by adding a provision taken from that section of state law regarding graffiti.

And you all have received a follow up email to last week's email from central staff about this.

making hopefully crystal clear that my objective as sponsor of the transmitted legislation was to address only the risk exposure that the law department identified.

Because otherwise, if we were going to be dealing with some of the policy issues around graffiti offenses, I would want the bill heard in committee to discuss those policy issues.

And so consequently, the bill itself only makes the changes necessary to address the risk exposure.

So that's full council tomorrow.

We do have a committee this week, two items on our committee agenda also tomorrow, that's at 9.30.

The first we'll be hearing from the city attorney's office on their fourth quarter 2022 report.

And then secondly, we will be hearing the wage equity for nonprofit human services workers in Seattle and King County.

We'll have researchers from the University of Washington representatives from the human services coalition and director Kim from the human services department to join us for this presentation in committee.

I did have something I could have said about something that's on tomorrow's full council agenda it's related to an amendment to another bill not coming out of my committee but I think I'll hold that until Councilmember Nelson gives her report because it's related to her bill.

Other items on the public safety front.

Last week I had my twice monthly meeting with Chief Diaz.

where we discussed a number of topics, one being the need to get more information about what's driving the 260% increase of bias crimes with people living homeless as the target of those crimes.

All other protected classes bias crimes are going down.

The exception is bias crimes that target people living homeless, We also discussed in that meeting with Chief Diaz last week, the ongoing and protracted development and implementation of the SPD ROOS policy.

It was about a year ago in last month, maybe it was actually in January, where I and Mayor Harrell and Chief Diaz spoke about our intentions to work together to develop a new ROOS policy.

And so I'm just eager to continue to get status updates from the chief on that effort.

Also had my monthly meeting with Southwest Precinct Captain Rivera, where we discussed several district-specific public safety issues, including the work that the department has been doing in South Park, as well as the specific bias crimes investigation of threats against RV dwellers in District 1. Met with Inspector General Judge this morning.

We'll be meeting with Fire Chief Scoggins and the CPC later this week.

Just want to highlight a public safety announcement from the Fire Department.

They're reminding people it is time to remember to check your smoke alarm batteries.

The department is also offering free strobe smoke alarms for deaf residents in Seattle, and the fire department will install the alarms at no cost.

If you want information, you can email fireinfo at seattle.gov.

Also, the police department had their first Southwest precinct before the badge community conversation, giving West Seattle residents an opportunity to meet new police recruits.

Community members at these conversations can help recruits learn about their neighborhoods, our neighborhoods, share public safety concerns, and learn about the community the chance to learn about the recruits that will still be soon will be patrolling in our neighborhoods.

These conversations are going to be happening throughout the city through May 8th, and you can find out more about them by going to publicsafetysurvey.org forward slash index.

And then lastly, on the public safety front, just want to thank both public safety departments, both the police department, as well as the fire department for their work on increasing women in law enforcement specifically to build more equitable and diverse workforces.

The Fire Department and the Community Safety Communication Center joined agencies across the county to hold a Women in Public Safety Career Fair at the Garfield Community Center this past weekend.

Right now, we know that only 12% of sworn officers across the US are women.

and really appreciate the department's efforts as well as our 911 call center in addressing that lack of diversity.

Other items on the regional committee front, the lead policy coordinating group met this week.

For a reminder, the lead policy coordinating group has representatives from several city of Seattle departments, the City Council, which I represent the City Council, the City Attorney's Office, as well as King County elected officials, the King County Prosecutor, King County Council members, King County Sheriff.

We've also got the Police Department.

represented, so it's really an important group that works on identifying the emphasis for our shared investments in this public safety framework.

The PDA is putting out a request for additional organizations to join the LEAD model, and we got a presentation from King County on their efforts to put out a competitive RFP for lead services.

We briefly talked about the fact that lead isn't a program that can be just RFP so how we're going to work on on doing that collaborating with the King County to recognize that The PDA is more of a project manager and LEAD is a collection of agencies that provide the services.

So we'll be working more on that to ensure that the county understands all elements of the LEAD model and to ensure that there are a thousand people who are currently served with these dollars.

We need to make sure that they continue to be well served through that RFP process.

Later on this week, the King County Board of Health is meeting on Thursday, we'll be getting some briefings on youth cannabis, THC access, and then we'll also be doing some public health strategic planning and hearing about the state legislative session from the public health side of things.

As far as events coming up, this morning I started off the week with a meeting of the Regional Homelessness Authority's Housing Command Center.

It's great to observe this all hands coordination meeting that takes place every day to ensure continued progress by partnership for zero as it works to end unsheltered homelessness for current count is 977 folks in downtown Seattle, and their emergency response model that they're using has been long recommended by our city auditor.

And we're just really happy that participants have been receiving ongoing technical assistance and support from HUD.

And then lastly, just wanted to flag that after the Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting a couple weeks ago, we have been talking with the executive about reconvening our 911 Alternative Response Group to maintain and expedite progress on our dual dispatch pilot.

And tomorrow I will be meeting with council central staff.

Council member Lewis is going to be joining us leadership from the community safety and communication center, the mayor's office, the police department and other city departments and offices to review our timeline and build towards launching that pilot program this year.

That's all I've got.

Anybody have any questions or comments?

Looking, looking, looking, seeing none, I'll pass it on to Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, and great to hear that you had the opportunity to go to the command center for the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

It is highly recommended to colleagues if you've not had the opportunity to do that yet, and Jeff Sims, our old alumnus, from Council Central staff will be happy to be the conduit to help get you in there.

So, definitely strongly encourage that and agree with everything Council Member Herbold said.

So, my own briefing items.

Tomorrow, we will take up Resolution 32085, as Council Member Mosqueda indicated in her remarks, in support of King County's Crisis Care Center levy.

urging voters to vote yes on the levy's passage during the upcoming April 25th special election.

This critical levy will connect our behavioral health system and create a network of crisis care centers.

I won't belabor the description since Council Member Muscata indicated it fairly thoroughly in her own briefing and I do thank her office for their partnership on this in bringing it forward and appreciate Council Member Herbold's partnership along with myself and regional policy committee moving this forward a couple of months ago to this next stage and looking forward to voting in April in support of this measure and making sure that we as a council can go on record urging our neighbors to support this critical investment at a critical time.

In committee this Wednesday for the public assets and homelessness committee, we will welcome the Human Services Department and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority to provide their report on responses to unsheltered homelessness in the fourth quarter of 2022 and their findings from 2022 as a whole.

Additionally, we will consider an appointment to the Woodland Park Zoo Board of Directors.

Finally, this week, I will be attending the Downtown Seattle Association's annual State of Downtown event and keynote speeches.

Really looking forward to that gathering tomorrow evening and looking forward to reporting back on some of the details from the state of downtown.

As there's always a pretty good rundown of current ongoing initiatives and some of the progress that is being made in restoring an active and exciting downtown neighborhood.

Finally, clean city data for February 27th to March 3rd.

approximately 442 needles were recovered and 61,440 pounds of garbage from 119 park pickup locations were recovered.

And with that, Council President, I don't have anything else to add.

So if there's not any other comments, I don't see any comments or questions on the report.

I will hand it over to Council Member Morales I do apologize, I similarly have a commitment that I need to get to, and we'll be leaving briefing a little bit early, but I will hand it over to Council Member Morales and appreciate the check-in this Monday.

So, I appreciate it.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Let's see.

Last week, the Neighborhood Education Arts and Rights Committee met.

We had a few different briefings, one on the timeline for implementation of the Social Housing Board.

We had a briefing on the RSJI ordinance that will be voted on in committee at the next committee meeting.

And we had a briefing on the creation of a Development Advisory Committee for the UW Medical Center major institution master plan.

That was voted out of committee and will be on the March 21st full council agenda.

Excuse me.

My seventh grader brought home a head cold and now it's my turn to have it.

The next committee meeting will be March 24th at 9.30.

Last week, I met with our director director Kim to understand some data desegregation questions that I had.

We also talked about the work of the unified care team, and she gave us a briefing on some of the work that's happening.

We also did have the first meeting of the social housing implementation roundtable task force, basically reviewed the city obligations and the responsibilities of the other board appointing entities.

So as those entities finalize their own application processes, I'll be sharing information with you via these briefings.

And just so my colleagues know, the Social Housing Board is a 13-member board, but only two of those appointments are affirmed confirmed by the city council so the other board members are approved by their own appointing entities.

We will bring those to council to seat the board, but we only approve the two council appointments.

And I will make sure during briefings over the next several weeks to make sure you're getting updated on what's happening with that.

This week, as Council Member Herbold mentioned, I have a Board of Health meeting.

I'll also be attending a press conference later this week with the mayor's office and with DEEL at La Esquelita, which is a preschool in District 2, where my own daughter attended as a preschooler.

We'll be meeting Wednesday morning there to announce the launch of the expansion of the Seattle Preschool Program's application process.

And district, last week I had in-district office hours at Cafe Red at the Othello Station neighborhood.

We met with neighbors who wanted to talk about Lake Washington Boulevard.

We also met with several homeowners who live in New Holly, who are having some challenges with their home maintenance issues.

So we're going to be working with them to see if we can provide some assistance there.

I also attended the Beacon Hill Community Council where we were briefed by Jeremy Walker from the Department of Commerce and Sue Taoka with the Pacific Hospital PDA.

They were there to talk to us about the capital and operations report on the Pacific Towers Quarters buildings.

There are several buildings on the formerly the pack bed campus, several living quarters that community over the years has been interested in turning into youth housing, particularly for young people who are experiencing homelessness.

who need mental health assistance and job training.

And so we are just beginning the conversation of what a design process for those projects might look like.

Also met with neighbors who are also at the Beacon Hill Community Council meeting where neighbors who are interested in turning the Jefferson golf course, renaming the Jefferson golf course to honor Bill Wright, who was the first black GA golf champion.

So they're interested in renaming it to the Bill Wright golf course at Jefferson Park.

They're planning to go before the parks board in April.

I do want to thank Councilmember Nelson who attended that meeting as well.

I'm sure she will be talking about it too.

Just want to thank her for attending and sharing her priorities for small business support and for increasing density across the city.

Last week my staff attended both the Jazz Ed and the Wing Luke Galas on my behalf.

So I want to thank Imani Carey and Evelyn Chow for attending.

I was really looking forward to attending those but was called away.

We had a family emergency last week.

So I want to thank my staff for going.

It looked like the Wing Luke Gala was another fantastic auction event.

So congratulations to both of them.

This week, I'll be attending the South Seattle Community Roundtable at the invitation of the governor's office.

This is going to be a conversation with residents in the Duwamish Valley, hear from them about their concerns related to air and noise pollution and other transportation issues, especially as it relates to the King County report operations that are going on there.

So look forward to that conversation.

My staff will be attending the Automated Traffic Enforcement Town Hall at the Rainier Arts Center tomorrow night, hosted by Whose Streets Are Streets, as well as the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition's monthly meeting on Thursday.

That is all I have this week, colleagues.

If there are any questions, I'm happy to take those.

Not seeing any, I'll hand it over to Council Member Nelson.

All right, thank you very much.

The Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee met last Wednesday and recommended passage of Council Bill 120518, which is on tomorrow's agenda.

And this bill would approve an updated Surveillance Impact Report, or SIR, for forward-looking infrared real-time video, or FLIR.

The updated series allows SPD to go into procurement for a download downlink tool that would allow officers on the ground to view the live stream from infrared video camera that is on the King County Sheriff's Office offices helicopters.

And this update is necessary because it's a material change to the use of the floor that council authorized in 2021. So, currently officers rely on the helicopter pilots voice narration of the live stream and the ability to view events themselves.

will improve the speed of SPD's response in the case of natural disaster, or an active shooter, or some other kind of emergency.

The executive requested that council approve this updated SIR tomorrow, or we'd risk losing a federal grant to pay for this technology.

And if you have any questions ahead of tomorrow's meetings, I urge you to reach out to Lisa Kay of Central Staff.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to address this now or would you like to wait until I'm done?

Whichever is your preference.

Why don't you go ahead right now.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

So, yes, there is one very, I think, simple amendment to Council Bill 1205 18. It requests that the police department maintain a list of identification numbers, sometimes called tail numbers of the helicopters that are being used to deploy the floor technology.

The amendment is proposed in response to stakeholder feedback.

reviewed the amendment, they've given helpful input on an earlier draft that we've incorporated in the amendment that we have before us.

The amendment concept was discussed in committee, but we did not have the actual language at the time.

I recognize that it is the preferred procedure of the council that amendments be resolved in committee instead of full council.

But we do have a pressing deadline of March 14th for the full council's action.

And consequently, we're working on this legislation in one committee instead of two.

So appreciate everybody's flexibility in allowing this exception.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold, and I do consider this a friendly amendment.

I'm fine with that.

All right.

And then I was just going to add that last week we also had a briefing by Seattle IT on their work in 2022 and their priorities for this year.

And we had a really interesting presentation from City Light on their plans to and the principles that are guiding the electrification of our transportation network.

When I say transportation, I'm meaning electric vehicles on our transportation system and not just passenger cars.

It also includes garbage trucks and dredge trucks and buses, et cetera.

So if you miss that, I encourage you to watch the Seattle channel.

All right, so last week, let's see, getting here, it was a privilege to meet the President of Finland, Sauli Nynästö, and hear his perspective on the war in Ukraine and also what Finland's entry potential entry into NATO will mean for the alliance.

And he came with a delegation of business leaders, including the President and CEO of Nokia, of which T-Mobile is a major client, and also the President and CEO of, I believe it's pronounced Neste, which makes jet fuel from recycled cooking oil.

So that was really interesting, but I also want to note that that was the National Nordic Museum's first head of state visit, which is testimony to the stature of this asset in Seattle.

It was also my first meeting of a head of state too.

Okay, last week I also was a guest at the Beacon Hill Community Council and Green Lake Community Council.

And on Thursday or Friday, I met up with OED's Chris Swenson in front of the iconic apartment building that was featured in the movie Singles for an interview with Como's Chris Daniels for a story that he was doing in advance of Oscars night last night on Seattle Film.

And of course, we talked about the Film Commission.

And on Sunday, my policy director, Steven, and I attended the Wing Luke annual dinner and auction celebrating hometown heroes.

It was great to hear those stories of people that are making a difference in the CID.

Meetings I have this coming week.

On Tuesday, I'll join Council Member Lewis at Downtown Seattle Association's 18th annual State of Downtown at the brand new Seattle Convention Center Summit.

And so he already, Council Member Lewis already went through a bit about what that event is about.

I'll add that the keynote address will be given by economist and urbanist Ed Glazer, who is a professor of economics and chair of the economics department at Harvard.

He's authored several books, including Survival of the City and Triumph of the City, and is a frequent contributor to national publications.

Let's see, and on Thursday I cannot attend but my Chief of Staff Jeremy Moen will attend a panel discussion with local arts and cultural leaders hosted by Inspire Washington and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.

And among the discussion topics will be the impacts and effects of the pandemic on our arts and cultural institutions.

And this is really important because According to Manny Cowling of Inspire Washington, Seattle has one of the, if not, I think it's the lowest audience return to venue rate of any other city on the West Coast.

I believe he said that audiences are 35% down from pre-pandemic numbers.

So that's important that we address, find ways to support our venues and also support the artists and creatives that are producing the culture that we actually depend on in the city and that adds to our vibrancy as a city.

And that is all I have.

And if there are no more questions or any questions, I will pass it on to Council Member Peterson.

Before we go on, I just want to thank you and Council Member Herboldt for working together on the friendly amendment.

As you know, I do not like to have many committee hearings at full council.

So thank you both of you for talking about that offline.

I appreciate that.

That type of cooperation just makes it a lot easier.

So thank you.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

While there are no items from the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon, there is one transportation related item.

As we know, Sound Transit and King County have shared their responsibilities for the downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, which includes several transit stations.

At long last, we will soon unify all responsibility under Sound Transit for the safety, cleanliness, and operation of those downtown tunnel stations.

As a party to the interconnected 20 plus year old agreements that govern the use and responsibility for those downtown stations, the city must still execute a transfer and conveyance agreement, which is what is being authorized by Council Bill 120522. In the central staff memo circulated last week about that legislation central staff identified no concerns with the legislation.

If you have any questions about that.

Our next meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will be next Tuesday, March 21st at 9.30 a.m.

We'll have three items.

We'll have a briefing and discussion on the progress SDOT has made implementing the 10 recommendations from the September 2020 audit of city-owned bridges.

As you may recall, we ordered this audit of city-owned bridges after the sudden cracking and closure of the West Seattle Bridge in early 2020. The city audit found several bridges in poor or suboptimal physical condition.

One of the key findings is that repair and maintenance of our bridges has been historically underfunded.

Other themes of the audit included the need to improve overall asset management techniques and procedures.

In 2015 the move Seattle property tax levy promise investments in bridges and during the past two years the council has taken the initiative on multiple occasions to increase funding for bridges.

So many of us are eager to hear from s.how they will be investing those funds.

We will also have a briefing from Estoc to discuss their reaction to the recently completed federal audit that mentioned several Estoc projects.

As you may recall, the Seattle Times posted an article last month describing parts of that federal government audit.

The audit was conducted by the Inspector General of the U.S.

Department of Transportation, and its recommendations were directed at various administrators within that federal department.

But the report has potential funding implications for Seattle.

I've asked our own City Auditor, David G. Jones, to join us at the committee table in case they can lend additional expertise regarding this federal audit.

I spoke directly to the U.S.

Inspector General's office after their report was published and they confirmed that U.S.

DOT must resolve the concerns itemized in the audit by December 31st of this year.

Our transportation committee will also have a briefing and discussion from city council central staff on transportation projects that could be built if we move ahead with a funding source that is used in 70 other Washington state cities and across the nation.

These are of course, transportation impact fees.

In addition to an overview reminder of what impact fees are and how they work elsewhere, we will highlight the many multimodal transportation projects in every district that would be eligible for such funding.

This is merely following through on a commitment that Council made and repeated nearly every year since 2017 to keep this funding option viable.

For more information, you can go to the Council's website seattle.gov forward slash Council forward slash issues forward slash impact hyphen fees.

If you're a community member who's been eager to see Seattle benefit from one or more of these transit, pedestrian safety, bike safety, bridge, or freight mobility projects, but have been told there might not be sufficient funding within our current budgets, you might want to attend this meeting.

That concludes my report.

Any comments or questions?

All right, we'll turn it over to Council Member Swan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, and good morning, I mean, sorry, good afternoon, everyone.

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

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is this Friday, March 17th at 930 am that committee will discuss and vote on appointments to the Seattle renters commission and will also discuss the legislation to cap late fees for renters.

at $10, which my office is bringing forward alongside renters rights activists, union members, the stay housed, stay healthy coalition and socialist alternative.

There are currently no limits to the fees yet landlords can charge renters for overdue rent as I've reported before in council briefing sessions.

Some renters have told us they are charged upwards of $250 as soon as rent is overdue and many leases have clauses where Landlords can charge an additional $40 or $50 every day the rent is late.

Other renters have even faced late fees and then late fee notice delivery fees, which is an additional fee for the privilege of getting a late fee.

For working class renters, obviously this is a punch in the gut for being a couple of days late on rent.

And for people who are temporarily unable to pay rent, the late fees can spiral out of control.

Renters do not get paid late fees when their landlords delay fixing broken appliances, heating or mold infestations, yet renters have to pay rent on time regardless of whether or not their landlord completed repairs.

Landlord talking points say that they need late fees to motivate their tenants to pay rent on time.

but this has absolutely no basis in statistical evidence and furthermore anyone who has ever struggled to pay rent knows this is absurdly untrue.

Working class renters do everything in their power to pay rent on time because there are few things as terrifying as having overdue rent and making your situation even more precarious and anything close to eviction is completely frightening.

In fact, Auburn and Burien have already capped late fees at $10 a month and renters continue to pay their rents in those cities.

The late fees bill was discussed in concept at the last meeting of the committee, and now it is on tomorrow's introduction and referral calendar of the city council.

I intend to list it on Friday's agenda for possible vote, but of course, if members of the public need more time to weigh in, then I'm happy to consider giving it another meeting before voting.

That's the report from my committee.

Are there any questions before I end the report?

Hey, I got a question.

Yes.

Thank you.

And I remember and maybe these bills died.

I can't remember all my head, but I think you and I had a conversation.

I can't remember.

But how your late fee fits in with some of the state late fee stuff.

If there's some dovetailing going on there or duplication, do we know anything about we know more about that Friday?

No, actually, I'm glad you're asking because I actually spoke about this at the briefing, I believe, last week or the week before, I think it was last week.

Yeah, House Bill 1124, that's the one you're referring to, that was just killed by the Democrats.

I mean, it never came to a vote, unfortunately.

And Yeah, it wasn't it was not as strong as the bill from my office but also it has just not gone forward so unfortunately there's no dovetailing.

Also, that died then it's on a dead list 1124, and without the war there terminated junk fees.

I could be wrong.

I believe so, but I'm not sure actually.

Okay, good.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you for asking.

Yeah, that's important to note.

In fact, we were, yeah, we were in my office, we were tracking what was happening in the state because we wanted to make sure that, you know, I mean, we want things to be won at the state level because it'll help renters statewide, obviously, and we wish it had gone forward, but it hasn't.

And Ted got a Siberian one, right?

Yes, I think so.

And if not, I'll, I'll make sure.

Yeah, the 2 cities that you talked about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, so I just got to find it somewhere.

The other 2, if Ted got him to us, so hopefully Ted is listening.

So, yes, thank you.

Thank you.

If there are no other questions, I will pass it on to council member Strauss.

Oh, thank you, colleagues.

Great to see you this afternoon, just for the good of the order before I get into my committee report.

We reopened the Ballard Commons Park this last weekend with a grand reopening celebration.

Overall, it was an amazing celebration.

And I want to thank the Parks Department, specifically Tom Diamond, the Ballard Alliance, specifically Mike Stewart, Devin Reynolds, Kate Hoffman on my team and all of the community organizations that made this event a success.

Activation at the park will continue through Thanksgiving.

And if your organization wants to host an event in the park, please reach out to me and my team and we'll help get you on the calendar.

Uh, land use items on land use committee items on full city council.

There are no items from the land use committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

Regarding policy falling under other committees.

I have an item regarding the transportation committee.

Last Friday, I wrote Mayor Bruce Harrell and SDOT Director Greg Spatz requesting outreach and design of the missing link to be completed along Market Street, Leary Avenue, and 17th Avenue.

The most basic way to see what I'm proposing is to walk along the constructed route, the constructed trail between 24th Avenue and the Ballard blocks along Market Street.

I've included before and after photos of Market Street in my newsletter and on my blog to show the benefits that this infrastructure provides our community.

For those that have been following this conversation for five or 30 years, you already know I remain committed to completing this connection and that my position has changed between 1994 and today because Ballard has changed.

In 1994, I believe Schill Shoal Avenue was the best choice for the Burke-Gilman Trail.

In the last decade, it has become apparent to me that Market Street, Leary Avenue, and 17th Avenue provide us a real opportunity to complete the missing link, And connect the trail to the housing commercial core of Ballard to ensure the request I made this last week reflected community input I held three meetings of stakeholders, specifically one with commercial stakeholders, one with industrial stakeholders and one with bicycle stakeholders.

These meetings each contain the same information about my proposal and the purpose of these meetings was to gain specific feedback ahead of making my formal ask of the mayor and the director.

The biggest takeaway from these meetings was very clear.

It's that people want missing link completed as soon as possible.

And the last decade two variables change that changed my mind regarding the placement of missing link first.

Ballard has become denser.

In 1994, industrial businesses were located throughout the neighborhood along Leary Avenue, Ballard Avenue, and Shilshall Avenue.

Today, these industrial businesses are almost exclusively located on Shilshall Avenue, while Ballard Avenue and Leary Avenue have almost exclusively commercial businesses.

The second variable that changed my thinking was the planning and building of the missing link between the Ballard Locks and 24th Avenue along Market Street.

By building the trail along Market Street, we have seen the positive contribution the trail provides commercial businesses.

Prior to the building in this improvement, the street was hard to access for everyone walking, biking, or driving, which meant businesses experienced mixed success.

Now with the trail built along Market Street, it is a bustling commercial corridor used by families, people learning to ride, and long distance riders, people running, walking, and more people than ever using the stretch of roadway.

So again, my request is specifically to have the same level of design completed along this Market Leary 17th route, as is currently completed on the Shilshall Avenue It is important for the community to have a direct apples to apples comparison between the two alternatives to provide educated feedback and input regarding the trail placement through the densest community that Burke-Gilman Trail serves.

For the first step in this process, I'm asking SDOT to complete a feasibility study with 30% design at a minimum.

And I've included baseline base guidelines regarding with placement intersection design and place based considerations that I believe need to be included for this proposal to be successful in completing the missing link.

Asking for this design and outreach to be conducted in the next six, six months, the map and.

cross sections are on my website, on my blog, and in my newsletter.

Again, the most basic way to see what I'm proposing is to walk along the constructed constructed trail between 24th Avenue and Ballard Locks along Market Street.

The trail design should mirror what is currently built there, and by building the trail along Market Street in 2020 between the Ballard Locks and 24th, we've seen this positive contribution that the trail provides our community.

gone over most of this, but again, to design the, I'd like to see the design at the same level Shell Shoal is with 30% design completed in the next six months.

And I'm more than willing to use my time, my relationships and my resources to assist in the stakeholder outreach and design work for people wishing to provide feedback.

The next opportunity will be to share your perspective with SDOT when they complete this outreach.

Litigation aside, we are at a turning point in Ballard.

We have increased density increased use of electric bikes and scooters, and a bustling community we cannot afford to miss the opportunity to connect the Brooklyn Trail to our commercial and residential core.

And lastly, as always, I want to see this missing link completed as soon as possible, and I believe this proposal gives us the pathway forward to quickly complete the missing link.

Colleagues, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

Council President, that conversation might have put me over my 10 minute mark, but let me try to finish up my land use committee report.

The next regularly scheduled land use committee is next week, Wednesday, March 22nd at 2 p.m.

We anticipate hearing the tree canopy report from Office of Sustainability and Environment.

We will have tree legislation, the initial briefing with discussion about the overall bill.

And we will have a contract rezone clerk file 314470. With that, we'll have more updates at next week's council briefing regarding the content of the land use committee on March 22nd.

With that, thank you, colleagues.

That is my report.

Any questions?

Well, thank you for letting us know about the missing link.

Everything we ever want to know, but we're afraid to ask that's been going on for over a decade.

So thank you for tackling that.

I appreciate that.

Good luck.

Thank you.

I think we're almost at three decades.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, you're right.

It's been.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss, representing the mighty D6.

All right.

So I will be brief.

There are no items from the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

Our committee meeting has been canceled.

We were scheduled to have it on the 16th, but we will be canceling that meeting.

Last week, we met with Mayor Harrell and his staff regarding the West Seattle Ballard Link Light Rail proposal before the Sound Transit Board.

We specifically discussed impacts on Chinatown ID and South Lake Union.

We met with HSD regarding D5 neighborhood encampments and their upcoming first quarter report on outreach.

We met with Sound Transit CEO and staff as part of the North King County sub area group.

And we also met with our friends from Puget Sound Stage regarding West Seattle Ballard Link light rail extension, specifically impacts to Chinatown and the ID.

And I did attend the Sound Transit System Expansion Committee, though I'm not a member, but the mayor is, but I can attend the meeting as a board member in which they voted on the West Seattle Ballard Light Rail Extension.

So the full board vote will be on March 23rd.

The issue with CIDID and Danny Westlake or Danny Terry will not be on the 23rd.

That was actually set aside for a moment for some additional discussions.

Moving forward, we participated in the first meeting of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council this year.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for chairing this meeting.

And we met with the DSA, the Downtown Seattle Association, regarding the Metropolitan Improvement District, the MID, which is up, I think it's a 10 year contract and it's up.

And there's some expansions and some additional issues that they are to be requesting.

I'm guessing they're going to be getting around to every council member to brief you on their strategic plan that they have coming up.

Coming up this week, we will continue to meet with multiple constituency groups regarding the light rail issues.

That is, of course, the the CID and the ID and Westlake.

And let's see.

And I think that's it.

Yeah, that's it.

That's all I got.

Do I have any questions from my colleagues before I say goodbye?

Nope, just Council Member Strauss is happy to be here, I see.

All right, with that, we will adjourn and I will see you guys tomorrow at two o'clock.

Have a good afternoon.