Seattle City Council 4/18/2023

18th, the meeting of the Seattle City Council.

My name is Deborah Juarez we, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll.

Councilmember Peterson present Councilmember so want present Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Herbold here Councilmember.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis present.

Council Member Morales, here.

Council Member Mosqueda, present.

Council Member Nelson, present.

And Council President Juarez, present.

Nine, present.

Great.

Looks like everybody's here.

Moving on into our agenda, we have two presentations.

Today we have one proclamation sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda proclaiming April 17, 2023 as Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day.

This proclamation was signed last week and today it will be presented.

So first, Council Member Mosqueda will present the proclamation and then I will open the floor for Council Members.

And after council members make their comments, we will suspend the rules to allow our guests to accept the proclamation and provide comments as well.

That being said, Council Member Skater, you are recognized.

Thank you very much, Madam President, and welcome, everyone.

Thank you so much for being here and receiving this proclamation today.

Today's proclamation honors the 48th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge regime seizing the Phnom Penh, Cambodian city capital.

The events on that day in 1975 led to the genocide of about two million people over a four-year period.

Nearly a quarter of the entire Cambodian population And we commemorate this day because of the resilience of the Cambodian community, the resilience, the pride, the power that the community has, not just around the globe, but right here in Seattle and in Washington state.

The reason that Seattle City Council is taking on this proclamation today to honor our community is because Seattle is home to the largest concentration of Cambodian Americans in King County.

And King County has the third highest concentration of Cambodian Americans in the United States.

Signaling a multi-generational community, a community full of leaders and elders, this is our community here in Seattle, in King County, and in Washington State.

And together, we recognize the resilience and strength, pride, and tenacity of the Cambodian community.

the community that has worked together to reclaim a cultural cornerstone nearly exterminated by the Khmer Rouge regime, and to uplift this community here today, we honor them with this proclamation for all of the work that they have done on cultural education, empowerment, and the resiliency that's here within our city borders and within our county.

In honor of the community who enrich our city's culture through their own, it is an honor to recognize the Cambodian community and also to remember this tragic anniversary.

To acknowledge that we must continue to learn from the past if we hope to avoid ever repeating it again in our own city, county, or country, or anywhere in the globe.

I wanna thank Samath Mel, who many of you know as a leader in our community, Director of Partner and Change, which is a BIPOC led and BIPOC serving coalition, housed within the Equity and Education Coalition.

And thank you to Samath and the community who reached out to our office to sponsor this proclamation on behalf of a number of organization and community partners who are here with us today, including the Cambodian American Community Council of Washington, The Khmer Language Arts Academy, Khmer Anti-Deportation Advocacy Group, Equity in Education Partners in Change Program, and the Khmer Buddhist Society, along with Spian Ranjana.

Thanks to my fellow council members for their signatures.

And as you already heard, the mayor's office has also signed this proclamation today to support the community who are here with us today, the broader Cambodian American community, and to remember the Cambodian genocide so that we can all continue to fight against this type of hate and terror and continue to stay connected and support our Cambodian American community who are here with us, thriving and continuing to push for greater community connection.

Madam President, we are thrilled to have three members of the community and a large number of the community as well who are here to receive the proclamation.

And Madam President, when you say so, I would love to be able to introduce them before we present the proclamation.

Thank you, Councilor Mosqueda.

Are there any comments from any of our colleagues before we move forward?

Not seeing any, if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow our guests to accept the proclamation and provide remarks.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended.

And Council Member Skiddock, correct me if I'm wrong, the names that I have in front of me are Sina Sam, Sivong Lam, and Sabath Eat, correct?

That is correct, Madam President.

Go ahead.

Wonderful.

So if those guests would like to come to any of the microphones and make some comments.

And I also recognize that there's a number of folks from the Cambodian community that are present in the audience.

And so if the folks from the Cambodian community who are here to receive the proclamation, Madam President, if it's okay with you, if they stand to also be recognized behind these presenters, that would be great.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Excellent.

And thank you again for reaching out.

I want to thank Melanie Cray from my office who was able to work with the broader community as well to craft this proclamation in partnership with all of you.

So Melanie Cray will be presenting the proclamation in just a moment as well.

Welcome Sina Savong and Sembah.

Hello.

Hello.

Thank you.

Thank you, councils and the city of Seattle for giving me this opportunity to speak.

My name is Sambat Yit, and I speak on behalf of the Cambodian American Community Councils of Washington.

Today we gather to remember the 48th anniversary of the Cambodian genocide, a tragic event that claimed the lives of over two million Cambodians.

It is a somber day, a day of reflections, a day to honor the memory of those who lost their lives, and to recognize the devastating effects it had on the Cambodian people.

But amidst the tragedy, the devastations, I see the resiliencies of my people.

Here in Washington, with these thousands of families continue to thrive despite the challenges we have faced.

We have become an integral part of Washington's working Washington's, helping put wings on Boeing airplanes, working in healthcare, educations, constructions, and of recent, in governmental positions.

And our businesses have been feeding Washingtonians amazing food, coffee, and especially donuts.

I also see the rise of our second generations of Cambodian Americans, as witnessed here by many of our young leaders and organizations.

My organization included.

We are inspired by our elders, so we are committed to empowering, elevating, and strengthening the Cambodian American communities across Washington.

As we remember this tragic event, we must also remember that the genocide was an attempt to silence our voices and our culture.

But today, we stand together, strong, vibrant, and resilient We are proud to be Cambodian-American, and we are proud to be Washingtonians.

In closings, I want to congratulate the Council for proclaiming today as the Day of Remembrance.

It is important that we never forget the tragedy that occurred 48 years ago, and we must continue to honor the memory of those who lost their lives, but we also must remember that despite the tragedy, Cambodian people have shown remarkable resilience, and we are honored to have them as part of our community here in Washington.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have another speaker?

Yes, we do.

Hello.

Good afternoon, my name is Savong Lam, and I am with the Khmer Language Arts and Culture Academy.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for sponsoring the proclamation, Mayor Harrell, and to the full council for your support.

As a first-generation refugee and a survivor of the Cambodian genocide, I am honored to be here with all of you on this solemn occasion.

April 17, 1975 was one of the darkest times in human history, where nearly 2 million souls were systematically killed by the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime.

On the 48th anniversary, I would like for us to remember and honor the souls lost, reflect upon the history of how this tragic event took place, and pay our respects to those who survived.

Although I was very young when we escaped from Cambodia, I still remember the feeling of hopelessness and fear that I felt on that day.

Today, I want us to remember the many souls lost.

For me personally, I would like to remember my older sister, Samat, who perished during the Khmer Rouge regime due to forced labor and malnutrition.

She was six years old.

I also want to pay my respect to all the survivors and thank them for their courage and resiliency.

Especially, I want to thank my mom, Tun Sak, who's here today with me, visiting from California.

She had to endure holding back her tears as my sister took her last breath in her arms.

I just cannot imagine the kind of pain my mom had to go through.

I want to pay my respect to my grandma, Sandra.

She's 96 years old.

She wanted to come.

She's visiting as well, but couldn't.

Till this day, she has remnants of shrapnels inside her from the landmine she stepped on while trying to escape to Thailand.

My uncle, for his courage and wisdom, he snuck back into Cambodia and coordinated our escape.

Their resiliency gives me the strength to persevere, and their love continues to inspire me to keep serving.

Although many of us have encountered challenges during our initial resettlement here in the US, our communities reign in rebuilding, strengthening our community, preserving our culture, and creating opportunities for our younger generations.

We are making history across the United States.

We have elected officials We have council member Joe Bushnell, who became the first Cambodian American elected to office in Washington State.

In 2018, we have Sina Sam, who became the first Cambodian American woman appointed as commissioner to the Governor's Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs of Washington State.

And most recently, Solong Chun, who became the first Cambodian designated as digital media manager appointee for the Washington State Office of the Governor.

We've built Cambodia towns and small businesses, innovated the donut industry.

We are professionals, religious leaders, educators, writers, artists, caretakers, voters, advocates, power builders, and so much more.

From the darkest depths, our people have risen.

We are resilient and must be deeply committed to taking action where needed to support, advocate, love, and uplift one another.

We must also be committed to preserving the Cambodian culture, a rich and beautiful culture that was once almost obliterated by the Khmer Rouge.

We are only as strong as the community behind us, as fierce as our peers alongside us, as brave as those who have come before us, and as powerful as the youth that will take our legacy forward.

Today's commemoration of the Cambodian genocide gives us an opportunity to remember and bring awareness so that it never happens again.

We must also stand in solidarity against hate, racism, intolerance, and systems of oppression.

We must never forget.

Again, thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, Mayor Harrell, and the full Council for bringing this proclamation forward.

We appreciate you.

Thank you for your continued support.

Do we have another speaker, Council Member Mosqueda?

We do, Madam President.

She's just coming to the microphone.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Sina Sam.

I am a co-founder for the Khmer Anti-Deportation Advocacy Group, also known as CAGE.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, so much for your leadership in making it possible to have Cambodian remembrance of the genocide this week in our great city of Seattle.

Thank you all, Council Members and Mayor Harrell, President, Council, Horace, as well, for supporting this proclamation, which is so important for our community and rebuilding and healing.

As you know, Washington State is home to the third largest population of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.

Our arrival in the U.S. marked the largest wave of refugees to be resettled in U.S. history, along with Vietnamese, Laotian, Hmong, Umean, Tichu, Montagard, and other minority groups in Southeast Asia.

We recognize conflict and genocide are very difficult topics of discussion.

It's always been difficult for our elders, survivors, and now our youth to be able to talk about these experiences because our community suffers from the highest, some of the highest rates of post-traumatic stress in the country.

In a 2015 study by Psychiatric Services, they found that 97% of Cambodians in our community who were participants met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PSTD.

This rate surpasses those of the U.S. population as a whole, which is at a rate of 3.5 percent, and U.S. veterans, which is at a rate of up to 30 percent.

And many of our families, as Savong mentioned, were resettled into under-resourced, failing communities facing some of the highest rates of poverty, incarceration, and now With poor educational outcomes, we are facing re-traumatization with the issue of deportations.

These are just some of the historical and structural hardships our communities have faced.

But despite all this adversity and trauma, Cambodians are resilient.

We are deeply committed to taking action where we can to advocate, to love, to uplift, and to work with and build with our friends and our neighbors.

As many of you know, Seattle is home to over 700,000 residents in King County, and King County as a whole has 202 million residents.

Now, if you can imagine for a second, and I apologize for this visual, if everybody in Seattle, in King County, which is over 60 cities, if all of us perished overnight of over 2.2 million people just gone.

That's what happened in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. This is why we fight to end all forms of family separation.

As refugees, we know intimately the cost of war, genocide, mass detentions, deportation, and state-sanctioned violence.

Learning from the communities that have come before us, the civil rights, the women's rights, the immigrants' rights, even Indigenous sovereignty movements.

As refugees, we know that it was through these past policy advocacies that our resettlement was made possible.

One of the very last sermons Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered was titled, Beyond Vietnam, Break the Silence.

Along with anti-war advocates, he argued for understanding and unity around the conflict of Southeast Asia, and boldly spoke out against the Suzuka invasions and bombings of Cambodia and Laos.

Many Black civil rights leaders, in fact, flew to border camps in Southeast Asia to help our communities safely emigrate, such as Bayard Rustin and Diane Nash.

We understand the struggles and challenges these leaders have faced in bringing about change.

So we owe a great deal to the leaders, the city, the state, who was one of the first to step up to accept refugees from Southeast Asia, and our allies who are veterans, who have also fought for and alongside our communities.

Lastly, and most importantly, April is actually a month of celebration for our communities.

It is Cambodian New Year.

And it was meant to be a holy month that was interrupted because of conflict, because of war.

And it almost destroyed our way of life.

In Cambodian, we say, which means happy new year.

So today we take it back.

We will celebrate, we will honor, and we will build with one another.

We can be a part of this progress, all of us, and learning about the importance of this proclamation in history is a way for all of us to honor this history and spread awareness of the goal of never again.

On behalf of our families and community, We thank everyone here and those tuning in in support today.

To everyone, we wish everyone a happy and prosperous and peaceful new year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam President, I'll walk down to present it.

Thank you.

And thank you to our three guests, And customer mosquito, of course, and to all of our colleagues that affix their name, their signature to the proclamation for the Cambodian genocide Remembrance Day, which was April 17th.

So customer mosquito is approaching the, our guests to hand over the proclamation.

I'm guessing you're going to have a photo op.

We'll hold for that.

With that, I want to thank all the folks that came out today to support Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day from 48 years ago, such a tragic history.

And as you shared from our last speaker, many indigenous people have been the subject of brutal genocide.

And that doesn't ever leave us.

The historical trauma never leaves us.

In fact, this Sunday, I will be with my colleagues in Department of Interior at the Tulalip tribe meeting with elders who experienced boarding schools.

So this all kind of falls together.

So thank you, Councilmember Esqueda for having the proclamation, having the guests, and giving us a day to remember what these type of regimes do to indigenous people simply trying to live their lives.

So thank you.

All right.

With that, we will move on into our agenda to public comment.

Madam Clerk, the last time we spoke, you said there were 30 remote speakers and 24 people in chambers, correct?

Correct council president.

Okay, so this is what we're going to do.

We're going to start with the, um, everybody please listen.

1 minute, listen for the 10 minute.

Ding, if you will, I hate, we hate cutting people off, especially the remote people that call in star 6, as you all know, so we will start with the remote people 1st.

Is that what I said earlier?

Now I'm trying to remember.

No.

Well, let's do the opposite, because we have less speakers in chambers.

So let's start with the in-person people first.

And everybody in chambers, I normally don't announce this, but I will now.

Since I'm a compromised person, I'm under supervision for long COVID.

That's why I'm not out there.

So we will start with the in-person folks.

One minute.

Please mind the clock because at one minute you will be cut off and then we will move to the remote speakers.

So with that, Madam Clerk, I'm going to hand it over to you for the instructions.

Hello, Seattle.

We are the Emerald City, the City of Flowers and the City of Goodwill, built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Seattle City Council welcomes remote public comment and is eager to hear from residents of our city.

If you would like to be a speaker and provide a verbal public comment, you may register two hours prior to the meeting via the Seattle City Council website.

Here's some information about the public comment proceedings.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered on the Council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when they registered online and used the meeting ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

A reminder, the speaker meeting ID is different from the general listen line meeting ID provided on the agenda.

Once a speaker's name is called, the speaker's microphone will be unmuted and an automatic prompt will say, the host would like you to unmute your microphone.

That is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

At that time, you must press star six.

You will then hear a prompt of, you are unmuted.

Be sure your phone is unmuted on your end so that you will be heard.

As a speaker, you should begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

A chime will sound when 10 seconds are left in your allotted time as a gentle reminder to wrap up your public comments.

At the end of the allotted time, your microphone will be muted and the next speaker registered will be called.

Once speakers have completed providing public comment, please disconnect from the public comment line and join us by following the meeting via Seattle Channel broadcast or through the listening line option listed on the agenda.

The council reserves the right to eliminate public comment if the system is being abused or if the process impedes the council's ability to conduct its business on behalf of residents of the city.

Any offensive language that is disruptive to these proceedings or that is not focused on an appropriate topic as specified in Council rules may lead to the speaker being muted by the presiding officer.

Our hope is to provide an opportunity for productive discussions that will assist our orderly consideration of issues before the Council.

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of you have been unmuted.

Thank you, Seattle.

The first in-person speaker is Jessica Ray.

Good afternoon, my name is Jessica Ray, ProTech 17 Union Steward for the Seattle Fire Department Admin.

Thank you for having us.

I'm here today using my lunch break to present you with our petition representing over 6,000 city employees.

We deserve a fair contract with equitable wages and benefits and with the historic inflation rates of the last few years.

That means a cost of living increase so that we can afford to live in the city that we all serve every single day.

The 1% that was offered to us was offered in the name of increasing racial and social equity, though the effects of offering such a low cost of living increase does quite the opposite.

Our contract represents an incredible and diverse spread of people serving our communities.

We keep the lights on, we keep the streets clean, we keep the city running.

We cover almost every aspect of the city from fire to 911 dispatch to city light and beyond.

We prioritize the city every single day, and it's time the city prioritized us essential and everyday workers.

Thank you.

Second speaker is Anne Sisny.

Hello, my name is Anne Sisney, and I'm the president of AFSCME Local 2083, the Seattle Public Library employees.

I'm here as a librarian on my own time to speak to the petition from the Coalition of City Unions.

And I want to mostly just remind the council and the mayor of something that you're already very familiar with.

And that is that for every vision that you have, every initiative that you sponsor, and every commitment that you make to the people of the City of Seattle, it's the 6,000 workers of the Coalition of City Unions who are out there on the streets making those dreams a reality.

We believe very strongly in that work.

We support you in your leadership, and we need your support in return to ensure that we can continue to afford to work as city employees carrying out these important functions.

I'll leave you with one question, and that is, do you support our call to ensure that wages keep up with inflation for city employees?

Thank you.

Next speaker is Catriona Hernandez.

I'm a 9-1-1 dispatcher with the City of Seattle.

I have a relatively easy time being considered an essential worker.

Some of my union cohorts don't, but we want to be recognized as a city that doesn't just have people subsist but actually thrive.

We deserve to have safe roads, good utilities, public spaces, libraries, And we can't do that and be a progressive city without fair wages we can't continue to talk a big game about how we're holding private industry accountable when we can't even do the things that were saying they are failing to do and providing for our workers.

I want to leave this with you so you can take it and hold the full weight of it and feel just how much support we've garnered and how important this is to us in such a short time.

Because we want to be here, and we're getting pushed out of our own city, and that's not what we want.

We don't want this to be a theme park, we want it to be a city to live and be part of the community.

And before our next speakers come up to speak on the need for an important rental cap in Seattle, I just want to say that we and they, the overlapping groups of workers and tenants all deserve to.

Next speaker is Marshall Bender.

Hello, City Council.

Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today.

I've been here at the last committee meetings to urge you to support and vote yes on capping rent late fees at $10 per month.

No landlord needs an extra $40 a month and Council Member Nelson's amendment to make it $50 a month is, you know, just as divine.

You need to stop the shameless amendment.

You need to stop the, you know, just a ridiculous financial exploitation of renters in the city.

$50 a week can be a week of groceries, can be medicine, gas for many renters, and we should not allow landlords to exploit renters any further in the city.

This would be a simple step to protect people who live here from unchecked financial exploitation.

And our city is already expensive and housing already tight.

So let's not make the burden on renters worse.

Stop the landlords and their exploitation.

Vote yes to cap the rent fees at $10 per month.

That's all I have to say.

You know what to do.

Vote in support of your constituents.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Sam Scheibner I'm a member of the IOC stagehand union local 15. I urge all Dems on the city council to reverse the regressive amendment watering down the late fee cap from $10 to 50, we demand that council members vote yes on the amendment to bring the late fee cap back to $10.

I recently had to endure a rent increase and during the transition period, their automated system undercharged me.

I had the money, but the next day I received a 14 day notice that I had to pay the difference or be forcibly evicted.

Landlords get 15 day grace periods on their mortgage payments.

Renters don't.

We have to fight this hard just to keep the fee at $10.

I had the $50 or I had the money for the difference, but I did not have $50 for a late fee.

That would have been a week's worth of meals.

Renters need to stand in solidarity with each other.

Thank you very much.

Next speaker is Kate Wilson.

Hi Council Members, my name is Katie Wilson, I'm here with the Transit Riders Union and the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition.

In 2021, the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition came together to try to fight for housing security during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The coalition comprises over 50 community groups, faith groups, labor unions, service providers, all coming together to try to pass stronger protections for renters in jurisdictions around King County.

We strongly support, the whole coalition strongly supports, this $10 cap on late fees and also banning notice delivery fees.

We ask the council to vote yes on the amendment to bring this legislation back into its original form, capping late fees at $10.

Auburn and Burien have both done this.

Seattle can too.

Let's get it done.

Thank you.

Alicia Burton.

Hello, my name is Alicia Burton and I am from Nicholsville.

Nicholsville is in favor of capping rental late fees at $10 a month.

I urge all Democrats on the city council to reverse the regressive amendment that watered down the late cap fee from $10 a month to 50. Council members who take home 140,000 per year while poor people struggle to make ends meet.

Landlords get a 15 day grace period for their mortgage payments.

What about renters?

We don't get any.

Let's put the $10 down.

Kate Rubin.

Good afternoon.

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm a renter living in District 2, and I'm the co-executive director of B-Seattle and a member of the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy coalition.

I'm asking you today to support the amendment to cap late fees at $10.

Rents now are extremely high.

Some renters are paying more than half of their income, sometimes even three quarters of their income to rent.

One emergency can make you behind and high late fees can make it so you can never get caught up.

For somebody who's earning a lot of money hourly, $50 may not be that much, but if you're a minimum wage employee paying most of your salary to your rent already, Getting your way up to $50 when you've already got so much going to rent is nearly impossible.

This means sacrificing food for your family, or gas to get to work, or just staying behind forever.

Thank you.

Gwendolyn Hart.

Good afternoon, I'm Gwendolyn Hart.

I'm a renter in Seattle and a member of Workers Strike Back.

I'm here today to urge all Democrats in the city council to vote yes on the amendment to bring the late fee cap for renters back down to $10 a month.

We are currently in the midst of a massive cost of living crisis.

We are seeing skyrocketing rents and surging prices and basic necessities.

Renters are majority of people in the city and we are the ones paying the heaviest cost for this crisis.

Thanks to renters' rights victories in the past few years, we've managed to get very far, but this is just the beginning.

If we want to save people from the skyrocketing rents that are forcing them out of their homes, we need to go further than this.

We need to force the vote on citywide rent control with no corporate loopholes that can save people from this incredible burden.

I call on the Democrats today, I know many of you have benefited from support of the unions in your campaigns, to side with the membership of those unions today, to side with the majority of people in Seattle, and to vote yes on this amendment.

Andra Kranzler.

Good afternoon, council members.

It's great to be here.

I'm the directing attorney at the Tenant Law Center and former council member staffer.

And I worked really hard on some housing policy stuff.

And since I was 20, I've been working on housing policy stuff.

At the Tenant Law Center, my team has answered 192 renters calls from the city of Seattle.

This time last year, we answered 99. That's because renters are struggling and they all have an issue and there's not enough resources and we need reasonable rent restrictions on fees and these things because this is what is needed to make sure that half of our city is able to thrive and prosper.

And as a former landlord, when I had renters that were struggling with paying rent on time, I moved the illusory due on the 5th.

My grocery store workers, they paid weekly.

Social workers paid the 10th and the 24th.

I had 100% rent collection and I passed all of my state and city audits for habitability.

Be humane.

Amitra Freeman.

Good afternoon.

My name is Amitra Freeman.

I'm with Wheeled Women in Black.

Last Wednesday, we stood for another 32 people who died homeless outside just in March.

There's a direct correlation between people who are evicted and people who die on the streets.

A late fee does, by the way, we stood wrapped up in red tape, just like a lot of the efforts to help are.

There's a direct quarterly, yeah.

Late fees do not contribute to people paying their rent on time.

They do contribute to people being evicted into despair and dying.

We need a $10 cap.

$50 can mean a week's worth of groceries.

Paying late,

I'm a runner.

I urge all the

I gotta ask why 50, you know, is that the best number you can get out of somebody when there are hard times?

I mean, I mean, us renters know the game.

If we can't pay our rent, we're out on the street.

And that little late fee is just nickel and dime and that's why we're down.

That $50 for me, that's enough food for a week.

And if I have to choose between a meal and a place to live for the next month, I know which one I'm going to do.

And I want to be hungry that night.

So I gotta, I just, I gotta ask, you know, if that's just, you know, in this city, one of the wealthiest cities in the country, that's just deeply wrong.

So I ask city council members, stay with the renters, not the landlords, and vote yes on the $10 cap.

Melina McCombs.

Hello, my name is Melanie McCombs.

I'm from the elders renters organization of Seattle and I live in District two.

We've heard how the $10 late fee is being.

It was 15 hours.

It was 10 it's now 50. It is too much.

I understand the idea behind penalties.

It's supposed to help people just not be late on their rent.

But the problem with this kind of a penalty is When it gets higher than 10, it's too much and is not so much more a penalty as it becomes a harassment in a way.

When you only have minimum wage or work living on social security, it's not enough to live on.

From the perspective $10 is a lot to me, we need to cap it.

We need to cap it.

It's just too much.

Thank you.

Natalie Bailey.

Hello, can you hear me?

OK.

Hello, my name is Natalie Bailey.

I'm a Seattle renter, a member of Socialist Alternative.

I'm in with Workers Strike Back.

I urge all Democrats on the city council to reverse this regressive amendment that watered down the light cap fee from $10 a month to $50.

We demand council members vote yes on the amendment to bring it back.

the late feedback to $10 a month.

I also stand in support with public sector union members and PCC workers who are fighting to be able to live in the city that they work.

I think that this is a really important fight to be able to do that.

And the only reason that we're here is because of the strength of the movement that has already won so much and that we need to be able to push that forward.

We can't allow this to be $50.

It's an onerous amount.

It's one that I can't really afford.

And I think that this really shows that while I think the Democrats who have said that they will vote yes on this, we need a class party of our own.

We can't rely on the strategy of just counting on the Democrats, we need to have a movement that will fight for rent control with no corporate locals.

Thank you.

Don query.

Hey there, I'm Don Query.

I'm on the board of directors of the Drivers Union.

We are affiliated with Teamsters 117 and we are the first union of independent contractors in the United States.

Thanks much to the support of you guys.

I want to ask you today to reject the $50 late fee in favor of $10 late fee.

Although, I mean, I think $10 actually is generous and unnecessary.

I've lived in the same apartment for 22 years.

In 2016, my landlord began a series of biannual and annual rent increases, which means I am now spending $7,500 more per year on rent than I was in 2016. What that means as an Uber Lyft driver is I work 10 to 12 weeks a year to pay my rent increase, not my rent, my rent increase.

Now, if my landlord needs late fees, I think that he can find that within the exorbitant rent increases that he subjected his renters to the last six years.

Thank you very much.

Margo Stewart.

Hey, my name is Margo.

I work and rent on First Hill, and I'm also an activist with Workers Strike Back.

I'm here as well to demand that the Democrats on the council reverse the shameful amendment nickel and diming renters by raising the late cap fee to $50.

As others have said, you know, it's because of our tenants movement and Council Member Salon's office that this is even on the table.

You know, but of course, the difference of $40 means much more to a renter like me living paycheck to paycheck.

than it does to a landlord.

And this is just a really needless concession to some of the largest landlords in the country making some of the highest profit margins, frankly, in the world.

And yeah, I just also want to second solidarity with the city employees.

The 1% raise that's being proposed by Herald right now is just an outrageous insult.

And I think it's another example of city Democrats trying to make workers pay for this economic crisis, this inflation crisis.

We need wages that keep up and we need late fees that aren't, you know, crushing us while we're fighting for that.

I think ultimately we need a strong movement and a new party to win those things.

But yeah, vote for Texas.

We have Eric Torres.

I'm Eric Torres with IATSE Local 15. I'm here today to ask you to cap that rental fee to $10.

I work for a decent wage, right?

But right now, I've been hurt for six months.

I've been able to work.

I'm barely making it.

And then you're gonna ask me to pay an extra $40.

that can actually feed me for three days, right?

Then I'm listening to all these other people out here, right?

And I'm looking at people like in my neighborhood living in tents, right?

Wonder why they're in tents.

You know, a lot of people in the real estate market make a lot of money, but you gotta come after people that work, right?

To make up your little, you know, your extra bits.

I don't think so.

Anyway, thank you.

Ellen Anderson.

Ellen Anderson.

Hello, my name is Ellen Anderson.

I'm a renter in District 2, organizer with Worker Strike Back, and I am here to urge all council members to reverse the incredibly regressive pro-corporate landlord amendment that waters down the late cap fee from $10, $50 to $10 a month.

You know, we demand that the city council members vote yes on this amendment to bring this late cap fee back to $10.

Who do you stand with?

Do you stand with renters or the landlord lobby?

Because landlords are making profits hand over fist while renters are aggressively struggling with the cost of living as it is.

I cannot understand why you would make the choice, the active choice, to add this additional burden to your constituents.

In addition to this, we need to organize to fight back against the insane cost of living and win back rent control.

I also just want to say that I absolutely stand with union members and PCC members.

This absolutely has a direct tie.

If you support labor, if you support workers, you have to support this legislation.

Thank you.

Evan Fairbourn?

Hello, my name is Evan Fairbourn.

I'm a member of SEIU, Service Employees International Union.

I also work for DESC, a local nonprofit that is working to house people living on the street.

People who bear the immense stigma, marginalization, and disenfranchisement from the hands of greedy and insulated corporate elites.

Our lives bear witness to the corruption and inequity that continues to wrack this nation and will continue until a critical mass of everyday people take a stand against the elite ruling class, the oligarchy, and its henchmen.

We demand our council members vote yes on the amendment to bring the late fees on rent back to a cap of $10 a month.

The point I wish to make here today is twofold.

Number one, this measure does not take anything away from the already rich landlords.

It merely stops them from further exploiting struggling renters.

The landlords are already massively profiting at every metric.

We all know, council members, you know this.

Number two, I wish to speak to council member Andrew Lewis.

If you're going to be a labor Democrat, don't betray your word.

I believe it's Aiden Carroll.

Hi, I'm with Stop the Sleeps 46 Dems Exec Board and others speaking in personal capacity.

I'm in D6 where evictions recently killed someone, UC Stolzig, say her name.

Yesterday after Harold's press conference, I said to him, are you aware of the new scientific evidence that sleeps are causing massive rise in overdose deaths?

And he just got in the car real quick.

This is continuing emergency, and we need to keep reminding that, and that is inseparable from the landlord and tenant crisis.

Unconditional housing for all, a massive expansion of consensual treatment.

Most people want treatment, but no one won't work without housing.

There shouldn't be late fees.

There shouldn't be landlords.

Late fees are the kind of thing that sounds like an incentive that works, but a lot of incentives that sound like they would work actually don't.

We need rent control and upzoning.

I know some think that's only one, but if you will find out the evidence for that, if you pass that bill again that Harold vetoed, it was five to four about inventorying apartments, quantity and price.

Also PCCC rigged their.

Kyle Graham.

followed by Aridi.

Madam Clerk, I think we need to have the speaker either speak up or because we're not getting a sound here.

At least I'm not.

I will restart the time.

Thank you.

Do this one better?

Yes.

Thank you.

My name is Kyle Graham.

I'm a renter and Uber driver, an activist and worker strike back, and currently in Andrew Lewis's district, a few blocks from here in a low-income apartment.

Council Member Lewis, I urge you to keep the bill's original $10 cap and reverse the amendment, watering it down to $50.

I, like many others in my building and in your district, are still paying monthly to cover missed rent over the time of the pandemic.

This amount is not always easy to pay, and the time it takes to come up with that money can cost me $100 more in late fees, which creates a cycle of debt for struggling renters.

A $10 cap would relieve pressure on those of us already struggling.

That $40 is a drop in the bucket for landlords who are making insane profits already.

And maybe it isn't a lot for you, but for people like me, that amount can really make a difference with cost of living rising due to inflation.

During your last election, my neighbors canvassed our building in support, people who are now also struggling to keep bills paid.

I think that if working class people are willing to volunteer their limited free time to help you get elected a self-proclaimed labor Democrat, then you should also be willing to help us out and keep the late fees capped at $10.

I also encourage solidarity and support for the public.

The workers.

Next speaker is Aridi.

Sorry if I'm not pronouncing that correctly.

Thank you.

I'm a resident of Seattle Housing and Resource Effort share at the North Minister Presbyterian Church.

Yeah, okay.

Anyways, I am here today to urge you to continue the strong advocacy by supporting legislation that enforces a $10 cap on late fees.

Other cities like Auburn and Burien have already implemented a $10 cap and it is time for Seattle to do the same.

The wealth disparity between landlords, even small landlords, and the average renter in Seattle is vast.

The loss of late fees will not impact most landlords at all, but it will make a dramatic difference for renters.

Excessive fines and fees are well known to be punitive towards those already in poverty.

We know from experience that excessive fines and fees lead to homelessness.

And without shelter, people die.

Mara, Sethi?

Good afternoon.

My name is Meera Sethi.

Since I bought a home in Wallingford in 2015, median rent prices in Seattle have risen over 50% with eviction rates and homelessness rates going up alongside.

I'm here in solidarity with my neighbors who are renters.

Because my husband and I are homeowners, our major cost of shelter, our mortgage payment, has stayed the same.

While our property taxes have gone up with the value of our home, we can deduct the entirety of that cost along with our mortgage insurance and other tax benefits.

Even the smallest of small landlords in our city has access to many of the same and some additional government subsidies and protections while collecting skyrocketing rent payments.

The argument that raising the late fee cap offers more balance makes no sense when the deck is already stacked in favor of property owners.

The argument that $10 is unsustainable makes no sense.

You as council have the power to sustain it.

Vote yes on the $10 late fee cap

Nayshin Fu.

Good afternoon council members.

My name is Nayshin.

I live in District 6 and I'm a homeowner and a landlord of a condo.

I'm a member of Tech for Housing and the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition.

Please vote yes today to capitulate fees and vote yes on the $10 amendment.

The impact of predatory fines and fees trapping individuals in long-term debt and poverty is well known across sectors.

The federal government just proposed lowering credit card late fees from the current maximum of $41 to $8.

So clearly there is a material difference between those two values for someone who's already struggling to pay their bills.

We should do the same with rent late fees.

As a landlord I want to make it easy for my tenants to pay their rent and I believe that allowing high late fees only gets in the way of this.

I do not believe that the late fee in practice serves as an incentive for the majority of renters because most people who are late on rent aren't able to pay.

Please listen to the voices of the renter voices here today and vote yes to cap late fees at ten dollars.

Thank you.

And the last two in-person speakers, Harriet and then followed by Rachel.

Good afternoon, my name is Harriet Julie Saslow and I'm with Nicholsville Northlake.

I would like to urge all Democrats on the city council to reverse the regressive amendment that watered down the late fee cap from 10 to $50 a month.

We demand council members vote yes on the amendment to bring the late fee cap back to $10 a month.

I became homeless because of late fees that I could not afford to pay at a minimum wage job.

Thank God for Nicholsville, so I'm okay.

But a lot of people are not.

There are people out there dying because they can't afford these ridiculous rates that they're having to pay.

So please, once again, I will ask you to stand with renters, not the landlord lobby, and vote yes on a $10 a month cap on late fees.

Thank you.

Our last in-person speaker, Rachel Kay.

My name is Rachel Kay.

I'm affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.

And last month, my friend named UC Solstice was murdered by King County sheriffs because she couldn't afford to pay fees totaling $6,000.

And this was in a building that was essentially a slum where sewage backed into UC's bathroom and there was cockroaches and cracks in the ceiling.

Regardless, Landlord's profit is apparently worth more than human lives.

Over 300 people die in the streets from homelessness this year, which is a record.

And we have landlords pleading poverty despite the fact that there are four homes for every unhoused person.

Please cap late fees at $10 an hour, $10 per infraction.

We are now moving into remote public comment speakers.

Great, let me just share this 1 more time for our remote speakers.

Do we still have 24 on the line?

Madam clerk.

It was 30 council president 30. oh, okay.

You're right.

30. I apologize again to our remote speakers 1 minute.

Please again.

I just hate it when people get cut off because they're not listening for the for the chime and also.

When you speak, it's one minute, listen for the chime, and press star six.

Okay, with that, Madam Clerk, go ahead and start.

Our first remote speaker is Zoe Amer.

Hello, my name is Zoe Amer.

I'm a medical industry worker with Workers Strike Back.

I thank the city council Democrats who have publicly committed to voting for the amendment to bring back the $10 cap on late fees for renters and urge all the Democrats who have not to do so.

It's disgraceful to see in a city with an affordable housing crisis and ever increasing homelessness, Democrats on the council trying to wring as much profit as they possibly can for corporate landlords out of working class and struggling people.

The point of this legislation should be to get struggling people back on their feet so that they can make rent in the future.

not to punish someone and send them spiraling into housing insecurity.

If you feel the same, you should join workers strike back.

We brought this legislation to the table on the strength of our movement.

We need to keep pushing forward for $10 late fees and rent control with no corporate loopholes.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sonia Ponaf.

Hello, my name is Sonya.

I've been a landlord and property manager for many years, and I support Councilmember Sawant's legislation, cupping the fees at $10 a month.

My family and I have never charged any late fees.

We know that renters have a lot of incentive to pay rent on time.

Mainly, they don't want to get evicted, and we want good long-term renters to stay.

But we can't rely on a few good landlords as sufficient protection for renters because We know the powerful landlords will always use every chance they get to squeeze more profit from their tenants.

And in this case, the landlord lobby convinced three council members without any data to support council member Nelson's regressive amendment of a $50 cap.

So I urge all Democrats on the city council to reverse that by voting yes on the amendment to bring the late cap fee back to $10 a month.

And I do appreciate those who already announced that.

Landlords are not struggling, that's laughable.

I can say that there's no shortage of landlord voices out there.

The whole system is in line with them.

Our next speaker is Emily MacArthur.

Hi, my name is Emily.

I'm a lifelong renter and a resident of district two.

I'm a member of the stay house, stay healthy coalition, as well as socialist alternative.

I'm here to urge the Democrats to reverse the regressive amendment that waters down the $10 a month late fee legislation.

Um, uh, and to, yeah, to vote yes on council members who wants amendment to reverse this regressive attack.

Um, there's no data proving that $50 magically enforces on time rent.

This is purely speculative.

Um, but what is clear is that $50 is a lot of money to working class people.

Uh, it's one week of groceries.

If you're on snap, it's three hours of work.

If you're a minimum wage worker, um, landlords make 30% profit, uh, on the work that they do work.

Um, Google, an international corporation makes 21% profit.

Um, it's absurd that we should be subsidizing landlord profits with, um, trying to pass a pro landlord legislation.

Stand with renters, reverse this regressive amendment.

All Democrats, including so-called pro-labor Democrats, should vote yes.

Our next speaker is Graham Dart.

You're welcome.

Hello.

My name is Graham Dart, and I am a volunteer with the Tenant Law Center at Catholic Community Services.

I urge the council to pass the bill capping rent late fees and prohibiting notice fees, and to pass the proposed amendment returning the cap to a monthly $10.

Tenants already prioritize rent payments ahead of other expenses.

If they don't pay rent on time, it's because they can't pay rent on time.

And no amount of disincentive, if you want to call it that, in the form of late fees can make money for rent materialize.

Allowing up to $50 in late fees, potentially charged every day rent is not paid, will leave tenants with even more needless debt Furthermore, 1.5% of monthly rent is vague about whether other included expenses apply and will leave tenants vulnerable for financial exploitation from unscrupulous landlords.

Other cities like Beering and Auburn already have a flat $10 cap.

Seattle should follow suit.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Austin Price.

Hi there, my name is Austin Price and I'm just calling in today to urge all Democrats in the city council to reverse their aggressive amendment that's watering down our late fee caps from $10 a month to 50. Anybody, you know, especially council member Lewis claims to be, you know, labor, labor sensitive, labor supportive, really like to see this turned around.

It's completely ridiculous as a million other speakers have already said, I'm sure you're going to hear more of.

that we would add these ridiculous late fees on top of everything that renters have to deal with during this crisis.

The constant inflation, the constant raise of rents, you know, I can go on and on.

I also just kind of want to throw in as well support with the members of the city union struggling for better pay raises, the 1% proposed raise to keep up with cost of living inflation.

That's unacceptable and an insult.

All right, thank y'all for listening.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Barbara Finney.

My name is Barbara Finney, a homeowner in solidarity with Seattle renters.

I organize with Workers Strike Back and I'm a delegate to the MLK Labor Council for American Federation of Government Employees Local 3197, which represents the healthcare workers of Seattle VA.

Today, on behalf of Local 3197, I urge you council members to vote yes on Council Member Sawant's amendment to bring the late fee cap back down to $10 a month.

This is a labor and workers issue.

AFGE 3197 urged this council to provide protection to all renters in 2019 in support of Council Member Sawant's rent control legislation.

Today, the message is cap the late fee on rent at $10.

Solidarity with public Seattle Public Sector work union members in their fight for a fair contract with Seattle.

I hope Council Member Lewis reverses his very bad vote in committee and votes today in favor of the $10 cap on late fees.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Phoenicia Zhang.

Hi, Council Members.

My name is Phoenicia Zhang, and I'm calling from solid ground to voice our agency support for the proposed amendment to restore the $10 late fee cap.

Solid Grounds Tenant Services Program supports over 1,000 renters at risk of eviction every year.

And we see the harm that unregulated excessive late fees can have on renters.

For example, one of our tenant counselors recently served a Spanish speaking family where both parents lost their jobs.

And when the household started to fall behind on rent, their landlord charged them $120 per day for late fees.

It's clear that we need to limit excessive late fees And for renters that are struggling to meet their payments in the first place, a late fee of $50 rather than $10 does not change their ability to pay.

A $50 late fee is not more incentive.

It only penalizes our most vulnerable renters.

I'll also echo a point that an earlier commenter made about how the percentage fee calculation of 1.5% could create some confusion and inconsistency in how it's implemented.

Does this include parking, pet rent, other fees?

So thank you all for listening to all the comments.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Laura Lowe.

Laura?

Hello?

Hello?

OK.

Yes, hello?

You're on.

You're on.

OK.

Hello, council.

I'm a little rusty.

I haven't done this in a while.

Please support the $10 cap on late fees and go further over the coming months to get rid of junk-free fees like $75 notices for planting flowers on your balcony.

And let's fix up that RRIO program to get it working again.

Being a landlord is a luxury.

Being a renter means struggling to have a stable home.

I'm a renter with a lot of generational wealth near Interbay and D7.

And a few times over the last year and a half, my landlord texted me and my neighbors asking us why our rent was late.

Both times it was because he was in a timeshare in Hawaii.

And so when he returned his mail had delays.

It was not any of our fault because of his timeshare that he can afford because he's a landlord.

I make 31 bucks an hour.

A fifth of my paycheck goes to health care costs.

My rent is $16.50 for a one bedroom.

I am rent burdened.

The only reason I can live in Seattle is because my parents are wealthy.

Renters need stable homes to stay healthy.

Kids do better in school and they can stay in the same school year after year for their emotional well-being.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Bailey Griffin.

Hi, my name is Bailey Griffin.

I'm a Seattle resident, renter, and voter.

I urge all Democrats on the city council to reverse the amendment that watered down the late fee cap from $10 to $50.

The extra $40 makes no difference to corporate landlords and can be the difference between a renter eating or facing eviction.

It's inhumane that so-called labor Democrats would vote to force people into these situations.

and continue to uphold a system that charges fees for being poor.

Vote yes on the amendment to bring late fees back to $10 a month.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sarah James.

Hi, my name is Sarah.

I'm a worker strike back member and a homestead community land trust homeowner.

I stand in solidarity with renters.

Our city has nowhere near enough affordable housing and a punitively penny pinch renters on late fees is blatantly anti-working class.

I urge all corporate Democrats to, uh, to vote in support of capping rate late fees at $10 instead of 50. We demand that the council members vote yes on this amendment.

when I support public sector workers and union members.

I can't believe that Lewis, the youngest member of the Seattle City Council, would screw over his peers with unnecessarily higher caps.

The difference between $10 and $50 might seem like nothing for someone making over $140,000 a year, but to most of us, that's a trip to the grocery store.

There's literally no reason for this increase other than to leech more money from working people for landlords' profits.

We are in an affordable housing crisis and need real rent control.

The majority of millennials, 41% of them spend more than 30% on their rent.

This city is untenantly expensive.

And to just squeeze out more money for no reason is...

Our next speaker is Avey Matarazzo.

Hi, council members.

My name is Avi.

I am a grad student at UW and the vice president of UAW 4121, the Union for Academic Workers, Postdocs, and Research Scientists.

I'm here in support of capping late rent fees at $10.

I have directly heard from graduate students on the exploitative practices of their landlords.

Our union members are already struggling to pay for housing in Seattle.

Last year, we found 80% of our 1,100 respondents on a survey pay more than 30% of their salary on rent.

And we know that in the last year, this is probably increased greatly.

Many student workers live paycheck to paycheck, especially when our hours are not guaranteed across UW throughout the year.

We need to have that understanding $10 per infringement of late fees.

I've seen extremely rich retributive landlords, both small and corporate landlords, charge our members extremely high fees and continue to increase rent.

In our worsening housing crisis, please stand with tenants and vote yes on $10 per month late fees.

Stand with our union siblings too that keep our city.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mason Green.

Mason?

Hello, my name is Mason Green.

As a worker strike back activist, renter and student advocate at the UW, I urge council members to reverse the $50 amendment on the $10 late fee cap.

This would not affect my current situation, where it is currently a $50 late fee already for the $10 additional per day fee.

Renters in Seattle demand bold, progressive action to protect and expand their rights.

This late fee cap would have a significant impact on the security of renters in Seattle.

It would protect people like me who face $250 in late fees due to unexpected employment and timing of paychecks.

This amount of money is 20 percent of my monthly income.

As a student I am putting myself through school and this money is extremely valuable to me.

It contributes to my daily stress and in the moment worsens a mental health condition that I have.

I appreciate your time and thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Donald Goodwin.

I see the tile.

Donald, it looks like you're ready to go.

Donald, are you there?

Yes.

Yes, I am.

This is Don Goodwin as Don Goodwin used to be a member of local 289. Local 587 and Local 17, I've worked hard all my life.

I do own two rentals and I'm not making, I'm not a rich individual.

Having said that, in the last two years, I've put somewhere between $175,000 and $200,000 into the two homes to improve the environment that the people live in.

And I won't be recovering that money from the rental money that I get from the people.

In January 2023, I raised the rent $150 for the first raise in over four years for one of the homes.

I think a lot of landlords got a bad reputation here.

When I remodeled the home, the people that were in the home when I was remodeling it did not pay full rent.

I offered them childcare and I offered them the other stuff.

And I'd like to see the city council to do stuff Thank you.

Sorry for cutting people off again.

You've got to be mindful of that chime.

Our next speaker is Benjamin Maritz.

Hi, my name is Ben Maritz.

I'm an affordable housing provider here in Seattle.

I manage about 500 apartments with an average affordability of about 55% of AMI.

I'm here to support the very reasonable 1.5% cap on late fees that many have referred to as a $50 cap.

Our average rent is about $1,000 for the apartments that we own and manage.

About 1.5% of that is $15.

It doesn't make much of a difference if the late fee is 10 or 15. Both of these will lead to many more late payments for us, which will increase our costs for us and other affordable housing providers, which will lead both to higher costs for renters and restrict the availability of affordable housing.

We have data on this and are happy to share it.

Capping the fee to $10 instead of 1.5% would really only help the much higher rent luxury housing providers.

Please consider that as you consider the amendment today.

But more importantly, please continue your efforts to help both renters and the housing providers that serve them through common sense solutions such as permanent rental assistance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Casey Burton.

Hello.

Hello.

My name is Casey Burton, and I am a senior staff attorney at the Tenant Law Center.

And I am asking that the council pass a $10 late fee and get rid of all the other arbitrary fees that landlords charge.

We know that people are struggling, and that includes struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

There isn't any cap on late fees for those who live in Seattle.

And this is a city where over half the inhabitants are renters.

We know that $10 is reasonable and workable.

Just look at Auburn and Burien.

Their rental market hasn't come crashing down.

That extra $40 doesn't have nearly as much an impact on landlords as it would on renters.

And the same goes for notice fees.

I understand landlords are trying to run a business and maximize their profits, but it's not the council's job to help them squeeze every penny they can out of the people who live here.

It's your job to take care of and worry about the human beings who live in this city.

The people who live here are telling you that they need a $10 cap, and they need to be free from arbitrary fees.

If we learned anything from the pandemic, I should hope we learn that life can pull the rug out from underneath you at any time.

We need these protections.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Karen Taylor.

Karen, push star six.

There you go.

Hi.

My name is Karen Taylor.

I'm a renter, and I'm disabled.

And I spend three-fourths of my disability check on rent.

And recently our food stamps were cut dramatically because the pandemic is supposedly over.

And then my food delivery service for disabled folks had to stop providing groceries along with a few prepared meals.

So I no longer get fresh fruits and vegetables.

So I have to spend some money on food in a way that I didn't before.

So please, cap the late fees at $10.

The $50 is so much to me.

It's not just like a week of groceries.

It's money I'm desperate for to spend on whatever cheap groceries I can.

So please cap them at $10.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jacob Brululo.

Jacob, star six.

There you go.

Hello, my name is Jacob.

I live in district two.

I spent two and a half months this winter homeless because of late fees on rent.

Please keep it down to $10 a month.

That's a lot of money.

Also, the facility that's built at 128th and Aurora needs Seattle City Light to come hook up electricity so that it can open.

There's like 40 units in there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Quill Afretis.

Hello, my name is Quill Freitas.

I'm a PCC worker and UFCW 3000 member and renter in D1.

Council members need to vote yes to cap late fees at $10 a month.

Renters and union members won't forget how you vote today.

As grocery workers, we haven't forgotten that the majority of this council voted to cut our pay by $4 an hour when you were repealed hazard pay.

And only council members to want fought for us repeatedly.

So on Sunday, Council Member Strauss spoke at our union's rally.

We confronted him afterwards and he ran away.

And I want him to know that we're not going to stand idly by and let you ride our coattails to an election after betraying us.

And finally, PCC workers make minimum wage.

We're fighting for a $25 an hour living wage, cost of living adjustments, full staffing, and a single wage scale across PCC stores.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Amy Kangas.

Hello, my name is Amy Kangas and I'm a social worker at the Housing Justice Project.

I'm calling in today to ask for the council to pass the late fee cap and to reverse the amendment that raised the cap to 1.5% or $50.

A $10 late fee cap has already been successfully implemented in other cities like Auburn and Berrien.

Seattle renters deserve the same protection.

I have seen many rental ledgers with shockingly high late fees, up to hundreds of dollars each month.

This perpetuates a cycle of debt that can be extremely difficult for tenants to get out of.

Late fees are not necessary as an incentive to encourage people to pay their rent.

The threat of eviction and homelessness is more than enough incentive.

Please stand up for renters today and pass the late fee cap at $10 per month.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Joanna Shuttler.

This is Joanna Shuttler.

I am a lifetime Seattle resident.

Usually I'm on the side of everybody who's in the room for the most part, but this time I'm calling as a property manager and most of my owners are small owners.

I have one who has cancer.

I have one who is very elderly.

A lot of times that is their only income.

So it's really challenging to hear people talk about the bad landlords when they can barely take care of themselves, much less than they need to have a property manager.

So our time is valuable.

All of our time is valuable.

And we keep forgetting about the time it takes for dealing with a late person.

So maybe have a program where there's late fees that people can be paid the late fees to give to the landlord or or get a nonprofit for that.

But it does take time managing all of these things.

Also, the state cap is at 10%.

So that person that all those agencies, there's your 10% and you should check into that.

But it takes time and people forget about that and they're not all well.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tanya Moore.

Go ahead, Tonya.

Hi, my name is Tonya Moore.

I am the co-executive director of the Seattle and I'm calling to demand and graciously urge that the limit on for $10 on late fees be put back and voted on in this amendment as well as focusing on stopping arbitrary late fees our other fees, notice delivery fees for tenants.

We appreciate the support that we've been given in other times.

And for those renters in Seattle who are currently living and paying more than 30% of their income for rent, anything above $10 is detrimental to their existence and their ability to live a flourishing and healthy life in Seattle.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Devin Glazer.

Hi, council members.

Hi, council members.

My name is Devin Glazer.

I'm an attorney with the Tenant Law Center.

I wanted to encourage you to pass the amendment limiting late fees to $10.

And then really want to speak to just how powerful this legislation is for tenants.

I think a flat $10 cap on late fees is both pragmatic and progressive.

But to be clear, and not to contradict other people here, there is no state cap.

Landlords can charge any amount to tenants right now.

And so I've seen some very unimaginable fees being charged to tenants because there's no protection in state law.

Beyond that, I also really want to thank you for banning notice delivery fees.

Again, there is no protection in state law.

So landlords are currently able to print out a piece of paper, put it on a tenant's door, and then charge them any amount for that privilege.

This is abusive behavior.

but the Residential Vendor Act is not covered by the Consumer Protection Act, so we see some really bad behaviors and don't get away with it.

We need you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Cheryl Anderson.

Hello, my name is Cheryl Anderson, Landlord in King County.

definitely in the minority here, definitely not a wealthy landlord, just trying to struggle paying all the renter's payments plus my own.

And I feel we've forgotten what a late payment means.

It's an incentive for renters to pay the rent on time.

And I'd rather get rent on time and never have to collect a late fee.

By having such a low late fee, it's encouraging renters to not pay their rent at all, I feel like.

And landlords still have to make their mortgage payment, the tax payment, property taxes, insurance rates, all utilities, all the bills every month on time where they face horrendous fees.

leans and possible foreclosure.

I feel that a minimal late fee is not a good way to go about providing low-income housing or solve the homeless situation.

The problems are way bigger than penalizing the small-time landlords, actually all landlords.

And there's assistance out there for rich to get money.

I'd like to see if you guys are going to cap the late fee at $10 for renters, can you go to mortgage companies and please cap our late fee at $10 instead of $100 you have to pay.

And also the concern of 10 to 40, where's the rent payment getting paid for?

Landlords or people too, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shannon Newsome.

Shannon, star six.

I see her.

I see her tile up there.

Hello?

Yeah, there you go, Shannon.

Oh, try again.

Star six.

There you go.

I am unmuted.

Okay.

Yes.

Hi, Shannon.

Shannon Newsome, I'm a renter, currently in low income.

I support keeping the late fees at $10 and the arguments other people presented make sense to me.

I don't need to repeat them.

Our next speaker is Gwyneth Hamar.

Gwyneth, star six, there you go.

I'm not calling in to demand anything actually.

It's simply not true or logical that renters are poor and property owners are rich, that renters are good and property owners are evil.

And that narrative is, a setup for our entire city of a huge population of people who support the city deeply.

And we're a family with small children who are also living paycheck to paycheck and have a single property that we rent.

And I'm one of hundreds of like-minded property owners who have never evicted a renter over a late fee and have never evicted anyone at all.

So I urge the council to make a necessary distinction between families who own a single property and simply use the rent to pay the mortgage.

The late fee isn't the least to prompt conversation.

We never actually charge it.

It's a gross misrepresentation that all property owners are horrible people.

We are, among many others, waived and reduced rents during COVID and haven't increased them since.

I respond to tenants.

I give them what they need.

And what this prompts us to do, it's so demoralizing that we can sell our places to developers who will tear it down and build $2 million houses, but none of us can.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nancy Glazer.

Yes, hello.

My name is Nancy Glazer.

I have the good fortune of being a homeowner in the city of Seattle in district two.

And as this discussion has come before the council, I decided to look at my mortgage statement to try to figure out what kind of late fees I would have to pay if I don't pay my mortgage.

And in fact, I don't get any late fees.

There's a 15 day grace period, which I think all people have.

And the fee that I would have to pay is only $39, it's a one-time fee.

And we are so privileged as homeowners to be able to be buying our homes in this city as opposed to renting.

Some friends are moving here that are gonna rent in my neighborhood a home less than mine for twice as much as I pay in my mortgage.

So I urge you all council members who probably all are buying your homes if you don't own them already, look at your bank statements You have a 15 day grace period.

You probably have a late fee less than $50 and limit the fee to $10.

Thank you.

Bye.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jake Thonis.

Hello, council members.

My name is Jake Thonis and I've been a Seattle renter for over 20 years now.

I'm here to support the amendment to cap fees at $10 a month as originally planned and to ban notice fees.

Over the last year, I've received two $75 notice fees stated for preparing and giving notice that the plans for my balcony needed to go despite my lease allowing them.

$75 for printing a piece of paper and taking it to my door twice, despite contradicting my lease, despite charging monthly rent to cover administration of the property.

Being a landlord is a privilege, not a human right, like housing.

These notice fees are predatory fees that landlords simply charge because they can, and today's market appears to be amplified rather than correcting for them.

For those living paycheck to paycheck, this could be a death blow, possibly skipping two weeks' worth of groceries or rationing vital medications to be able to pay.

Landlords abusing their power.

Thank you.

Council President, that was the end of the remote list, but it's my understanding we have two more speakers in chambers that have signed up to speak.

Great.

Let's go ahead and wrap it up with our last two speakers in chambers.

Last two speakers, Angelique Wilson, followed by Anthony.

They are coming to the podium.

My name is Angelique Wilson.

I am a new resident here in Seattle, come from the East Coast homelessness.

I've come to a place to where I have stability.

I have a good source of resources that I can utilize.

mentally, physically, and spiritually.

I have a puppy.

I am so excited, you know, with my life right now today at 55 years old, and with the rent situation that they have going, I really feel that it's important if you want to continue with the $10 something that's tangible for people like me so that we do not have to feel discouraged knowing that from one minute to the next that there's going to be some inconsistency.

I've spoken with some of the homeless people and asked them why aren't they inside after I've come all of this long way and how I've become

Anthony.

OK, that's the end of the in-person public comment, Council President.

That's it.

Oh, OK.

I thought Anthony was going to speak.

All right.

OK, folks, it is.

Three thirty seven and we've just finished public comment and I'm going to close public comment and we will move on into our agenda.

Thank you, all of you who called in and those of you who came into chambers to voice your concerns and your opinions.

Thank you very much.

So with that, moving on, I'm going to go to the let's see.

There's no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted, not hearing or seeing an objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

Moving on, if there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted, not seeing or hearing an objection.

Today's agenda is adopted.

Now we are going to move to the section of our agenda to the adoption of the consent calendar.

The consent calendar includes the minutes from April 11th.

Council Bill payroll bill Council Bill one two zero five four five.

We also have.

from Council Member Nelson's committee, the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee, 10 appointments to the Seattle Film Commission.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson, for guiding us through that and hearing and learning about each appointee.

And from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, Council Member Herboldt, has three appointments to the Community Police Commission.

So with that being said, are there any items that any council member would like to have removed from the consent calendar?

All right, not seeing or hearing that any council member would like an item removed.

I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

The consent calendar, it's been moved and seconded, and the consent calendar is adopted.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar is adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

Moving to committee reports.

Today we have three.

And the first one is the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

And Madam Clerk, can you please read item one into the record?

The report of the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

Agenda item one.

Appointment 02496. Appointment of Tanya Kim as Director of Human Services Department for a term to March 1st, 2027. The committee recommends that City Council confirm the appointment.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Let's see here.

So this is a really exciting day and I'm happy to share with my council colleagues that the Public Safety and Human Services Committee members unanimously voted to recommend the appointment of Sonia Kim, current acting director of the Human Services Department, a permanent position on April 11th.

and I hope the rest of the Council will join us.

This is a really important appointment.

The Human Services Department, which has been without a permanent director since before the pandemic, is one of the largest contributors to Seattle's safety net.

Trustees, the Human Services Department's 400 employees invest hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to more than 200 community-based organizations and programs that support strong and healthy communities, promote innovation, and advance racial equity.

Luckily, Acting Director Kim is well familiar with the challenges and has already led the department through some of the most difficult difficult phase of the pandemic and our city.

She has worked for the Human Services Department since 2010 and has been serving as Acting Director since September of 2021. I have found Acting Director Kim to be a thoughtful and responsive partner, and I was pleased that she was willing to step up her commitment when asked to serve in the permanent role.

Clearly, PST's partners feel the same.

During public testimony, we heard a variety of very positive descriptors of Acting Director Kim's work so far.

Here are a few of them.

She has built stronger systems at the Human Services Department.

She helps organizations navigate those systems.

She has been referred to as a true ally, a thoughtful partner, it's been said that she truly respects community based partners, and that she's ready to roll up her sleeves.

She's a good communicator during times of crisis.

Director Kim leads with integrity.

She creates spaces to have honest and sometimes difficult conversations.

And her commitment to racial justice was extolled by many.

I really appreciate her willingness to continue leading as a confirmed director, of course, dependent on the vote of this council today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Colleagues, I'm gonna open the floor if any of our colleagues have any remarks that they would like to make in regards to Tanya Kim is the new, hopefully the new director of HSD, Human Services Department, I'm sorry.

Is there any comments from the floor?

All right, not seeing any, I'm gonna let Council Member Herbold, Council Member, did you wanna hold?

Oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Lewis, I did not see you.

Go ahead, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council President.

Really excited today to consider Director Kim's final confirmation.

It's been really great to work with Director Kim on a lot of the initiatives we've been focusing on around homelessness and our partnership with the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

I've really appreciated the team that Director Kim has built around her and really look forward to having the stability of having a permanent director.

I think Council Member Herbold undersold it a little bit about not having a permanent director before the pandemic.

I think it was for several years before the pandemic that there hasn't been a permanent council appointed director at this department.

So this stability is very, very important and we are very fortunate to have a great nominee to fill this position and very excited to vote to confirm Director Kim this afternoon.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

I just want to add a huge thank you to Council Member Herboldt and Council Member Lewis who both serve on the Regional Housing Authority and our big move when we were here to move a lot of staff from HSD over to the King County Regional Housing Authority.

It was no easy task.

Council Member Herboldt and Council Member Lewis have been a part of that and trying to set up all of these organizations and all of the issues that regard homelessness that we have been dealing with.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis and Council Member Herbold for that.

And I see Council Member Esqueda has her hand up.

Thank you, Madam President.

Let me try that again.

Thank you, Madam President.

Better?

Okay.

I want to thank also Chair Herbold for her leadership in the committee and the conversation that we had with Director Kim.

Very excited to continue to work with you and all the partnership that we've had on child care, child care access over the last few years.

So thank you and to your team.

I did want to just bring up something that's timely.

I was having some conversations with folks in the Latino community, specifically after being at El Centro de la Raza this morning, celebrating the working families tax rebate, given that it's tax day and get the word out to more working families to get their taxes in, but also to make sure that they are signing up for the working family tax rebate.

And at El Centro, a handful of community members told me that they continue to be concerned about the Latino community and not being sort of among the list of various race and ethnic minorities who are being able to have access to services early.

And given that HSD, the Human Services Department, has such a direct impact on working with our communities of color, I wanted to just put that on your radar as you take the helm in a permanent way to think about everything that we can do to recognize the undercount that's happened especially for our communities of color across Seattle and to continue to work with you as we seek to get more funds directly out the door to BIPOC communities and lifting up the the comments from the Latino community.

I think you are in a great position to be able to continue the strong commitment to community led programming.

And in every aspect, make sure that we are looking at the demographics of who served and who should be served in the programming through HSD.

So congratulations.

And thank you.

And thanks for letting me put that on your radar.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

I am going to let the sponsor have some closing remarks before we go to a vote.

And then after the vote, we will hear from, hopefully hear from our newly director, Kim.

Councilor Herbold, do you want to add anything else before we go to a vote?

Sure, I'll add a few remarks.

I always forget to leave a little something for the end.

Thank you, Madam President.

Sharing some remarks that we've received in public comment.

Kim is a person that leads by example, is always willing to partner to find creative ways to get things done.

Tanya has incredible integrity and a deep understanding of what needs to be addressed.

Tanya is also willing and able to make tough decisions driven by strong values and deep understanding of root causes.

Tanya is a lifelong learner and dedicated parent and trusted advocate for many she has touched throughout her career.

The city of Seattle would be in good hands with Tanya Kim as the Director of the Human Services Department.

And as I mentioned in the committee discussion, I just want to share with the rest of.

my colleagues here today, that I personally have really enjoyed working with Director Kim.

She's one of those people that I can say that in working with her, I've learned a great deal about myself, about my shortcomings, about my strengths, and about how to be a better leader because of how she fosters leadership in others.

how she's a very calm person in the midst of often a lot of crisis around us.

And just really have, it's just been such a privilege to learn from her.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Herbold.

Ms. Kim, I hope you realize that Councilor Herbold has never said that about herself.

So that's quite telling, a wonderful testament to your integrity and your leadership.

So let me do this now.

I don't see anyone else with their hands up.

So with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Great.

The appointment is confirmed.

Congratulations.

Now, Director Kim, you are now recognized to provide comments to the council and members of the public.

Go ahead, Director Kim.

Well, this is, it's about me, but very difficult to speak after these wonderful speakers.

And so, You know, I appreciate the opportunity to express truly my heartfelt gratitude to some really important, incredible people.

And first, I must thank Mayor Harrell and Deputy Mayor Washington for their nomination and support.

Of course, Council President Juarez and Public Safety and Human Services Committee Chair Herbold, The staff team who supported the process behind the scenes, and that includes folks from HSD, council, the legislative team, and the mayor's office.

And to the loves of my life, my husband, Alan Lee, Maria Sina Manuel, and Tamar Sina Manuel, who are my children, who went to Jose Marti, a centro de raza for preschool.

You know, I was reflecting when I was listening.

I hear you, I hear the feedback, and that's the kind of partnership that we're gonna continue to maintain.

It's been the way that I roll and it will continue to be.

So thank you so much, Council Member, for the feedback.

I have a deep appreciation for the human services community in general.

It's because of the community that I love so much that I serve.

It's an honor to serve, but it's a call of duty for me.

This does include our HSD employees, the provider community, those that we contract with formally, and those who we will contract with in the future, as well as partners across the region.

There are many opportunities.

I know we talk about the challenges, but there are many opportunities in the space of human services.

And I do look forward to working with all of you here at Council, as well as across our region.

And I expect people will hold me accountable to that.

And so lastly, I just again, I know you have a full agenda, so I just want to say Again, thank you for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I started, as you know, as a grants and contract specialist here at the Human Services Department about 13 years ago, and it's a privilege for me to probably end my career as director here at the department.

And so that's why it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Director Kim.

And I have enjoyed working with you when you were the contracts person.

So thank you very much.

All right.

So let's see.

I have to say some special words here.

No, I don't.

I think that's it.

Once we have the confirmation and once we vote and once we let our guests speak, I think we move on.

Correct, Madam Clerk?

Correct.

All right, I don't need to fix my name or sign anything.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

And congratulations, Director Kim.

All right.

Moving on to item number two, which comes out of the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights and Cultural Committee, that would be Casper Morales.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item two into the record?

Report of the neighborhoods education civil rights and culture committee agenda item to council bill 120525 establishing the race and social justice initiative as city policy, establishing governance of the race and social justice initiative within the office for civil rights, authorizing the office for civil rights to lead the race and social justice initiative and adding new sections 3.14 point 941 through 3.14 945 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

The committee recommends that City Council pass as amended the Council Bill.

Thank you.

Council Member Ellis.

Thank you very much, Council President.

This bill codifies our race and social justice initiative, which began as an executive initiative about 20 years ago.

It's been a long time.

Just for the viewing public, this legislation will do four main things.

It permanently codifies the race and social justice initiative as law.

It permanently houses the race and social justice work and oversight within the Office of Civil Rights.

It authorizes the Office of Civil Rights to create an accountability structure with metrics for city departments to engage in ending racial disparity in the city via the permanent division of a race and social justice division.

And it details how the Department of Human Resources will begin updating our city's system of civil service and exempt positions.

I will say as a former Seattle Human Rights Commissioner, I was involved in the department's assessment of its own roles and responsibilities and the feedback that we got at that time, both internal and external, throughout the process really sort of highlighted the role that the Office of Civil Rights plays in providing equal rights enforcement and leadership for the city.

That was 2018 so it's been a while.

In the intervening years, we have seen, unfortunately, a rise in hate against various communities.

We've seen widening housing inequality and places that continue to devalue workers.

So when Seattleites are faced with discrimination, the Office of Civil Rights is the place they turn for investigation and enforcement of our laws.

And it is also the leading facilitator of our change team network.

Our change teams are a group of city staff who are dedicated to equity within our city departments and ensuring that we are achieving the kind of outcomes that we seek.

So today we are celebrating the pioneers who kind of blazed that trail for us.

And almost 20 years later are bestowing our recognition by making this initiative city law.

So we are acknowledging our past practices as a city that were racist or could have had harmful effects on our communities.

And we're establishing policies to begin to repair the harm.

I want to thank several folks who worked to make this happen.

Asha Venkatraman on our own central staff has been working with our office very closely.

She's been a stalwart RSJI supporter and a band leader for us in this work.

I want to thank her personally for her dedication and commitment to this city.

I do want to also thank Mayor Harrell and his administration for their dedication and completion of his legacy from City Council.

I want to thank especially Dominic Stevens in his office, Director Wheeler-Smith, Fahima Mohammed, Erika Pablo, Cadman Cahill, and Davida Ingram.

who helped us along the way.

And of course, I wanna thank my own staff, Alexis Turla and Imani Carey for everything they've done to bring this bill to fruition.

Colleagues, I hope you will join me in making this initiative city policy.

Sorry about that, I was just taking notes.

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

Are there any comments from the floor regarding this ordinance?

Council Member Lewis, go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

And I know that this is probably a feeling that Council Member Morales has too as a former Seattle Human Rights Commissioner like myself.

But it's good to see this long talked about policy finally come to fruition and finally be in front of us for final passage and a vote.

This is a good idea that is finally having its day, and it's good to be here to be able to move on to other unfinished work, but having this in front of us and having this completed is a really big milestone that that has touched the hands of many civil servants in the city of Seattle and community activists.

And it's good to finally be able to have it be codified and part of our practice and looking forward to supporting this today.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Are there any other comments before we go to a vote?

All right, I do not see or hear any hands or voices from my colleagues.

So with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Endanza.

Aye.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Congratulations, Council Member Morales.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Excuse me.

Let's move on in our agenda.

We have a matter from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, which is Council Member Sawant.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item number three into the record?

Report of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, agenda item three, Council Bill 120541, relating to residential tenancy, limiting the amount of fees charged for late payment of rent and for notices issued to tenants, and adding a new section 7.24.034 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

The committee recommends that City Council pass as amended the Council Bill.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant, you're the chair of this committee.

You are recognized.

Thank you, President Juarez.

Before I begin, I want to express solidarity from Workers Strike Back and my office to the City of Seattle public sector workers who are demanding cost of living wage increases and double overtime for hourly workers, among other demands, and with PCC workers who are fighting for increase in a living wage and for full staffing, among other demands.

This is the legislation to cap late fees that landlords can charge renters for overdue rent, which my office has brought forward alongside renters, rights activists, union members, the Stay Healthy Coalition, Workers Strike Back, and Socialist Alternative.

The bill also prohibits notice delivery fees.

Other than COVID emergency measures, there are currently no limits to the fees Seattle landlords can charge renters for overdue rent or other so-called junk fees.

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 the renter has to pay for the privilege of getting a notice that they have to pay a late fee.

Late fees can suck renters into a debt vortex, as has been noted by Edmund Witter of the Housing Justice Project, which provides free legal assistance to renters facing eviction in King County.

Renters do not get paid late fees when their landlords delay fixing broken appliances, heating, or mold infestation.

Yet renters are required by law to pay rent on time even when their landlord fails to complete repairs, which happens extremely frequently, especially to working class and poor renters.

Council members have received over 1,200 emails from Seattle renters urging them to support this bill without loopholes and weakening amendments, and 1,000 people have signed the petition.

As renters signed the petition, many chose to tell their personal late fee stories, which my office compiled and attached to this legislation and published on our blog.

The initial version of the legislation as it was proposed by my office would mandate a limit on late fees for overdue rent at no more than $10 in a month.

The nearby cities of Auburn and Burien have already passed such a law.

Extra charges like late fees are on top of the out of control rents that the majority of our city's renters struggle to pay.

At the April 7th meeting of the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee, Council Members Nelson, Lewis, and Juarez voted for an amendment to water down the renter protections in the bill by increasing the late fee cap to up to $50 for rent payment.

Because that amendment passed in committee, the current version of the bill caps late fees at $50.

As public comment speakers have noted, there is an amendment listed on today's agenda as proposed amendment A, co-sponsored by council members Morales, Mosqueda, and myself, that will restore the bill to its original version with a cap of $10 per month.

After my introductory remarks, I will move that amendment.

The late fee issue was also discussed by a landlord panel in council member Nelson's committee, during which was there was unfortunately a lot of misinformation that needs to be corrected for the record.

One speaker at that committee was landlord Marilyn Yim, who currently has two lawsuits against renters' rights laws against the city of Seattle.

One lawsuit is to block the first come first serve ordinance, and the other is to block the fair chance housing ordinance, which stops housing discrimination based on criminal histories being used as a proxy for discrimination on the basis of race.

Yim claimed that over half of Seattle landlords have a total family income of $75,000 or less on average, essentially claiming that Seattle landlords make less money than the overall average income in Seattle.

As evidence, they have repeatedly cited a 2018 study that surveyed over 4,000 landlords about their experiences.

This claim is totally false.

The question that the 2018 survey actually asked landlords was, quote, what is the average total household income for the tenants you rent to, end quote.

It is renters, not landlords, who make less than $75,000 income, according to that study.

It is renters, not landlords, who are struggling to make ends meet.

Ted Verdone from my office discovered the error and contacted the University of Washington researchers who conducted that 2018 study.

I appreciate Kyle Crowder at the UW for confirming that that statistic is about renters, not landlords, and I thank the City Auditor's Office for emailing the City Council about the error.

This error is not a side point.

The landlord lobby has quoted this one false statistic numerous times as the basis for concocting a story that landlords are struggling to pay their bills.

In fact, it is routine for the landlord lobby to play fast and loose with facts, including circulating even outright lies all the while accusing our office, renters, and renter advocacy organizations of not presenting sufficient statistical evidence for why we need legislation to protect renters.

One real estate company sent advice to their landlord clients about how to oppose today's bill, in which they said, quote, whichever sympathetic housing provider you need to stand by you for political cover, find them, end quote.

Landlords who opposed temporary eviction bans during the early days of the pandemic turned around and made record profits after claiming that eviction moratoriums would leave them on the hook for billions of dollars in losses.

Mid-America apartment communities, the largest multifamily housing owner in the US, doubled their profits in 2021 to $550 million at the height of pandemic-era eviction protections.

While many landlords do not charge punishing late fees, many do treat late fees and junk fees as yet another opportunity to exploit their renters.

As one landlord told community organizers from my office, at a neighborhood table my office held about the late fee legislation, quote, that's how I make my money, end quote.

We heard in public comment about a landlord sending a renter a notice asking for plants to be removed from the patio, despite the fact that plants on the patio were explicitly permitted on the lease, and then charging the renter $75 for the delivery of that notice, not for removing the plants for the notice.

That is the type of exploitation that this legislation will prohibit, and I urge council members to vote yes.

Council President Morris, should I move proposed amendment A now?

No, what I have to do is I have to open it up to the floor, then I thought Council Member Morales was moving the amendment.

Well, it's an amendment that's being moved jointly by Council Members Morales, Mosqueda, and I, and I don't care about the order of the amendment, if that's okay, when we're ready.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm just looking at the script.

So go ahead, Council Member Morales.

So I can open it up to the floor, and then, And if you want, I wanna see if there's any comments and then Council Member Sawant, if you wanna be the one to move it, so be it.

Are there any comments yet?

I will have a comment, but I'm gonna wait till after Council Member Sawant moves it.

Council Member Sawant, do you wanna go ahead and move it?

Sure.

I move proposed amendment A as listed on today's agenda.

Thank you.

Can I have a second?

Okay, and we have a second.

So now, okay, thank you Council Member Sawant and Morales and Mosqueda.

So we are going to open the floor on the amendment and I would like to comment and then I'm going to go first being a member.

President Juarez, shouldn't one of the sponsors, shouldn't the sponsors of the amendment first speak to the amendment?

Oh, I'm sorry.

You're right.

You're absolutely right.

And I'm glad you're enjoying my blanket.

Thank you.

You're right customer Morales, and then, and then I think that's all we got and then I will go after cancer.

Thank you.

That's okay.

Colleagues, I am proud to sponsor this amendment to return the cap back to the $10 per month, as was the original intent of the legislation.

Experts, advocates, and community members, I want to thank for all of your emails and comments.

expressing support for moving this back, and want to thank Council Member Salon and Mosqueda for co-sponsoring the amendment with me, as well as Devin Silvanella, my staff, and Asha Venkatraman for drafting the amendment.

Earlier, she's gone now, but earlier, Andra Kranzler was here talking about how when she was a landlord, she had grocery workers who paid their rent weekly, or some who would pay twice a month And it just made me recall, you know, days when I was waiting tables and had to cram all of my dollars into a cigar box and hope that at the end of the month, there was enough to pay rent.

So I do want to thank everybody who's been advocating for this change.

We know that capping late fees at $10 is the bare minimum we can do for renters.

Given the situation that folks are in, these are punitive charges very often for people who are already having a hard time with housing costs.

And charging $50 or up to $50 for someone who's struggling to pay rent doesn't serve renters and it doesn't serve landlords.

If somebody's having trouble paying rent on time, it's because their housing costs are too high, or maybe they didn't get enough hours at work last week, or maybe they've had a medical emergency.

It's not because they're trying to pull a fast one on their landlords, and it's certainly not something that they're doing knowing that eviction is hanging over their heads.

So adding a fee on top of someone's rent only makes the hole that they need to dig out of bigger, and it means that their rent will likely still not get paid on time.

The problem here is the commodification of someone else's housing.

Renters' wages, we know, are not keeping up with the cost of housing.

I think rent increased something like 20% over the last few years, but wages are not keeping pace and rent already exceeding half of income for many people.

So people are working to cover their housing costs to put food on the table to put clothes on their back or their children's.

And being late on rent shouldn't put people further in debt.

And it certainly shouldn't jeopardize their ability to remain housed.

And so I am asking for support colleagues to return the rent to what was originally intended in the legislation and cap it at $10 a month.

Thank you, Councilor Morales.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Councilor Morales.

So with that, I have some comments that I'd like to make.

President Juarez, we are all co-sponsors.

And so I would ask that you let me speak first as well before you speak.

OK, go ahead.

Thank you.

I'm happy to be co-sponsoring this amendment, which if passed, which I hope it will, will bring the legislation back to the original legislation from my office.

This, and as I mentioned, this would reverse the amendment that was passed at the April 7th meeting of the committee, which increased the $10 a month cap on late fees to $50 per rent payment.

Politicians who are looking for excuses not to stand up against corporate landlords and big business to win a measure of justice for ordinary people often talk about their love of data.

They will often reject progressive measures by claiming that workers have not presented sufficiently compelling statistical evidence.

What is stunning about the $50 cap that council members Nelson Lewis and what is voted for is that they presented no evidence whatsoever to justify increasing the late fee cap $50.

Poor and working class renters should not be nickel and dime for $40, which they desperately need in order to put food on the table.

Kate Rubin from BC Seattle and Violet Levitt from the Tenants Union gave examples at our committee discussion of people on fixed incomes for whom $40 is a significant part of their food budget.

For landlords, those $40 are insignificant.

According to the Seattle Times, the average net worth of those who own a home in the Seattle area, let alone multiple rental units, is over $987,000.

Millionaire landlords do not need 40 extra dollars out of renters' pockets.

The late fees are not needed to force renters to pay their rent on time.

Edmund Ritter from the Housing Justice Project explained during the committee discussion that now during the COVID emergency moratorium on late fees, in fact, 93% of renters pay their rent by the end of the month compared to actually 92% before the moratorium.

In other words, when late fees are prohibited, more not fewer renters are paying their rent.

In other words, what it shows is that late fees has nothing to do with whether renters pay on time.

Renters desire to stay housed and avoid evictions and a bad rental and credit score is what keeps them paying rent on time.

They have no choice but to pay rent.

And a $10 late fee cap has been tested and proven.

Burien and Auburn both cap late rent fees at $10 and in both cities renters have continued to pay their rent on time.

This is actual evidence that $10 does not actually mean that renters don't pay their rent.

on time.

Yes, other cities and states have higher, more exploitative late fee caps, but that's the question.

Will council members prioritize the profits of landlords disregarding the preponderance of data and the overwhelming testimony of their constituents or will they represent, you know, landlord greed or stand with tenants.

Any council member who claimed to represent labor should be voting in the interest of working class renters, not corporate landlords, and should be voting yes for this amendment.

Right after the April 7th committee in response to the mass email from my office informing the public of this issue, hundreds of renters emailed the council strongly urging council members to reverse the $50 cap and vote yes on the original legislation from my office.

I urge council members to vote yes on this amendment, which will bring in the question of all the evidence that we have provided.

The amendment that was passed in committee, in fact, replaced the $10 cap with a complicated formula that could result in late fees five times higher for renters already at risk of eviction and homelessness.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

OK, so with that, I think I'm free to speak now.

First of all, thank you, Councillor Swann, and for bringing this to our attention and having it in your committee.

Also, a big thank you to Councilor Nelson and Council Member Morales, who were in committee and discussed this.

We had a lot of information and briefing from SDCI central staff.

We heard from the advocates, the attorneys, and we also heard a lot from our public that came in for public comment.

I will not be voting for this amendment, and I will tell you why.

I'm going to uphold my vote that I did in committee.

and the integrity of my vote on what it was based on.

And it isn't just a stubbornness that I voted a particular way in committee, and I'm going to stick to that.

I'm always open to changing the vote if, indeed, I believe, based on what I hear and, of course, public comment, that there's a reason to.

And I don't see that today.

We have always agreed since day one that we need a cap on late fees.

And Council Member Sawant is correct that Auburn and Burien have imposed a $10 cap.

We also know that Redmond has a 1.5% and unincorporated King County has a 1.5%.

So the other issue was, and we all owe a big thank you to Council Member Sawant for this.

Council Member Sawant also agreed that we needed to eliminate junk fees.

No fees for preparation or delivery of the notice.

Council Member Sawant proposed and passed a substitute bill in her committee.

which was great, we did the work and thank you Council Member Sawant, so we cleaned that up, so we got rid of junk fees.

And then the question just came down to, okay, is it a $10 cap or what is that fee and what is the calculation and how do we get there?

So I went back because this issue has been around for a while and look back at the timeline of Council Bill 120541, that's what's in front of us.

And it actually started back in December of 2022 with SDCI, when Director Torkelson issued and submitted and gave to us a report on a slide for the Small Landlord Stakeholder Group.

And it was a huge PowerPoint that we went through and some of these issues were raised.

Then on January 4, as you all know, House Bill 1124, sponsored by Representative Peterson, introduced into the State House a cap on a $75 fee.

And it was an attempt to cap it.

And of course, that was happening in Olympia.

Then on January 12, we received a letter from the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition with over 30 signatories.

And we all know who those advocacy groups are.

They do good work, and we listen to them.

And I certainly, I'm sure like my colleagues did, read the letter and learned more about the cap on late fees and what they would like to see happen.

On January 20th, this is the first of three meetings in Council Member Sawant's Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

For discussion only, we discussed, again, the CAP.

The committee members, of course, are Council Member Sawant, myself, Council Member Nelson, Council Member Lewis, and Council Member Morales.

We also had two panelists from the Tenant Law Center, and of course, the group that you heard today and that we've heard many times, be Seattle.

On January 26th, we learned that Representative Peterson's bill passed out a committee with a seven to five vote for a $75 cap.

Now this was happening in Olympia.

So we were monitoring what was going on in Olympia and also what Council Member Sawant was doing in her committee.

On February 27th, again, we brought up the issue, and I think Council Member Herbold brought it up as well, about House Bill 1124. and its relationship to cap fees.

So we discussed that.

Then we learned on March 13th through OIR that House Bill 1124 died in the House's Rules Committee, which was unfortunate, even though some people wanted a lower cap than $75.

March 13, and thank you, Ted.

Ted sent all of us in committee of the Sustainability Renters and Rights Committee, details of Burien's $10 per month cap, Auburn's $10 per month cap, and then other cities as well.

On March 15, Council Member Nelson asked Council Member Sawant, and she did, thank you Council Member Sawant, to delay the vote for some other reasons, and Council Member Sawant agreed to do that, which gave us more time to look at the legislation and what was happening.

On March 16, Asha from Central Staff sent us a five-page memorandum, which I read, which outlines Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, the issues that were raised today.

Asha also authored a summary and fiscal note in which you are all familiar with, which we get when we get pieces of legislation, and then we have follow-up questions.

On March 16th, Council Member Nelson's staff sent to my office another email, which you all on committee got, talking not only about Auburn and Burien and Redmond and unincorporated King County, but other cities across the country and how they handle capping late fees.

So all of us got that information as well.

So then we moved to March 17th, which is the second of three meetings in Council Member Sawant's committee.

We had six panelists, including Edmund Winter, which Council Member Sawant had mentioned, He's a lawyer for the Housing Justice Project.

We had representatives for BC Seattle and the Tenants Union of Washington and three renters.

It was a great meeting and we learned a lot and we got to ask questions of Mr. Witter.

On March 22nd, which was a Wednesday, Councilor Nelson in her committee, the Economic Development Technology City Light Committee, whose members include, of course, Council Member Nelson, myself, Council Member Herbold, Council Member Strauss, and Council Member Sawant.

Again, we had another discussion and information, and we heard from pretty much the same groups, the tenant groups, the advocacy groups, the lawyers, legal services, about cap fees.

And we also heard from, for the first time, at the table as guests from small landlords.

And we had an opportunity to ask questions of them as well.

The five panelists were representing the small Seattle landlords, and they included an 11-page PowerPoint that was presented, which we had an opportunity to look at.

On April 7th, which was a Friday, this was our last meeting, three of three meetings in Council Member Sawant's committee.

Again, we had five panelists, again, including Edmund Witter, the lawyer for the Housing Justice Project, representatives from BC Seattle, the Tenants Union of Washington State, one renter and one landlord.

And that was, again, very informative, very cumulative, and again, went to the same issue again about the cap on fees.

On that same day in committee, Council Member Nelson introduced an amendment which modified Council Bill 120541 to not a $10 cap, but the lesser of 1.5% or $50, one or the other.

That amendment passed three to two.

And with that, the whole committee, all five passed the amended bill, 120541, it passed committee five to zero.

So the committee, the ordinance or the law that's in front of us now was passed out of committee as amended five to zero.

And then on Friday, one last time from central staff, we got a second version two of the summary fiscal note.

So all of this to say is that we have had and this marks fifth, we've had four committee meetings and now full council.

So five meetings on this issue in which everybody agrees that we need a cap.

And the question was, what should that cap be?

Committee decided it was 1.5% or $50, which is ever is more.

And as we know, it moved forward and Council Member Morales, Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Sawant are bringing back an amendment that failed in committee.

Now I'm not one to like it when something dies in committee to bring it back up to full council, because I feel like we go back and we take away from the committee's work.

And like I said, we've been discussing this since at least mid-December.

So I believe through extensive committee and city council meetings, now five, we examined thoroughly the questions about what this issue means and where our vote is.

And again, I'm not a fan of reviving an amendment that died in committee, but I certainly believe that you should have the opportunity to bring it again to full council for those that maybe aren't on our committee that need to hear some more information.

But I prefer to give deference to the committee chair and the will of the committee and the hours spent discussing that matter.

And so that reason and the only reason that I'm going to stay with my vote is for those is because I believe in the committee and the process.

Um, I feel it's unfortunate, certainly through committee rules that people feel compelled to impugn the motives and personal attacks of any council member.

Um, I think it's unfortunate that we're going back to going to people's homes and bullying people.

Again, I think that ignores the humanity and the dignity of people, democracy and why we're here and we take tough votes, but that doesn't mean we're bad people.

I don't buy into the narrative that all landlords are bad, or all landlords are good, or all renters are good, or all renters are bad.

I see this as a strong piece of legislation that was amended by the committee and now is before us.

I do not have any personal attacks.

I'm not calling anyone names, whether they're a progressive, a liberal, a Democrat, a Republican, doesn't matter to me.

So that is where I stand.

So I am going to stick with my original vote and I will not be voting yes on this amendment.

So with that, I'm going to open the floor.

I'm going to start with Council Member Herbold and then Council Member Nelson.

Can't hear you.

Yes, that's what the finger means.

I'm rushing to find the button.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate, as a non-committee member, the chance to discuss this in full council.

I understand Council President Juarez's respect for the work that's done in committee, but non-committee members are I would not want to think of myself as somebody whose job at full council is to just rubber stamp what comes out of a committee.

So I really actually appreciate the opportunity to weigh in as a non-committee member.

I just want to say that I believe that the reason to reverse this amendment has been very well established by exactly the stories that we've heard from renters since the committee vote, supporters of the amendment, seem to be suggesting that the $40 difference between a $50 cap and a $10 cap on late fees is insignificant.

But what I've been hearing is that the families who need the cap the most, that the $40 difference is the difference between paying the penalty and some really difficult decisions.

As we heard during public comment, $40 can decide whether your internet stays on.

$40 can decide whether or not your child can take school field trips.

$40 can decide the quality of the groceries that you're able to bring home.

$40 can decide whether or not you take the bus or you have to budget time to walk to your destination.

And $40 can decide whether or not you can get a prescription filled.

So I really feel like it is precisely the stories that we've heard after the committee discussion that have best made the arguments for why we do need to reconsider this.

consider the impacts of $40 in a month on a struggling household's budget.

So thank you very much.

I intend to vote in favor of the amendment.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

If I could just add, of course, I am not an advocate of rubber stamping either.

All right.

Somebody else had their hand up.

Where are they?

Council Member Nelson, is your hand still up?

Yes.

Okay.

Oh, there you are.

Go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much Council President for that history, I didn't know much of that.

So, basically Councilmember Morales said in the April 7 meeting, quote, I don't think that providing an opportunity for for higher fees is something.

Hold on a second.

I don't think that providing an opportunity for higher fees for something like this is really going to solve a problem for landlords, end quote.

And to me, the problem is that the base legislation was developed with virtually no input from housing providers in Seattle.

And I'm talking about large landlords, mom and pop landlords, private landlords, and nonprofit affordable housing providers.

That said, there were a lot of smears and opining about the motives of landlords, and so if council members had reached out to them or listened to them as they were speaking in my committee.

They know that landlords don't charge fees to make money because they charge rent to make money.

And they do that so that they can generate an income, yes, that is true, and also pay their own bills and mortgages.

And preserving a reasonable fee is a legitimate tool to encourage people to pay rent on time as they promised to do in the lease that they signed.

So my amendment, which prevailed in committee, was a reasonable compromise that would prevent landlords from charging exorbitant unregulated rents, I mean, unregulated fees, while allowing a sliding scale fee that better reflects a tenant's ability to keep their promise and pay their rent on time.

So just to remind people, here are the real numbers.

My proposal would cost a tenant paying $1,787 a month for rent, $26.80.

And that is the median rent that is provided by ACS and what the housing levy presentation was based on when we first heard about it a couple weeks ago.

So that is a legitimate data source.

And using COSTAR's year-to-date data, the average rent for a one-bedroom is $1,956.

So the fee would be $29.34.

So regardless of what data set that you use, a tenant would have to be paying more than $3,300 a month to almost hit the $50 amount they'd actually pay, $49.50.

So all of that is to basically sort of get our minds around what this will really cost people at different price points in our market.

The bigger issue is that uninformed policy results in unintended consequences.

And this policy will have negative consequences for both housing providers and tenants.

Because it's really true that landlords, I am, let me just rephrase this, I'm trying to avoid unintended consequences, and I'm trying to avoid the likelihood that the vast majority of tenants who do pay their rent on time will bear the burden of the of the action of the few who don't.

And so, and how that works is simply because landlords will spread the risk.

to all tenants and likely have to, it's possible that they could just raise the rent, I mean, charge the fee on the day six as a matter of course, sort of automatically if this were to pass.

So council members who listen to the small landlords heard that most landlords do not charge a fee.

Why?

Because they want to retain their tenants and work with them if they're having a bad month.

And like I said, most of them don't charge a fee, but this could encourage them to just go ahead and just sort of have a blanket policy of doing so when the rent is late.

So another unintended consequence could be that capping the fees so low could just give housing providers another reason to just leave the market altogether.

I mean, because we are adding another regulation on top of many others that could just make their final decision to leave the market, which would leave us with less housing in all.

So we do have to recognize that we do, when we pass regulations, we are contributing to the market reality that we could be driving up rents or decreasing the supply overall.

Anyway, so bottom line is that is that we're really just splitting hairs here, people, because in this legislation, we're, we're prohibiting all notification fees.

And if anyone reads that had read the document that I sent out, that basically lays out all the rules for notifying tenants of any changes to their lease.

they would have seen that they can't just be emailed.

They have to be either hand delivered or mailed and there's a whole process for that.

That is why people use property managers and we've left that issue aside in this legislation.

So that's not even before us.

Establishing a cap is itself a major policy shift.

So I just think that the sponsors of this amendment and the original legislation should take that win and I will be opposing this amendment.

Jean Gatza, COB Moderator she-her, POV, she-her, OSBT

Okay, thank you very much, Madam President.

I want to thank you for your comments about really wanting to allow for folks who are not part of the committee to have a chance to weigh in on the legislation for final passage.

I think of this as similar to the Senate or the House floor where we finally get to debate or have a discussion around items that maybe weren't in the committees that we have a chance to sit on.

So I appreciate the opportunity for the discussion today and Given that I was not a member of the committee, I think this is a good, robust conversation we're having today.

And I want to thank Council Member Morales as the prime sponsor of the amendment in front of us for having the opportunity to have this discussion to reinstate the original legislation, which I am supportive of.

I appreciate the opportunity to co-sponsor the amendment with you and to make sure that we in Seattle are in line with what the cities of Auburn and Burien have already done.

which is capping late fees at $10 a month.

I want to lift up some of the data that council members have already spoken to and to really I think reiterate something that Council Member Herbold spoke to as well, which is we know from the data and studies that renters consistently prioritize paying their rent over all other bills.

Council Member Herbold mentioned paying rent before medicine, for example, because the prospect of losing your home and losing your housing, especially even as an individual or even worse as a family and going through the eviction process is terrifying.

The prospect as well though of having unpaid rent be something that leads you to mounting debt will cause people to literally fall deeper into debt or even worse into homelessness as we heard from some of the folks who testified today.

I know that folks often we think about fees as being a deterrent to paying something late, but when we cap this at $10 as the maximum amount that can be added, I think that helps prevent the unintended consequences that we all want.

We don't want these debts to escalate for people's housing situation to be exacerbated and for more people to find themselves in housing instability or experiencing homelessness.

As late fees accumulate as debt increases, it very much harms our entire community people's ability to get their credit scores up and makes it harder for them to find rental units in the future.

So I appreciate that this is something that we've already seen our sister cities in Auburn and Burien take up and the passage of $10.

A capping capping the late fee to $10 is something that they have supported and I too will be supportive of this amendment in front of us.

Thanks so much, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilor Mosqueda.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much Council President Juarez and you know it's You know, it's not great to be in a position to be reevaluating this issue post-committee.

These are tough decisions that we've been facing.

I appreciate Council President's remarks earlier about never being in a position, and I don't remember the exact phrasing, but I think too stubborn to consider changing your vote.

And after voting for this in committee, and I still think that many of the reasons I put forward were sound to consider the 1.5% cap, and we do have a number of jurisdictions in King County that are pursuing that as a path.

There was a significant amount of pushback from people in my life who I really care a lot about that did lead me to a reevaluation to at least consider some additional arguments and seek out some counsel from people who are in this world who might have some insight that wasn't within the four corners of our counsel process.

And one conversation I had with my friends Ryan was board member of future wise and someone who has done a lot of work in the world of housing homelessness and land use.

Really did stick to me in terms of the core of what we're really trying to focus on and what we're really trying to do.

which was that the cost to landlords don't scale with the cost of the unit in this realm of the administrative backend types of fees that we are considering here today.

One of my big motivating areas that led me to support Council Member Nelson's amendment, and I do think that depending on perspective, there are still fair considerations that could lead to the conclusion that the ability of a tenant to pay and that the value of the unit and the means of the tenant are dispositive toward going towards a percentage rather than a set amount and wanting to have a certain amount of progressivism built into the policy where a tenant who is in a position to pay more and is declining to pay rent is on the hook for a higher fee than someone who is paying less.

I still think that that can be a reasonable perspective for someone who is seeking to make a decision on this amendment.

But I have from consulting people in the industry come down on the conclusion that a set rate given that the costs are not scalable, even though the burden that an individual tenant feels may be scalable, is the better policy to pursue when we are looking at how to set caps for rental late fee penalties.

And for that reason, I do reconsider and will support Council Member Morales' amendment today and follow the lead of Burien and Auburn and increasingly Sea-Tac, which looks to be adopting this amount as well.

From consulting people in those jurisdictions over the course of the past week and a half, I wasn't sensing any remorse from colleagues who serve on those city councils for setting the rate where they set it.

And for those reasons, I appreciate the opportunity to reconsider.

I do certainly think as people in leadership positions, we can never be too proud to reconsider some of the underlying assumptions that led us to a particular conclusion.

But in this case, from consulting with a broader array of community, I do think that the set cost rather than the percentage is a reasonable policy.

Thank you.

And I should add that CTEK did not pass the cap, by the way.

So I a customer.

So what?

Even though Councilman Morales is the prime sponsor, I'm kind of holding that spot for her to kind of close this out.

So I'm guessing you are going to speak again to the amendment or you want to be the one to close out that you and Councilman Morales may have decided on because you've already spoken to the amendment.

I do want to speak.

I don't care when I speak, whether I'm the last one or not.

So if you want me to speak now, I'll speak now.

Councilor Morales, let me just say this.

Councilor Sawant, you did already speak to the amendment.

So I understand that.

So you've had an opportunity.

So what I'm asking is- I do want to respond to the points that have come up.

I think that's my right.

This is a public discussion and renters deserve to hear arguments.

I don't think you can just limit the discussion that way.

Okay, I'm not trying to limit and no one is challenging your right.

I'm just trying to be deferential to the prime sponsor.

And also just to clarify, there are no prime sponsors.

There are co-sponsors to the amendment and I don't mind if you want to let Council Member Morales speak later, but this is just, you know, because council members are being forced to vote yes on this amendment, it's suddenly a prime sponsor.

There is no prime sponsor.

I announced the day after the committee, the morning after the committee, I sent a public email to my constituents that made it very clear I would be bringing the amendment from my office.

I am really glad that council members are supporting it, but this narrative of prime sponsor is inaccurate.

But having said that, I don't care who speaks last.

I just want to be able to speak to answer to the arguments that have been made.

Okay, well, I meant no ill will or infer any ill intent on my behalf.

So with that, go ahead Council Member Sawant.

I'm glad to hear support from council members for this amendment.

I think the credit to do if this vote, if this amendment is actually going to pass as it has been indicated, the credit to this goes to renters rights activists, renters themselves and our office.

and all the organizations like Socialist Alternative and Workers Strike Back who have been speaking up so prominently.

As I clarified, it's not about prime sponsors, it's about who's really fighting for this and when renters fight and workers fight and force politicians to vote yes on progressive amendments or progressive legislation, then the battle starts for the narrative.

Then it's a matter of co-opting it and saying, invisiblizing the office that fought the hardest for this, brought this up in the first place, and then sort of conveying the message to renters and ordinary people that somehow this was happening by the beneficence of certain politicians.

Council Member Nelson said that there was no input from landlords into drafting this legislation.

There are times when the interests of renters are in conflict with the profits of their landlords.

However, my office provided months of discussion around this legislation, and the landlord lobby had ample opportunity to argue for their profits.

They were even given an editorial in the Seattle Times.

Renters didn't get any editorial in the Seattle Times.

Uh, and this happens, this editorial, this suddenly appears in the Seattle Times happens almost any time renters fight for their rights.

This is, in fact, in sharp contrast to Councilmember Nelson's amendment, which was kept secret from my office and from renters until less than 24 hours before it was brought to vote.

Councilmember Nelson also neglected to mention that there was a landlord who was at my committee table But they just happened to be supporting the legislation.

But the landlords who are supporting the legislation don't count apparently as landlords who were consulted.

We had two landlords.

One of them is still sitting still sitting in chambers who spoke in favor of the legislation.

These are landlords.

I appreciate Council Member Herbold for sharing with constituents in advance that she would be voting yes on this legislation and the strength of the email that she sent.

I would also add some statistics that 39% of Americans who have said that they have skipped meals in order to make housing payments.

That is what we're talking about in terms of why these $40 matter.

And in addition to the points that Council Member Nelson made about landlords, which are completely untrue, that yes, they were consulted.

It's also stunning to see, I hope renters and working people are noticing how it doesn't matter how much evidence you present.

It doesn't matter how many people in this city say this is actually a very, it's a devastating situation, we need some change.

It doesn't matter what you do, how strong of a case you present, it will always be called, quote unquote, uninformed policy.

Even though the exact same policy, $10 a month, is working well in two full cities, Burien and Auburn.

That is more evidence than we often have for the policies we have won in fact and yet it is being called uninformed policy so we should point out how uh it it's it's you know it's just so easily that politicians use democratic politicians use lies and one other point is this idea that oh actually it will be bad for the poorest uh renters tenants because when the border council president and raise the rent.

And this is reminiscent to me of the $15 an hour debate when businesses said that,

If you want, can you just, I just, I have a point, I just have a point of order to address very quickly and I'm going to let you finish council member Nelson.

You did a point of order.

What is your issue?

Well, I, I believe that council member.

So, 1 is impugning the motives of our fellow council members in violation of rule.

Three of the general rules and procedures of Seattle City Council, which provides that quote, no CM shall impugn the motives of any other CM council member.

And I do think that, you know, basically accusing one of lying is impugning.

Okay, so let me just say this, I have the rule in front of me because I anticipated this was going to happen.

So, in our procedures parliamentary procedures, number four, section three.

It is true, as Council Member Nelson read, no Council Member shall impugn the motives of any other Council Member or speak more than twice except for explanation during the consideration of any one question.

Also, we have a 10-minute rule.

However, I'm going to let Council Member Sawant finish her point, and then we're going to go to a vote.

With that, Council Member Sawant, I know that you understand the rules, obviously.

You've been on Council over a decade.

So with that, Council Member Sawant, will you please continue and finish your remarks?

This idea, speaking as an economist now, this idea that landlords will raise the rents because renters' rights legislation are passing is pure fantasy.

That is not how or why renters' rents are raised.

Landlords raise rents because they can.

In the absence of strong citywide rent control, free of corporate loopholes, landlords get to raise rents.

That is why rents have been going up.

In fact, if Council Member Nelson or any other Council Member is concerned about rising rents, they should support the rent control policy that I will be bringing up from my office.

Just lastly, I understand council rules.

I also understood in my nearly 10 years of experience that rules go out the window when it's a question of my office and working people and renters.

All right, thank you very much.

Okay, with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment A?

Council Member Peterson?

No.

Council Member Salant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

No.

And Council President Juarez.

No.

Six in favor, three opposed.

Thank you.

So the motion carries.

The amendment is adopted and the amended bill is now before council.

Are there any further comments on the amended bill?

Okay.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm not on the committee, so I appreciate the time to have reviewed this.

proposal and the amendment.

Currently, there is no cap on fees for late rent payments in Seattle.

So thank you to Council Member Sawant for raising this issue in our committee earlier this year.

I would have supported the compromise cap that came out of committee with the sliding scale, which is a type of cap we've seen in other cities.

It seemed that the committee produced a workable compromise, but now things appear to have flip-flopped For another brand new policy in Seattle, following so many new regulations imposed on housing providers, I'm unable to support the original version with the flat $10 cap out of concern for the impact on mom and pop landlords in my district.

So again, I would have voted yes on the committee compromise, but I'll be voting no for this original flat fee.

If the mayor decides to sign this bill into law, I'll look forward to the city government monitoring the impacts of another regulation and potentially revising it as needed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other comments on the amended bill that is now before us?

Do not see any hands.

Okay, Councilmember Nelson.

Well, I'm just thinking so this is how it happens.

Now that I'm on the inside I can see how Seattle ended up with 20 regulations in six years, and they, they all cumulatively increase the cost of housing and reduce supply.

Because these so-called renters' rights pieces of legislation, like the one before us, may seem insignificant if you haven't bothered to talk to landlords and hear about the real-life impacts, you might not really understand that the accretion of these does make a difference.

Even if you have talked to folks, and I know that some council members have been contacted by affordable housing providers, the nonprofit partners that we have, But anyway, I understand that taking a vote in favor of those negative consequences is better than the headline that reads council member so-and-so votes against renters, or as was mentioned, having protesters yelling things in front of your house.

I understand the pressure, I get it.

But I just feel that I the principles that were behind the amendment that I put forward still stand.

And I just want to make the point that we are, I believe, going to be punishing the collective for the actions of the few.

And I just don't think that's fair.

But anyway.

For a moment, I did actually think, I considered caving myself to the pressure, but I'm not going to because I do care about how this legislation was developed and what motivated me to try to improve it as we did in committee that is now reversed.

So I will be voting against this, ultimately this package of this legislation.

Okay, and I see Council Member Herbold has her hand up.

Thank you so much.

I just want to be clear.

I'm voting for what I think is good, important policy.

Before getting my desk at City Hall, I was proud to work with the Tenants Union as a tenant organizer and a counselor on people's rights as renters in the city.

Did so for nearly five years and tenants rights have been a core issue of mine since coming to City Hall in 1998. I believe what impacts the cost of rent in the city is the market.

It's what the market will bear.

We know that developers in our city have predominantly been building luxury housing for years.

The most recent numbers that we received out of the Office of Housing is about Almost 90% of housing built is luxury housing because that is what the market will bear.

That is the rent that people are willing to pay.

I really appreciate the work of Council Member Sawant as chair of the Committee with Oversight on Renters Issues for bringing this legislation all the way to Council.

And she's done so much to address The issue of rent increases, as Council Member Nelson raises, as a legitimate concern in our community.

We have made it so that tenants who are displaced because of large rent increases will get relocation assistance, like we have done for over 25 years for people who are displaced because of renovation, demolition, or change of use.

We've required that rent increases six months notice.

This um this is a huge step forward from from my time uh working with former city council member Nicola Cotta.

Well we were so excited to increase the notice from uh what had previously been only 30 days to 60 days notice.

Um and so these are these are policies that are driven by the lives and experiences of renters and um When drafting and developing and advocating for policies like that I want to listen, listen to their voices, and I don't.

I feel like suggesting that they're acting against their own best interests isn't fair.

isn't fair to the lived experiences of folks.

I think renters who are organizing for these principles are smart enough to know what sort of rent regulations, what sort of tenant regulations will benefit them, and are not going to succumb to the kind of pressure fighting for something that will actually actually hurt them.

When I just also say that as it relates specifically to this particular piece of legislation.

And more generally, as it relates to late fees, we don't have evidence that shows that late fees reduce the likelihood of late payment of rent.

In fact, we found recently in a 2022 annual report from the library that after the council, in its wisdom, got rid of library late fees, Book return rates were completely unaffected by removing the late fees.

So certainly folks have a much better motivation or much greater motivation to keep a roof overhead than to keep their book borrowing privileges, although being able to take out a library book is very important.

So I just want to close saying I'm really excited to vote for this ordinance and thank everybody's work on it.

Thank you.

I have a few comments I know we said this in committee as well there's a difference between checking out a book and having been a renter.

Big difference, and I don't think I need a study to tell me whether or not it works and that's a whole nother conversation about late fees but I will say this for council members to want because I've had this discussion with her offline and online.

I think the core of the issue here really is about rent to rent control and I've always I admire that Councillor Sawant has wanted to bring that up to the forefront.

And I think it's right for a discussion, whether the city of Seattle or the state of Washington, and hopefully our leaders are listening to us and looking at the state law down in Olympia.

But that is for another day.

But this is just a byproduct of no kind of rent control of what we're trying to do.

So we're really nibbling around the edges about how we provide housing for low-income people, affordable housing.

in Seattle because you can't grow more land.

I think we've made incredible strides dismantling single family zoning, the recent legislation that just passed in Olympia where we can do duplexes and triplexes in particular neighborhoods, and all the other great stuff and policy stuff.

I am not in the camp of doing the othering us them.

I'm not buying into the narrative.

If you're with me or against me, I'm just not doing that.

And I think this is a good piece of legislation.

I think we always have agreed that we needed a cap, whether the only issue that came down to is it going to be 1.5% or is it going to be a $10 cap.

I'm good with either one there for me I'll take, I'll take the win on that either way.

With that, thank you for everybody.

And Councilor Sawant, since you, I will not say the word prime, since you are the sponsor, do you have any closing remarks before we go to the vote on the passage of the amended bill?

I do.

Thank you, President Juarez.

Thank you to all the community organizers and renter rights advocates who spoke at the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee meetings and helped organize renters, Stay House, Stay Healthy Coalition, the Tenants Union, Housing Justice Project, B-Seattle, Tenant Law Center, Socialist Alternative Workers Strike Back, and also the unions who stood with us.

I'm sorry if I'm not mentioning every organization that was with us, but every single one was important.

Thank you to the hundreds of renters who wrote to the City Council with your late fee stories, the thousands who signed the petition, and the dozens who spoke in public comment, including the landlords who spoke in strong support of this $10 cap.

Thank you to Asha Venkatraman from City Council Central staff, and I also appreciate the comments on behalf of renters from Council Member Herbold.

Renters almost never have the opportunity to negotiate the terms of their lease with their landlord because virtually all the power is in the hands of the landlord, especially in the case of corporate landlords and property management corporations.

For a renter, the choice is to either sign the lease that is offered or hope to find another place that they can afford before becoming homeless.

Imagine as a renter trying to tell your prospective landlord, often a powerful property corporation, that the lease that they have offered you has too large a penalty for rent that is not paid on time.

This ability for working class renters to haggle with their landlords, this is simply not a realistic option.

This is not what happens.

Landlords have the power over the homes of their renters and their wealth also gives them political power unless renters are organized.

We cannot wait for Democrats in Olympia to defend the rights of renters.

This year, no substantive renters' rights bill was even given the opportunity for a vote, even a loophole-filled bill to cap late fees.

As of January 2023, Democrats control both houses of the Washington state legislature.

Democrats hold a 58 to 40 majority in the House of Representatives.

and a 29 to 20 majority in the Senate, and they refuse to fight for renters, instead upholding the greed of corporate landlords and property management corporations.

And it is not just about this year.

Democrats have controlled the Washington state governor's mansion for 30 out of the last 30 years, the Senate for 20 years, the House for 23 years.

They have had a majority in the Senate since 2018, and in the House since 2002. So this is the fifth year in a row with a majority in both houses.

And yet, since 1981, Washington State has banned any city from enacting any form of rent control.

After a series of failed renter rights bill in Olympia, we need to be clear.

Renters need more rights, not fewer.

If city council members pass this legislation today, it will help reverse this year's regressive trend set by the state legislature and show how renters can organize to win the rights they need.

Working class people need to build our own movements if we hope to win renters rights.

Movements of the kind we have built using our socialist council office over the last nine years.

A fighting movement will certainly be needed to win rent control, to win more than the Amazon tax that we want to tax wealthy individuals to fund more publicly owned affordable housing.

Speculative investment has driven up real estate prices to the point where many young people today cannot imagine owning a home in their entire lifetime, which has a huge impact on working people's lives.

For example, a recent article in Yahoo Finance found that on average, lifelong renters need to save 50% more for their retirement than homeowners.

A landlord claiming to be a housing provider is like a feudal baron claiming to be a food provider.

It is not their ownership.

It is not their ownership that provides the housing.

The fact that they own it and get to make profits off the back of renters and workers is the product of a deeply exploitative system that treats housing as an investment for a few obscenely wealthy people.

And at the end of the day, no landlord, big or small, has the right to exploit or gouge their tenants.

We need to take today's victory forward to win citywide rent control free of corporate loopholes and we need to continue the fight for publicly owned affordable housing funded by taxing the wealthy housing that is built and maintained by union labor being paid living wages.

Thank you.

Thank you Council Member Sawant.

Okay with that Madam Clerk will you please call the roll on the passage of the amended bill?

Council Member Peterson.

No.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

No.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes as amended.

Chair will sign it.

Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

OK, let's move on in our agenda.

We had no items removed from the consent calendar.

We have no other resolutions for introduction and adoption today.

However, under other business, we do have something.

We have a consideration of an appeal.

The City Council will now consider an administrative appeal to the exclusion issue to Avram Alex Zimmerman on April 11th, 2023. The question is, shall the decision to exclude this individual from attending City Council and standing and select committee members through and including May 8th be sustained?

So let me explain that again.

Also, all council members received copies of the notice to Mr Zimmerman on April 11, along with the general rules and procedures of Seattle City Council, most notably section 11 public participation and access.

And including subsection D disruption of city council meetings and committee meetings.

That was the notice that was hand delivered to Mr. Zimmerman.

So today what I'm asking, we are asking is if you vote yes, that means you will sustain the exclusion.

If you vote no, that means you grant an appeal and remove the exclusion and a simple majority vote is needed.

So in order for me to go forward, the first thing I need to do is see are there any comments from my colleagues regarding this matter?

Okay, I do not see any hands or hear anything.

So with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the decision to exclude this individual from attending council and standing and select committee meetings through May 8th, whether it should be sustained.

So if anyone...

Oh, I'm sorry, I just was gonna say, I'm making sure everyone understands what their vote means.

So go ahead, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Solan.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, the motion carries and the exclusion remains in effect.

Okay, so is there any other business to come before Council before I move to adjourn.

I just want to recognize that we just confirmed the, the first 10 members of the Film Commission, and that is happy news and so I just wanted to thank Mayor Harrell and Mark McIntyre for their cooperation and support bringing this together congratulate the, the 10. committee members, commission members, and also Jeremy Moen of my staff who really worked this hard, Chris Swenson in OED, and Chase of the mayor's office to really help with the selection process.

So thank you very much.

Big day in other ways as well.

And thank you, Council Member Nelson.

That was quite a committee hearing where we got to hear from each member.

And hopefully when people said movies and everything else in the city of Seattle, they actually filmed it in the city of Seattle and not Vancouver.

All right.

So with that, colleagues, this does conclude the items of today's business.

The next scheduled meeting will be held on April 25th.

Thank you all.

And we are adjourned.

Have a good afternoon, everybody.