Seattle City Council Briefing 2/13/22

Thank you, son.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Monday, February 13th, 2023. The council briefing will now come to order.

The time is 2.01.

Moving on, there's an objection.

The minutes of February 6th, 2023 will be adopted.

Not seeing any objection.

The minutes are adopted.

Was I supposed to do a roll call in here somewhere?

Present.

We can, Council President.

I'm ready.

Oh, okay.

I didn't see it in my...

Yes, it is in there.

I don't know how I missed that.

I guess I'm getting too comfortable.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Sorry.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

And Council President Juarez.

I am here.

Thank you.

Eight present.

Madam Clerk, do I need to go back and do approval of the minutes because I didn't ask for the roll call first?

No.

Thank you.

All right.

Back on track here, folks.

Sorry about that.

It's been a crazy Monday morning.

Let me go to the President's Report.

On today's agenda, we will again welcome OIA Director Gail Tarlington and her staff to provide a state legislative update.

This will be the second in a series of weekly presentations as I shared with you last week, and it will run for the whole legislative session.

And again, thank you and your wonderful staff for giving us the material ahead of time.

I really appreciate that.

Let's see.

Moving on.

We have one proclamation to sign today.

It is in recognition of our friend, retiring Seattle Center Director, Robert Nelums.

And I believe later on, Council Member Lewis will speak to it.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

We will then have individual reports by each council member.

And today we start with Council Member Nelson, and I'll do the roll call, what the lineup is.

I'm pretty sure you all know how it works.

Please note that today we have set aside 20 minutes for an executive session.

and this executive session was added to the agenda on Friday.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as five appointments to the Seattle Design Commission recommended by the Land Use Committee, and that would be Council Member Strauss, and he will speak to those tomorrow.

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

The first is an ordinance to extend the opportunity for individuals to obtain flood insurance through FEMA flood insurance program.

It was referred directly to full council and council member Strauss is the sponsor of that and he will be speaking to that as well.

The second is a resolution providing an honorary designation of Union Street between 21st and 22nd streets as Devon Pickett Jr.

Way.

who is also sent straight to full council and does not have a committee recommendation, and Council Member Mosqueda will be speaking on that tomorrow.

Please contact her office if you have any questions.

She did mention this a couple times in council briefings, so we all knew that this was coming, and I think it's a wonderful way to honor someone who is a very big part of the community.

Items three and six are recommendations by the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee.

Item three is regarding the approval of a private communication conduit in the Latona neighborhood.

Number four is naming a street created by the Waterfront Project, Elliott Way.

Number five is regarding the approval of the construction of a retaining wall to protect the Alki Wet Weather Treatment Station.

and Council Member Peterson, as chair of that committee, will be speaking to items three and five tomorrow.

Item six, and I've been practicing, is a resolution providing an honorary designation of Alaska Way between Dearborn and Pine Streets, and Elliott Way between Pine and Bell Streets, as Zee Zalich, I'm gonna let Council Member Peterson, because I know he's been practicing, Zee Zalich, that is in the Lashute language, to rename that street, and I'm pleased to co-sponsor this resolution with Council Member Peterson and Council Member Lewis, and I'm guessing they will both be speaking to that issue tomorrow, and I will keep practicing.

Zee zot lay lech.

Zee zot lay lech.

Got it.

All right.

Information on all these items on tomorrow's agenda is available online.

You can find it all online.

There is no council meeting, no council briefing on February 20th due to the President's Day holiday.

The next council briefing will be two o'clock Monday, February 27th.

Okay.

So with that, with my president's report done, let's move to the state legislative update.

And I'm going to let director Charlton, uh, speak, introduce her staff and move us forward.

Thank you.

And welcome.

Thank you very much, madam president, members of the council.

This is Gail Tarleton.

I'm the director of intergovernmental relations for the city.

And I have here Samir Junaid-Joe, our State Relations Director, and Ana Johnson, our State Legislative Liaison, to provide you an update on the rapidly moving developments in Olympia.

We're now into a key moment where many bills will not make it through the House of Origin cutoff at the end of this week, and many bills will.

And our team has been in Olympia trying to keep on top of.

a full slate of policy issues that are being debated and have considerable impact on the city and all of the people who live here, as well as in our whole region.

So I'm going to turn it over to Sameer.

I want to just make sure that you did all receive the council bulletin from Ana and Sameer and the trackers of the key bills.

And thank you to the council members who recommended some new organizational strategies for us so that it's a bit more digestible, I hope, as the session continues.

So I'll turn it over to Samir for your update.

Talking about the 10-pager.

Talking about.

Yeah, thank you.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Samir Janejo, and I'm going to turn it over to Ana Johnson, who will just start off the briefing for us today.

Yeah.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Ana Johnson.

I'm the state legislative liaison for OIR.

Today, we're just going to give you a brief highlight of what happened last week since our legislative briefing last Monday and a couple of highlights coming into this week.

So starting with Senate Bill 5109, this is from Senator Saldana.

This bill creates an unemployment program for undocumented workers.

This bill had executive action taken on February 7th.

So this bill is now moved to the fiscal committee, which is Ways and Means.

This bill creates a state program that gives unemployment benefits for undocumented workers in Washington State.

And these workers make huge contributions to our economy and pay into our taxes.

And we are working to create an unemployment program for them.

Last week I told you about a number of proposals related to the State v. Blake decision.

I mentioned on Monday that that day there was a hearing in the Senate Law and Justice Committee that heard a suite of four different proposals related to drug possession and substance use disorder.

Ultimately, last Thursday, they took executive action and moved just one of the bills out of the committee.

This bill was Senate Bill 5536 from Senator Robinson.

This bill increases the penalty for unknowing possession of a controlled substance or counterfeit substance to a gross misdemeanor, creates pre-trial diversion programming, and provides vacating processes for folks who complete substance use disorder treatment.

This bill that moved out of committee was a substitute version.

There was a number of changes that were made in the committee, mostly related to public health provisions as well as treatment for behavioral health and substance use disorder.

Notably, there is directing the health care authority to make funding available for construction and services related to recovery in all regions across the state.

It also awards grants and expands the 23-hour Crisis Relief Center to provide providers in western and eastern Washington.

Staying on behavioral health for a moment, I talked a little bit about a bill implementing the next steps in the 988 system last week.

This is a House Bill 1134 sponsored by Representative Tina Orwell.

It does many things to establish and implement the 988 system, the 988 crisis hotline, including establishing endorsement for mobile rapid crisis response teams and creating training training curriculums at the University of Washington.

And so, amendments were adopted in committee to address some of the concerns by King County and others that the timelines for implementation were too aggressive, and also some of the interplay between the Department of Health and Healthcare Authority in implementation of 988. They also amended the mobile crisis rapid response teams, which are now in the bill called 9-8-8 teams, to require that law enforcement personnel may not staff a 9-8-8 team, and also that peer counselors must be included on 9-8-8 teams to the extent practicable.

And also remove the requirement for University of Washington to create a crisis training and secondary trauma program instead requires a UW School of Social Work to do a needs assessment for training and develop recommendations for training collaboratives that offer a voluntary training to crisis workers.

Next is an update on the two bills related to universal free school meals.

So this is House Bill 1238 and Senate Bill 5339. Executive action was taken in the House on February 7. The Senate bill has also passed out of committee and is referred to Ways and Means.

So both of these bills are moving along in the process.

As a reminder, this bill is requested by OSPI Superintendent Reykdal and proposes that students regardless of their family's income would receive free lunch as soon as next school year.

Next, an update on the Covenant Home Ownership Account Bill.

As a reminder, this is House Bill 1474 and Senate Bill 5496 from Representative Taylor and Senator Lovick.

Both of these bills received a hearing, and this bill creates a covenant home ownership account and program to address the history of housing discrimination due to racially restrictive real estate covenants in Washington state.

The House bill moved out of its policy committee on February 9th, and the Senate bill was heard on February 8th.

And that's the update on that bill.

On a little bit more of a general housing bill update, a couple of things that happened last week.

The housing committee held a hearing on Representative Julia Reed's bill to promote transit-oriented development.

And then the housing committee also voted out of committee HB 1110, which is middle housing legislation, which has now been sent to the House Appropriations Committee.

That committee also at the same time voted out two rent stabilization bills, 1388 from Nicole Macri and 1389 from Representative Alex Rammel.

Both bills address the need for rent stabilization and protecting renters from excessive rent hikes.

Representative chops bills HP 1628 relating to a new REIT statewide REIT was also voted out of committee.

The bill creates a new 4% statewide REIT on sale over $5 million.

It also gives cities and counties authority for a 0.25% REIT.

And this bill was amended to allow this new local, the new local REIT to be adopted by councilmanic authority instead of voter approval.

Can I get you to slow down for one second?

The REIT one is under budget and revenue, correct?

Right?

Yes, I believe so.

1628?

Yeah.

Yeah?

Is that the right one am I talking about?

1628, yeah, that's right.

So before you, can you just, I know I'm trying to catch up with you, can you just tell me what category it's in or better yet what page number, but if you can at least like, I know you're rattling these off, so I'm trying to follow with you if you say, Hey, budget and revenue HB 173 or one.

I also have that circled 1628 so I can follow along and make notes.

Yeah, just easier than flipping through and trying to find it.

Great.

Thank you.

Definitely.

Under the climate and environment section is gonna be our next update.

Starting with the right to repair, the Fair Repair Act, this is House Bill 1392. This bill was voted out of the House Consumer Protection and Business Committee on Wednesday.

Extender producer responsibility for batteries, this is Senate Bill 5144, was amended and voted out of the Energy, Environment and Technology Committee on Thursday with a bipartisan vote.

Toxics in our cosmetic products is another priority in our environmental realm.

This is House Bill 50, or sorry, House Bill 1047. This bill had a hearing and passed out of Appropriations Committee last week.

And then finally, the Washington Recycling and Packaging Act, so WRAP.

This is Senate Bill 5154 and House Bill 1131. These will both be heard in their fiscal committees this week.

Finally, this is under the topic of, or sorry, not finally, actually.

Under the topic of public safety, a couple updates in the police accountability realm.

Executive action was taken in the House Community Safety Justice and Reentry Committee.

They moved House Bill 1579 from Representative Stonier.

This bill establishes a mechanism for independent prosecutions within the Office of the Attorney General to conduct, for criminal conduct arising from police use of force, as well as they also moved House Bill 1513 from Representative Street regarding traffic stops by law enforcement.

Executive action was also taken in the House Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee.

They moved House Bill 1445 from Representative Hanson, which concerns law enforcement and local correction agency misconduct through investigations and legal action by the Attorney General.

This bill is now scheduled for public hearing and appropriations.

And House Bill 1025 was also moved out of that civil rights and judiciary.

This is from Representative Tai, which creates a private right of action for harm caused by violations of the state constitution or state law by police officers.

Going down to a couple miscellaneous bills, one which is in the general government section is Senate Bill 5378. The Senate State Government Committee voted this bill out of committee.

It's requested by the Secretary of State's Office related to voter education.

It creates extensive outreach and education requirements by a voting jurisdiction when they change their voting method.

and also include the requirement that the alternative voting method revert back to the original method if any of the outreach in the bill was not followed.

So the bill passed out of committee with an amendment that makes it apply only to voting jurisdictions that change their voting method starting in 2023. So it would no longer apply to Seattle's recent adoption of ranked choice voting.

And going to the Transportation Committee, Senate Transportation Committee heard a bill relating to autonomous vehicles this past week.

It's sponsored by Senator Bankey.

It's Senate Bill 5594, allowing for a commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles.

Among other things, the bill includes a preemption of cities from regulating autonomous vehicles, which would include preempting the city's A.V.

testing permit.

And so we've flagged our concerns with that bill as well.

And then looking forward to this week, as Dr. Charlton mentioned, February 17th is a cutoff for bills to be voted out of policy committee in their house of origin.

So much of this week committee time will be devoted to executive action on bills rather than public hearings.

And so we will update you on that after February 17th.

Thanks so much and happy to answer any questions.

So I'm going to open the floor.

Council members, are there any questions that we have to our team and Director Tarlington?

So it's a big thank you.

Council Member Nelson.

Well, big thank you.

Thank you very much.

Was there an MFTE for four existing buildings?

I think it was Wallin that was working on that.

Are you tracking that?

Yes, I think so.

There was there's an MFTE bill for the conversion of commercial buildings to affordable or bills converting to affordable units.

And so that's the bill we are tracking as well.

And I believe the bill number is H House Bill 1350. That's the one you're talking about.

Thank you.

That just keep keep me appraised of what's going on with that.

Thanks.

Definitely.

I have a general question, Director Tollerton, and I'm sure you're not going to answer it.

Under budget and revenue, House Bill 1473 and Senate Bill 5486 regarding wealth and property tax under Ty and Senator Frame.

So what are we can you give me a little idea a little bit more what's going on with that and how that how we how you think that's going to go forward?

Or do you if it's premature, I apologize.

Samir and Anna, I don't know if you've watched any of the hearings.

This is a new bill, a new revenue bill introduced this year.

I don't remember seeing a property tax bill like this on wealth.

The other wealth bills have been on individual wealth or entity wealth.

And so I haven't watched the hearings on it.

It's, I do remember at the beginning of session that the Ways and Means Chair had said that she did not expect any new tax, new taxes to be created this session.

But I haven't heard how the hearings have gone.

Okay.

Because we've seen this before and I was just wondering what, obviously where it was going.

So I'm guessing you'll have more for us next week.

Yeah, this week, the estate tax and the wealth tax have public hearing.

And these bills are not subject to the same cutoff other policy bills are subject to.

So they can take a little bit longer in their process.

But we'll watch the hearings this week and keep you updated.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions to our OIR team from my colleagues?

OK.

I'm not seeing any further questions.

Let me put my budget notebook away here.

I keep marking up.

And thank you guys.

Thank you guys for organizing it that way.

It's much easier to follow it and ask questions.

So thank you.

Okay.

Is there anything you want to end with Director Tarleton to add?

I just really want to thank you all.

I know that there are many things that are of interest to each one of you as well as to the city as a whole.

And this week, A number of policies that we are really seriously tracking will start to converge and there will be packages of bills moving out of the House and the Senate, that it will become much clearer which bills are in motion, which ones are going to be worked by teams of legislators and staff.

And so I'm hoping that there will be more clarity by February 27th.

of how things like the housing bills are coming together or falling apart, how different environmental bills are going to be happening, what's happening in the transportation and the capital budgets will become much more central to the housing and capital budget committees and all of the committees.

And so by February 27, there will be a smaller slate of bills still in play.

And not to say that the ones still in play are not going to be that much more significant.

So we'll look forward to keeping you up to date.

And please don't hesitate to ask us questions in the meantime.

Hey, Gail, I got a question.

I don't want to put you on the spot if you don't have the answer.

But as you know, We have been dealing with cleanups along I-5 with WSDOT, and they have contracted with the King County Regional Housing Authority.

And I remember when we did the press conference two years ago when the governor rolled out how much money they were going to give to localities to clean up WSDOT property and help our unsheltered neighbors find shelter.

So that came out of the executive side.

Is there going to be more on that or are we just sitting tight on the money side?

I think the governor's budget did have some money for the rights of way cleanup.

And so the budget committees will be taking up that discussion, uh, as soon as they get past February 17th.

Okay.

So after the 17th and some of our colleagues are going to be interested in finding out how they can, um, support, uh, the governor's initiative and the money dedicated.

for I-5 cleanup.

Well, not just I-5, but all of those.

Those budget items and the budget provisos and the budget priorities, I don't think that the budget chairs roll out their budgets until sometime in March, but the negotiations are going to happen extensively between February 17th and the time of the budget rollout.

Is the budget rollout in about the second week of March, Sameer and Anna?

I can't remember the date.

I think it might be the third week of March.

Third week of March, okay.

Yeah, it's usually after the revenue forecast, right?

Yes, and the Senate will release their budget first this year.

First this year, okay.

First this year, okay.

All right, great.

We will keep our eye on that, and thank you.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you so much, everybody.

Great job.

Bye-bye now.

Bye-bye.

All right, folks, let's move along on our agenda.

Moving on to item number four, letters and proclamations.

Council Member Lewis.

I understand that you have a proclamation for us to recognize February 14th as Robert Nellis Day in Seattle for signature.

So at this point, I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Council President.

And you know, most of us up until this time probably associated the 14th with Valentine's Day, but I'm excited that we have a new milestone to honor.

And as many of you know, we are unfortunately losing Director Nelms to retirement, but greatly appreciate his long and distinguished service to our city and to the Seattle Center Department where he has led as director since 2006 and as deputy director between 1996 and 2006. And, you know, this is my first time really presenting a proclamation, so I'll just give a basic overview.

Or do you want me to read the whole thing into the record, Madam President?

It's not very long.

Yeah, I read it and I have my own notes on there.

How about we do this because tomorrow is, are we going to discuss it?

Will it be on the agenda tomorrow?

No.

You know what, why don't you go ahead and read it because I know I'm going to embarrass him that Mr. Nelms is watching.

So I got it next because I actually marked up your proclamation that says don't go.

So I'll let you why don't you go ahead and read it.

I think it'd be great.

Thank you.

Great.

Yeah, I'm happy to read it and then make a brief comment at the end and give a chance to sign.

So the proclamation.

Whereas, Robert Nellis has served at the Seattle Center since 1996 serving as director of the Seattle Center, since his mayoral appointment in 2006. And whereas, Director Nellis came to work at Seattle Center in part because of its employee developed commitment to inclusivity and respect.

known as employee rights and responsibilities which aligns with his personal values.

And whereas during his time as director, Robert Nellis has negotiated homes at Seattle Center for many of our city's vital programs, including organizations that contribute significantly.

to the livability and economy of the region through the performing arts, family activities, free public programming, and whereas director Nelum's played a key role in welcoming the WNBA to key arena, Jihuli Garden and Glass, Seattle International Film Festival, KEXP, Cornish College of the Arts, and Pride Fest, all to the Seattle Center campus.

And whereas, under Director Nellum's leadership, Seattle Center provided a home to Seattle King County Clinic at Key Arena, a critical service for many low-income Seattleites that provided free dental, vision, and medical services to nearly 20,000 patients during its first five years.

And whereas, Director Nellum serves his community in many ways, including as a member of the board of directors for the Northwest African American Museum, as a member of the Board of Trustees for Central Washington University, and with The Breakfast Group, a Seattle-based nonprofit service organization devoted to mentoring Black and other low-income and at-risk young men of color.

And therefore, the Mayor of Seattle and the Seattle City Council proclaim February 14th of 2023 to be Robert Mellum's Day in Seattle.

Yay!

And at this point, I will ask colleagues if they would like to take this opportunity to affix their signature.

And I would remind the clerks that in open session last week, Council Member Mosqueda indicated she wanted to sign this proclamation to make sure that her name is included for that purpose.

And with that, Madam President, yeah, I'll hand it back to you to preside over additional comments and to solicit signatures.

Right, thank you.

So what we're going to do is let let all your colleagues speak and say great things.

And then I'll call the roll on the signatures.

How's that?

Excellent.

Thank you.

Uh huh.

So I see Council Member Strauss has his hand up.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Just double checking.

Mr. Nelms will not be with us tomorrow to receive this.

This is the opportunity to speak to his accomplishments.

Well, I would say if I was to start listing Robert Nelms accomplishments, I would be here for 30 years and I would still miss some things.

Robert, if you're watching, we are a changed city because of your leadership.

I am It is just such a humble honor to get to work near you and to watch all of your experience and expertise turn Seattle Center into such an amazing gem.

It's always been an amazing place and it is so much better because of you and your hard work.

I just want to take this opportunity to thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for doing this Council Member Lewis.

And Valentine's Day is the perfect day for Robert Mellon's Day because he will forever be in Seattle's heart.

Oh, wow.

I don't know if I can top that.

Um, first of all, thank you, councilor Lewis for bringing this to us and the proclamation, which, and thank you for reading it into the record.

Um, again, as council member Strauss said, we would be here a long time.

I literally took the proclamation and wrote all over it.

And I sent a picture to him saying, basically, please don't go.

Um, Robert is also a dear friend of mine.

Um, I'm going to miss taco Tuesdays.

We worked together on a lot of projects before I wasn't elected and as an elected.

I cannot say the leadership that he brought us through to do climate pledge arena and all the interest groups that he has worked with negotiated with made sure they're in the budget.

working really well with the mayor's office.

We are really gonna miss Robert.

I know Marshall's gonna do great as well, but this is somebody that's been around for a long time with a lot of wisdom and leadership skills.

And obviously he's not leaving Seattle and he is a dear friend and I will miss him, but I will still see him.

So with that, Council Member Luce, is there anything you wanna add before we go to the vote or yeah, the fixation of the signatures?

Yes, thank you.

I'll just really briefly say it's been a really great privilege to work with Director Nellems as the chair overseeing the Seattle Center Department.

Like really reflecting back on the changes that have been made to the campus during his tenure as director, it really has been one of the most transformational periods of time in the history of the Seattle Center with the Climate Pledge, with KEXP, SIF, Chihuly Glass Museum, all of the institutions that have found permanent homes, the restoration of the armory during his tenure.

And, you know, I'm excited that we can also, in the waning days and the last budget of his directorship, nailed down a plan for Memorial Stadium, which I know has been a long focus and a real focal point of his leadership during his tenure to secure that plan before he retires and really look forward to taking advantage of his wisdom and his retirement to the extent he's still willing to offer it and really looking forward to.

the next steps in his life after his leadership that he's given to the city.

So, Director Nelms, thank you so much.

So appreciative of you and thank you for making Seattle Center a truly special place and your commitment to the city as a whole.

All right.

I do not see any further discussion with that.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on which council members would like to affix their signatures to the proclamation?

Recognizing February 14th is Robert Nellum's day in Seattle.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Eight signatures will be affixed to the proclamation.

Thank you.

And thank you, Council Member Lewis, for bringing this forward.

Moving on to the preview of City Council Actions, Council, and Regional Committees.

So today, the lineup, we will start with Council Member Nelson, then Peterson, Council Member Sawant, Straus, Herbold, Lewis, Morales, and then myself.

So with that, Council Member Nelson.

Hello, everyone.

Good afternoon.

There are no items on tomorrow's agenda from the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee.

The next meeting will be on the 22nd, I believe, yes, of February, and we will be continuing our discussion and possible vote on the six SIR pieces of legislation.

And we'll also have, I believe it's nine appointments, re-appointments to the Community Technology Advisory Board, CTAB.

So that might be a long meeting.

All right.

This last Thursday, I had a meeting last week.

I had a meeting with Director Farrell and Sandra Mallory of OSC to discuss the building emissions performance standard policy that's under development.

And last Friday, on my birthday, Saturday night, excuse me, I joined 400 of my closest friends at the gathering to celebrate Northwest Asian Weekly's founders, Asunta and George, for 40 years of tremendous service to the city, to the community, to the region.

The platform delivered its last print edition, but will continue in full force online.

So that was a fun celebration of them.

And speaking of birthdays, I do want to wish my chief of staff a very happy belated birthday.

All right, today I had a briefing with GSA to go over the upcoming reauthorization of the MID, and as you know, the MID is up for reauthorization every 10 years, and so we're developing the legislation, the work plan for that, and that's likely coming in March.

When briefing concludes today, I will have a briefing with the Office of Housing Director Winkler-Chin to discuss the 2023 housing levy.

And tomorrow I will get a briefing with SDOT to discuss revision of bus stops along Route 40 in Fremont.

My Chief of Staff will be attending the Visit Seattle first quarter board meeting this week as well.

And then Thursday is a pretty packed day.

I will attend as an alternate the King County Board of health meeting and I'm particularly interested in the 2023 work plan vote.

I joined King County council member Reagan done and King County Board of health vice chair David Baker on a letter to King County Board of health chair Joe McDermott.

urging elevation of substance use and recovery, specifically involving fentanyl and methamphetamines.

And I'm happy to see that there is a line item for substance use disorder recovery and harm reduction on the work plan.

So that's positive, and I look forward to that vote.

Also on Thursday, I'll be meeting with DSA again, Downtown Seattle Association, to discuss progress on the project to install some wayfinding kiosks downtown.

And I'll also be meeting with Members of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance so it's economic development is a big theme of meetings this week.

And then finally, speaking of Memorial Stadium, my staff and I have a tour of cascade public media's new building now cascade public media is the.

is the parent organization of Crosscut and KCTS 9, and I served as a board member with the organization, right up until I started running for city council when I stepped down, and they have been located on the Seattle Center campus near Memorial Stadium since their inception.

They've been working on a plan to relocate for many, many years.

We'll be lucky to see, my staff and I, renovations that are planned for their new site at 316 Broadway, and just talk about all the new ways they have of visioning the use of their new space coming up.

got to hand it to them for all they do to support local journalism.

And then let's see, I believe that that is the last item of note that I will mention.

Are there any questions?

I don't see any, so I will, if it's all right with you, pass it on to Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Good afternoon colleagues, there are four items from the transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

There are two term permits one in District four and one in District one, along with two pieces of legislation for the naming of streets along the central waterfront and District seven.

The first item from our committee is Council Bill 120506, which would grant final approval to Dunn Lumber Company for the construction, maintenance, and operation of a private communication conduit under and across Latona Avenue Northeast using a 15-year term permit.

This is located underground just north of North Lake Way.

Last year, Council granted conditional approval for Dunn Lumber via Resolution 32053. That resolution directed SDOT to draft the ordinance that grants final approval for the term permit.

you

The Seattle Department of Transportation and Central Staff both determined that Dunn Lumber has met the conditions from their initial approval.

The term permit was recommended unanimously by the committee members present.

You can direct questions to Central Staff Analyst Lish Whitson.

Council Bill 120507 would designate the name of a new street created as part of the Central Waterfront, Elliott Way.

Questions on that legislation can be directed to Central Staff Analyst Eric McConaghy, Resolution 32079 is the first stage of another term permit.

This would provide King County with the city's conceptual approval to construct, maintain, and operate an electrical transformer and retaining wall at 63rd Avenue Southwest, intersecting with Beach Drive Southwest and Southwest Spokane Street to support the operation of the Alki Wet Weather Treatment Station Facility and the 63rd Avenue Pump Station Facility in West Seattle.

You can direct questions to Central Staff Analyst Lish Whitson, who drafted a memo to describe this proposed term permit.

After the Council grants initial approval, the Seattle Department of Transportation will negotiate the final approval for a term permit, and then we would see them back in committee for final approval later.

Our committee, including District 1 Council Member, recommended approval.

Resolution 32080 would designate an honorary street name near Seattle Central Waterfront.

As already discussed, this is a primary stretch of Alaskan Way that would be designated Seed Slalich, which means little crossing over place in the Coast Salish language, Lushootseed.

That legislation is co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis, Council President Juarez, Central Staffer, Eric McConaghy can answer any questions about that.

All four pieces of legislation were recommended by the committee.

Our next committee meeting will be on Tuesday, February 21 at 930am.

It'll be a light agenda because we've got the Mayor's State of the City speech later that day on February 21. An important future item at our committee will be SDOT's report on Vision Zero traffic safety, which we will hear as soon as the executive finalizes the report.

We've made room on our February 21st committee, but it is directly before the mayor's state of the city address, which will also likely have Vision Zero elements, transportation elements in it.

So we've also reserved March 7th committee as a backup date to give it as much time as possible.

federal audit.

I've invited SDOT to an upcoming committee to get their views on the recently completed federal audit that included several SDOT projects.

You might've seen the Seattle Times article posted last week describing parts of the audit that had a website link to the entire 46-page report.

Now that audit was conducted by the Inspector General of the United States Department of Transportation, and its recommendations were directed at various administrators within that federal department.

but the report does have potential implications for Seattle.

I've asked our own city auditor to join us at the same committee meeting in case they can lend additional expertise to that matter.

And that concludes my report.

Any questions before we move forward to Council Member Swan?

Well done with the Ziza Leilich.

Thank you.

Good job.

Thank you.

All right.

No further comments or any questions.

I'll turn it over to Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, and good afternoon, everyone.

There are no items on tomorrow's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The committee has begun discussing legislation from my office to gap late fees for renters at $10.

I expect that legislation will be ready for a vote in the committee sometime in March.

There is one item on the introduction and referral calendar from my office that is the ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on a person's caste in Seattle.

What the ordinance does is actually very simple.

It adds caste to a list of what are called protected classes.

This is a list of things that may not be used for discrimination, factors that may not be used for discrimination under Seattle's current law.

So currently Seattle's protected categories are age, ancestry, breastfeeding in a public place, citizenship or immigration status, color, creed, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, parental status, perceived pregnancy outcomes, political ideology, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, use of a Section 8 certificate, use of a service animal, and military status or veteran.

The ordinance that is put forward from my office simply adds caste to that list.

That list appears in many places throughout the Seattle Municipal Code because there are many different activities where discrimination is banned, such as employment, housing, contracting, and access to public spaces.

Anyone reading the draft ordinance might be surprised at how long it is, but that is just because it adds the word caste into so many different places in the Seattle Municipal Code.

Its length does not mean the substance of the bill is complicated.

It is a very simple question.

Should discrimination based on caste be allowed to continue in Seattle?

Or instead, should it be banned?

Council members might be tempted to think that caste is not relevant to Seattle or the United States because it does not affect everybody, but it affects certain populations, especially from immigrant communities.

And you might even feel you don't know much about caste.

That is why my office has prepared a frequently asked questions document that we will share with you later today.

And if you have any further questions, please reach out to my office.

But just in short, caste is a system of oppression that divides people into rigid hierarchy of groups based on birth, with the lower groups facing serious discrimination, oppression, and if you take what's happening in South Asia, then even violence.

It originates from about 2,000 years ago in South Asia, but remains pervasive today under capitalism.

We have to be clear.

While the caste of discrimination and caste oppression does not show up in Seattle and the United States in every form that it shows up in South Asia, the discrimination is very real out here.

For the past several weeks, we have had dozens of people speaking in public comment about this ordinance precisely because people are really facing caste discrimination.

We have also heard gut-wrenching stories of oppressed caste people who were correctly wary of the consequences of revealing their caste and remaining closeted about their family backgrounds for decades so as not to have their caste exposed or have their, especially to protect their children.

This is reminiscent of LGBTQ people being forced to be closeted out of fear of being targeted.

If this were not true, caste discrimination by dominant caste people in power against oppressed caste people And if that was not actually happening, no one would be motivated to call in in support of or in opposition to this ordinance.

Just wanted to quickly give a glimpse of what we have documented in the Frequently Asked Questions document in terms of the data there is to show what the discrimination looks like and how much that is prevalent throughout the United States.

We can see that actually there is a lot of evidence from the tech sector about how workers who are in the tech sector and who originate from oppressed caste communities face serious discrimination in the workplace.

Data from an organization called Equality Labs shows that one in four caste oppressed people face physical and verbal assault One in three faced education discrimination, and two in three, which is 67%, which is a huge thing, and that's where we find most of the examples, faced workplace discrimination.

In a public letter published anonymously, 30, and this was published in the Washington Post, and all of these links are available in the FAQ, so council members and your staff can look at it.

In a public letter published anonymously in the Washington Post, 30 oppressed caste women software engineers in the United States documented the systematic caste bias they had experienced in hiring, referrals, and peer review, and the insults and demeaning comments they had endured.

The workers described the caste discrimination and sexism, you know, they faced both, as women of oppressed caste.

They said that it was one of the worst environments that they had been in, and they called it the dominant caste locker room culture at its worst.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, so this is the California state government, won an appeals court ruling in August of last year to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that an oppressed caste engineer at Cisco Systems, which is a multi-billion dollar tech conglomerate, was actively targeted by his dominant caste managers and denied professional opportunities such as a raise and promotions because of his caste background.

As a columnist in the New York Times wrote about this case.

She said the technology giant got away with ignoring the persistent past discrimination because American laws do not yet recognize past discrimination as a valid form of exclusion, allowing companies to operate in willful ignorance of the terrifying realities of caste.

This is exactly why this ordinance has been put forward.

And in fact, after that lawsuit was initially announced in California, nearly 260 tech workers talked publicly about the caste discrimination they had faced in the workplace, including in the Pacific Northwest, in companies like Facebook, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon.

I also wanted to share with council members that this ordinance is in support of an overwhelming coalition of over 50 organizations, constituting many thousands of community members.

The coalition includes human rights and nonprofit organizations, including a letter that you have all received just today from Amnesty International.

It includes tech workers, oppressed caste communities, thousands of members from the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities.

These are all your constituents, council members, union members, and socialists.

This coalition is continuing to grow because there are activists on the ground who are continuing to reach out to organizations saying we need your support for this and so please speak up about this.

And we have heard, as I said, powerful testimony from people In the public comment, there have also been more than 900 emails sent to the city council in support of this ordinance and the petition from my office urging the city council to vote yes on this ordinance has garnered 1300 signatures.

And yeah, I hope you will read the letter from Amnesty International, also from the worker who is a member of the Alphabet Workers Union, which is the union that represents Google workers.

And we also have heard from organizations like Hindus for Human Rights, where the person who wrote says, I'm a proud Hindu and board member of Hindus for Human Rights.

And I'm supporting this because this law would ensure that every individual is treated equally under the law, regardless of their cast, and I urge you to vote yes on this bill.

We also got a statement of support from renowned linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky, who said, it's inspiring to see the struggle against caste discrimination in Seattle.

Wish you the greatest success in this essential task.

Now, we also have our opposition, you know, but having the right wing opposed to a progressive law that will help address oppression is unfortunately nothing new.

The Civil Rights Act banning discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and national origin had to overcome right wing opposition, lawsuits, and even violence.

LGBTQ rights continue to face lawsuit after lawsuit.

The fact that the bill from my office would make Seattle the first city or municipality in the US banning caste based discrimination makes this bill even more important, because if we can win it here, it will be a beacon to cities and states across the country.

And as far as we know, it would also be the first such ordinance anywhere in the world outside South Asia.

But we are not the first.

I mean, we'll be the first as a city, but we are the first ones to talk about this.

In fact, Brandeis University and Colby College have both recently adopted the policy of banning caste discrimination on their campuses.

And a similar policy was adopted last year by the California State University system for all its 23 campuses.

This is particularly significant because Cal State is the nation's largest four-year public university system.

I will stop there, but I will also be happy to answer any questions, especially if you've heard any attacks on this ordinance, and I'm happy to explain any of those, rebut any of those attacks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Right under the 10-minute line.

So Are there any questions of our colleague before she hands it off?

Oh, I see Council Member Herbold has her hand up, Council Member Sawant.

Please go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I appreciate the summary.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

And yes, we have received nearly 800 emails in support of the ordinance.

I'm just wondering, I'm not asking necessarily for a rebuttal, but we have also received 1,200 emails against it, and I just don't understand sort of what the thinking is on these emails.

They're claiming that an ordinance like this would mainstream hate by our city.

They reference problems with the Equality Labs survey, and Yeah, again, I don't need a point by point rebuttal, but just trying to understand a little bit about where all of this opposition is coming from, that's one question.

And then my second question is, I see that the introduction and referral calendar has this going directly to full council rather than going to a committee.

And I believe our, I don't, I have the text from our council rules.

passed last year because of some problems of sending bills straight to full council rather than committee.

And the rule that we passed is that if the primary sponsor of legislation requests that the legislation be put onto the introduction referral calendar without the support of the chair of the committee with subject matter doing so, then that will only happen after the council president confers with the chair of the standing or select committee with subject matter jurisdiction.

So just wanting to confirm that that happened.

Yeah, we did.

Let me just step in for a minute.

Councilor Herbold, yes.

Council Member Sawant, and we discussed it with Council Member Morales.

and Council Member Morales was fine with, and she will be pro tem that day, because I am out of town.

So we got all that done and all those boxes.

Just checking, just because this seems very complex.

And yeah.

Well, that's why we have a committee system, and I'm just a little bit worried about this bill going directly.

Yeah, I know we have a committee system, and that's why I checked with the chair and Council Member Morales is fine.

As well as customer so want, so I don't want to turn this into a committee hearing.

There's some other discussion we're going to have offline that I can't share right now.

So, perhaps we can talk about that a little bit later offline customer so what did you want to add anything before you move on.

Yeah, I'd like to respond to Council Member Herbold's other question.

But if there are other questions coming up, maybe I should take them now and then answer all of them at once.

I kind of don't want to do that because I think we're turned into a committee meeting.

And that's my concern.

It did not go through committee.

I know it's going to go to full council.

So I would like to not do that right now because we're just going through council briefing, which is going through a preview of city council actions.

However, yeah, let me just quickly say this.

If we can limit it, that would be great.

So would you entertain that if there are a few questions and we can be very limited and brief?

Because I think you know what we're doing also this afternoon.

Yes, but that won't be a policy discussion.

So I'm happy to be brief.

I was just wondering if there were any questions.

I'm not insisting that there should be questions, but if there are questions, I'll hear them and then I'll respond to Council Member Herbold's question and any other.

So I'll just wait for a second.

OK, why don't you go ahead and respond?

I don't see any.

OK, that's fine.

Council Member Herbold, thank you for asking that question.

That's a very relevant question.

Just before I respond, I would just say that, as I said before, but just to reiterate it, I honestly don't think there's anything complex.

The complexity, I understand from your standpoint, the complexity comes from the unfamiliarity of the caste issue, which is totally understandable.

That is why we want to make sure you have all the information.

But other than that, there is nothing complicated about it.

I mean, if we would say that addressing or banning caste discrimination is complicated, then we would also be saying, that banning discrimination based on some other categories would also be complicated.

There's nothing complicated about that aspect.

If you're a progressive city, then that is straightforward.

But And in reality, this has become an issue because we have a significant section of South Asian and other immigrant community members.

These are people who vote in our districts.

These are people who vote in presidential elections.

These people's voices should be counted.

And it is a growing population and it is a growing issue.

So it has become more serious issue today than it might have been 10 years ago.

And that's why the timing is also, it sort of explains it why We're doing it now as opposed to earlier on because it's more and more evidence is coming out now.

But in terms of your question customer herbal is like why is there a difference like why isn't everybody supporting this.

Unfortunately, for the most part.

The people who are writing to the Council saying that they are opposing this, they are repeating the right-wing talking points, particularly from two organizations called the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America.

If you look at their websites, and you're free to go and look at them, the agenda of both of these organizations, they are extremely right-wing, and their agendas look very aligned with the far-right regime currently in power in India, as you all know, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As many of you know, the Modi regime has found a lot of common ground with the Trump agenda and the American right-wing.

And both these organizations have strongly supported the horrific anti-Muslim anti-oppressed caste citizenship laws that were attempted by the Modi regime.

Council members will remember, some of you anyway, were there at that time almost exactly three years ago when the then Seattle City Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution condemning those laws and urging U.S.

Congress to similarly take a position condemning Those laws.

So that's the background of where these, these objections are coming from.

So in other words, yeah, they have a point of view, but it's a right wing point of view and for the council, it's a question of, you know, which side we want to stand on, based on whether we want to stand on, you know, on the side of people who are facing caste discrimination and ending that scourge or we are going to stand with the right wing and as far as them saying that this is going to be somehow overall it's going to be bad for Indians or anything like that I think we have to be very clear that is akin to saying that if we you know if we took steps to end racism it would affect white people in a negative way.

That's not true, but that's a right-wing talking point.

They repeated that nonstop during the Black Lives Matter movement.

And we're seeing a similar process.

The only difference here is that it's not the most familiar thing to many of you because you're not from South Asian background, but that shouldn't matter.

These are overall questions of social justice and what's progressive.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

All right, let's move on.

Wait, Council Member Nelson?

You're more familiar with the politics of this issue, Council Member Sawant, but is the Mdekar Pool Dalits and Bahujans a right-wing group?

My understanding was that they are not.

And that was one of the first emails of opposition we got.

And I think that some of the other people that wrote would probably not identify with that characterization.

But who is this group?

That group is, again, it's something that it's very hard to find out about, but I can tell you that they are an example of lower, example of people who claim that they're oppressed caste, but that they are opposed to this bill because they think that it is not something that affects, you know, that caste oppression or discrimination does not actually affect them and that it is actually a bad thing.

Now this is deeply unfortunate that this is happening and in fact even in public comment we've heard one or two people claiming to be oppressed caste people and opposing the legislation.

As I said this is deeply unfortunate but this is also nothing new and it should not confuse any politicians who genuinely want to take progressive action because unfortunately systems like capitalism which are deeply oppressive and exploitative towards the majority of human beings require a few spokespeople from among the oppressed and exploited.

So we often hear workers, unfortunately not the majority, a very small minority, but sometimes they will speak in favor of the bosses.

We see Black public figures like Candace Owens, who have reactionary and right-wing views and who publicly oppose the Black Lives Matter movement.

So I would put this in that category, and I would urge you to listen to the vast majority of the oppressed caste communities, including from many other Ambedkar, you know, the right-wing group is using the title Ambedkar, but it really is a co-opting of progressive agenda for a right wing purpose.

So I would urge you to listen to the vast majority of the oppressed caste people who are fighting to get this ordinance passed.

And in fact, we're going to see a lot of support come, much more support come, and this is up for a vote on the 21st.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Let's move on.

So Council Member Strauss, I believe you're up.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, colleagues.

Great to see everyone today this beautiful Monday afternoon.

There are five items from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

We have five appointments to the Seattle Design Commission.

Ben Gist, Kevin O'Neill, Phoebe Bogert, Adam Ammerheim, And Jill Crary, we've got some real big hitters here.

Jill was instrumental alongside of Robert Nelums, who we just spoke a lot about.

Kevin spent a lot of time at SDOT working on transportation issues.

So this mixing with the design commission is really perfect.

All of these appointments were unanimously recommended for confirmation by the Land Use Committee.

There's a sixth bill that will come straight to full council that did not go to committee.

It is the fourth floodplain extension of the interim regulations.

It's going straight to full council because this is an ongoing issue that has been before us before.

Just by way of background, federal regulations require local governments to update local floodplain regulations within six months of the FEMA update to ensure ongoing participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.

Participation in this program allows owners of property in FEMA mapped flood zones to purchase federally backed flood insurance, which is required for federal loans.

Those interim development regulations have been extended several times while the Port of Seattle, who owns a lot of land right near areas that may or may not be flood prone, and the city, which creates these regulations to be in line with FEMA, are still working to reach agreement about how some of the regulations may be applied.

So Council Bill 120487, which is before us tomorrow, will extend the interim floodplain development regulations for another six months.

I have asked very kindly of all parties that this be the final, final extension, understanding that it is better to come to agreement than to get into legal fights.

So SDCI does anticipate transmitting permanent regulations this summer.

And I would urge an aye vote from you colleagues for tomorrow in the land use committee the next regularly scheduled land use committee meeting is next week on Wednesday, February 22 at 2pm.

There's no council briefing next week, and this serves as notice for next week's meeting, we anticipate hearing.

Two items, one is the arborist registration cleanup legislation.

This is the second time we are formally hearing the legislation.

I believe it's the third time we are hearing it in content.

We invited arborists to the last land use committee to speak on the legislation as well as the urban forestry commission.

Both entities had some suggested changes and we are working with central staff to bring these requested amendments to be heard on February 22nd.

Again, as I mentioned last week the base legislation does include the following changing posting requirements to online requiring vehicles to have arborist.

TSP number and city issued registration number, changing the wording of major pruning to reportable work, but not the thresholds, and adding environmentally critical areas to the bill.

There were many potential amendments discussed in committee.

It was a very robust discussion.

And this is just a kind reminder to all land use committee members.

If you want to bring amendments, please let Yolanda know by today.

It can be simply that you are just thinking of a certain topic.

The second item in land use committee next week is going to be an informational presentation about non-conforming uses in Seattle.

Last year, a UW graduate student, Marcus Johnson, studied and mapped non-conforming uses in Seattle.

He studied them in the city as a wide, could not map them for the whole city, that would be an entire year of schoolwork, and did map the non-conforming uses in my district.

This is an informational.

item as this was Marcus's personal work completed as a master of urban planning at the University of Washington, and he mapped the locations and types of buildings that previous to 1980 were allowed in single family or now neighborhood residential zones across the city.

These building types include duplexes, triplexes, commercial buildings, and apartment buildings that are not that are currently built in our communities and are not currently allowed to be built in the neighborhoods after zoning laws passed as recently as the 1980s.

I will just admit, but before reading this work, I didn't realize how many duplexes are in our neighborhoods, mostly because a lot of what I, like, I just didn't see them because I thought they were built for a single family.

This information he mapped has already surprised me because I really didn't, understand how many non-conforming uses are already built in our city.

I know everyone and anyone will find this information very interesting.

Caveat, everyone and anyone who likes to geek out on land use.

Thank you, Marcus, for taking the time to do this research and present it to committee.

Again, the next regularly scheduled land use committee is next week on Wednesday, February 22nd at 2 PM.

Just as a gentle reminder, amendment notification to Yolanda is due today.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

Any questions?

Seeing none, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

So items on full council agenda today, there are no items from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee agenda on the full council agenda, I should say, tomorrow.

Nothing on the full council agenda tomorrow.

But we do have Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting tomorrow morning at 930 and items on the agenda tomorrow morning include a presentation from the Seattle Police Department on the 2022 crime report distributed publicly last week.

And we'll also be hearing from the Human Services Department with giving us a presentation on the many notices of funding availability that will be released throughout 2023. Some of those things for items that were council priorities in prior year's budget, some of those items being regular Human Services Department areas of business that they do periodically.

notice of funding available.

As far as public safety updates, in case any of you council members or the viewing public like to use the Seattle Police Department's Tweets by Beat account, that's a little different than the Seattle Water Twitter account.

It actually sends out notification of 911 responses within different sectors in BEATS, and it's very, very helpful.

Last week, they had announced that they were going to be suspending their tweets by BEATS account.

But then we heard later last week that they're going to actually be continuing it after all.

So just wanting folks to know, should they use that service?

It is going to be continuing.

and whatever policy was related to their consideration of ending it, they've revisited.

Other items, last week, as I mentioned in my last week's report, I met with Chief Diaz and Inspector General Judge.

This week, I'll be having my regular meetings with Chief Scoggins and the Community Police Commission.

Earlier today, I met with Rebecca Gonzalez, the mayor's appointee to lead the Community Safety and Communications Center.

We discussed the council's process for confirmation and also discussed her excitement in working with the council and the executive to stand up an alternate 911 response.

As far as regional committees coming up this week, I'll be meeting, representing the council along with a couple of my colleagues on the King County Board of Health.

Thursday, we're meeting to approve our 2023 work plan.

And we'll also be hearing a briefing from King County Public Health on infant mortality prevention.

And then also on Thursday, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee is meeting.

And I, along with a couple of my council colleagues represent the city council on that body as well.

Other events last week, I testified before the Sound Transit System Expansion Committee to thank Sound Transit and members of the board for their work in the West Seattle segment.

I spoke to their consideration of an alternative alignment in Delridge to reduce the impact to the transitional resources mental health services at the building there, examining refinements to the Delridge station, and then highlighting the importance of access for High Point residents.

Thank you to Madam President Juarez for not only for her work on the board, but for uplifting the opportunity of council members to address Sound Transit last week.

And then lastly, last Thursday, I testified before the State Senate Law and Justice Committee in support of Senate Bill 5232, enhancing requirements for the purchase or transfer of firearms.

So I've got folks this week.

Does anybody have any questions or comments?

Seeing none, I'll pass it on to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Thank you so much Council Member Herbold and thank you everybody for signing the proclamation earlier in today's briefing program.

I look forward to presenting that proclamation to Director Nellens and wishing him well in his retirement.

Clean City Initiative.

Between January 30th and February 3rd, the Clean City Initiative recovered 2,766 needles and 95,560 pounds of trash from 77 different park locations.

Libraries, as folks know, we offer access to many social services through the Seattle Public Libraries and for this week's briefing, Libraries has sent along a quick rundown of some of these partnerships and ways that members of the public can find them.

And you can find these programs at the Civic and Social Services calendar, which is located on SeattlePublicLibraries.org at SPL.org.

First, Assurance Mobile at Seattle Central Library.

Assurance Mobile is holding events.

to offer free smartphones and service enrollment and $11 tablets on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month at the Central Library branch, the first and third Thursday of every month at the Capitol Hill branch, and the first and third Tuesday of every month at the Rainier Beach branch.

So that is from Assurance Mobile and definitely encourage community members to check out that service.

ORCA low-income fare enrollment and annual pass These events are held monthly at Seattle Central Library.

We will add rotating, we meaning libraries, will add rotating branches monthly.

That news to come and I will be making sure people are updated at briefing on the ability to access the ORCA Low Income Fair Enrollment and Annual Pass program currently only available at the Central Library branch.

Emergency supply distribution in the mixing chamber at the Central Library.

we currently have the emergency supply distribution service.

It is available in some other neighborhood branches and we encourage community members to reach out to neighborhood branches to confirm whether their particular branch has this service.

The library has started distributing emergency supplies in late November on an as needed basis.

And through the end of January, library staff have distributed supplies on at least 175 occasions.

The library is not, I'm completely in a position on knowing what resources for 2023 are going to look like for this program, but want to prioritize having supplies for the winter months in particular, which we're still in the middle of when people are at most risk of substantial harm from the cold and the elements.

So definitely feel free to reach out to your local public library branch to inquire about emergency supply distribution and the current availability.

Finally, United Way of King County Rent Assistance.

So this has been a great, especially during COVID program from the library, to have this pop-up service on rent assistance from United Way of King County.

The Rainier Beach Branch is going to be hosting the service on February 1st and 96, or did host rather, sorry, on February 1st and 96 people.

were added to the waitlist for rent assistance at the pop-up and were given the overview of how the process works to participate in the United Way rent assistance.

The library will be hosting this pop-up at the Lake City branch next month and is in discussion about having this be a more consistent and ongoing service at additional branches.

And with that, everybody.

I am going to pass it along to Council Member Morales unless there are any questions.

Just a reminder, we do have committee this week.

As I forecasted last week, we are going to be considering a couple of appointments to boards and commissions and do have one piece of legislation that's been promulgated for our consideration.

So that meeting is still going to happen and is not envisioned to be canceled or rescheduled.

A customer with customer Nelson has her hand up.

Yes, Councilmember Nelson.

I really appreciate that you give the clean city stats.

Every week, and it occurred to me to ask whether or not they track the, the number of needles.

declining or increasing over time?

And I ask that just because we hear from public health that fentanyl is becoming a larger problem in terms of the overdose numbers.

And so does that, could that mean that needles are going down?

Is there a shift that's being noticed in, I don't know, the remnants of drug use?

That's a really great question, Council Member Nelson.

The answer is definitely yes.

And I'm sure that I mean, gosh, probably.

I mean, just my office could go back and do the analysis from aggregating this information over the previous year to demonstrate that downward trend in needles being collected as fentanyl has become more prevalent and the more common method of consuming to be smoking the fentanyl and foil.

So I'm happy to.

to go and confirm that, but I would say anecdotally from reading these stats every week now during my time chairing the relevant committee, it has definitely been, the needles have definitely been trending downward because there are just fewer needles by virtue of people changing their habits on how they consume the narcotics and the people are buying in the street.

So, yes.

We can get the actual numbers, but I can anecdotally confirm it has been going down.

Thank you.

Okay, and with no additional questions, I will go ahead and pass it to Council Member Morales.

Thank you very much Councilmember Lewis, good afternoon colleagues, there are no items on the full council agenda for tomorrow from the neighborhoods education civil rights and culture committee.

We did send.

We met last Friday and sent several appointments recommendations to full council.

those will be on next year next week's calendar.

We also in committee heard from a community panel comprised of urban design and planning professionals as well as small business advocates to discuss the road safety crisis that we are having in the city and had some interesting learned some interesting things during the discussion.

For example, we had discussion about folks who were living in and working in the Duwamish and Rainier Valleys having a sense of isolation, being cut off, particularly folks in the Duwamish Valley, cut off from the rest of the city by urban highways, by dangerous arterials, and land use patterns that just isolate their homes from the places where they work, from access to essential services.

We know there's no grocery store in South Park, for example.

We know in Delridge there has historically not been a grocery store available.

So there's really just this sense of isolation that we have created and has also been contributing to mobility needs and to some of the dangerous road conditions that we have been hearing about.

Folks also talked a lot about the fact that we have lots of plans in the city.

We do a lot of community engagement, but but community is feeling frustrated that those plans don't actually get implemented that, you know, we may design something but we don't actually build it out.

And really the point was that that leads to an erosion of trust in community when it comes to the next time we're asking folks to engage in a community process.

So there was a real interest and a lot of conversation about making sure that before we start planning something else, we start to implement the things that we've already asked people to share their expertise and their experience on.

And then we read just yesterday in the paper, or maybe it was the day before over the weekend, that the way we design our streets is leading to unsafe neighborhoods.

So, all over town, we know that drivers are running into homes, they're running into small businesses.

And this really is not safe for people who are trying to sit in the living room, or, or just walk into a business walk down the street to to enjoy some of the amenities that they may have available to them so I think we are learning and as a city we're certainly having the conversation that it's time to rethink our priorities for design.

and also time to actually build out the things that we know work that can help contribute to community cohesion in our different neighborhoods in the city.

The next meeting of my committee will be Friday the 24th.

We'll be voting to recommend another 13 appointments to our various commissions.

This morning I met with our Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to learn about their new immigrant safety access network program, which supports interventions and activities that really help young people and their families.

know their rights, navigate victim support services, and really understand law enforcement systems.

We have a lot of folks who are immigrants or refugees who don't necessarily understand how to access medical care, how to access law enforcement when there is some emergency in their in their family or in their community.

And so this is really about making sure that these communities have access to the information that they need about our criminal and legal processes in the languages that they understand.

The program will be awarding about $200,000 in grants to community-based organizations that can help provide coordinated response to young people and their families who are disproportionately impacted by violence and by the criminal legal system.

So the announcement is out already.

We'll be putting out a link to the application process on our newsletter and on our social media.

But if folks have interest or have questions about it, you can find information at the Immigrant and Refugee Affairs website.

I will also be joining Council Members Nelson and Herbold this week at the Board of Health meeting on Thursday.

Let's see, last week I had in-district office hours at the Rainier Beach Library.

We heard from over a dozen constituents about different issues that they are wanting to talk about, ranging from issues at Andrews Bay, noise that's happening at Andrews Bay, which our office has been working on for years.

to increasing access to technology at community centers.

It was great to connect with neighbors in person to have some really productive conversations.

My office, my staff will be following up on the issues that were raised and the questions that they have about department response.

And our next in-district office hours will be at the Othello Neighborhood Cafe Red on March 9th.

I do want to indicate as well, we are starting to have meeting requests and are starting to hear from different organizations in the CID about another alternative to a station location.

What we've heard from Sound Transit is a proposal for a 4th Avenue or 5th Avenue, a couple different versions of each of those, but the community is now asking for another alternative to be considered, which is a north of the CID or a south of the CID station or perhaps both, so that the community itself is not disrupted by what is projected to be nine to 11 years of road construction, bus rerouting, Roads being closed businesses and residents being displaced.

So, there's a lot of interest in continuing the conversation with sound transit to find alternatives that are not going to be so disruptive for so long, to, to the Chinatown International District.

We are working with the community to make sure that those conversations with Sound Transit are supported and look forward to sharing more with all of you as those discussions continue.

This week I'll be visiting the Rainier Beach urban farm and wetland to meet with some East African seniors who do gardening programs there they also have their senior meal program there, and have been really active there for several years, and providing a socializing space and a way for seniors to come together and gather and to grow and eat some good food.

Wednesday night I will be speaking at the BASE graduation ceremony.

BASE stands for Building Arts Space Equitably.

They launched in 2018 with the Office of Arts and Culture to support a cohort of experts in different fields related to creating and maintaining cultural spaces.

It is made up entirely of people of color who are interested in supporting commercial development of space and making sure that there is access to affordable production space, rehearsal space for the artists in our community.

So looking forward to that ceremony.

Thursday, I'll be at the Rainier Valley Food Bank to get a tour of their expansion.

And then finally, next week, I'll be hosting the first Seattle Within Reach panel for 2023. This will be centered on the theme of climate justice as it relates and intersects with the comprehensive plan.

So we're looking forward to that discussion.

And that is all I have today, colleagues.

I...

Don't see any questions.

So I will hand it to you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

So I'm going to go through my City Council Actions Council and Regional Committees.

So starting with my committee, there are no items for the Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's agenda.

Our next committee meeting is this Thursday, the 16th.

The agenda will include reappointments to the Labor Standards Advisory Commission and the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission.

As far as Native communities, some real good news there.

Congratulations to the chair of the Tulalip, Tulalip Chair Terry Gobin and the Tulalip tribes on the opening of a new tiny house village for tribal members who lack housing.

As you know, in the past, the Tulalip tribe has helped build tiny houses.

The new facility can provide temporary shelter for up to 30 people and will also provide access to drug treatment and services as needed.

If any of you pay attention to some of my comments or what we put in the clips, the Indian Health Services and tribes received a wonderful budget this year federally for those type of services.

And as you know, the city council funded Seattle Indian Health Board for inpatient treatment, as well as the Aurora Commons.

So thank you.

It actually money actually gets to those that need it for these groups that we lobby and work so hard for to make sure that they get funding for addiction and treatment.

Last week, we met with the Human Services Department regarding the impacts of encampment sites and RVs in District five.

We met with SPD, Seattle Police Department, regarding public safety and fentanyl use.

We also met with a group, and I'm sure some of you have as well, We Are Seattle, to discuss building a blueprint for Seattle's future.

And they put together a report that we went through, and that was with former Council Member David Della and other community members.

We attended the North King County Sub-Area Briefing to hear an update on permitting and safety issues from Sound Transit CEO Julie Tim.

We met with city staff on the Sound Transit West Seattle Ballard Link Light Rail.

As you know, the executive group met Thursday and we have two big votes coming up and I cannot remember those dates.

Do you remember those dates?

March 23rd.

And thank you, Council Member Morales, for bringing up the issues that we've worked closely with the ID and the CID about light rail disruption and some of the information that we've forwarded to groups and particularly some Sound Transit members that a lot of groups, a lot of communities, not only get interrupted by these huge capital projects, but many groups disappear.

And one of them is, of course, the Asian community and their concerns about light rail and what that would do to their homes and their businesses.

So with that, some more to come, more to do, and I will make sure I have a deeper and more detailed response or understanding when I do some reporting again next week.

So let's see, what up?

Coming up next week, we will be meeting with Sound Generations and elder constituents at the Northgate Community Center.

Sound Generations, as you know, has been funded by the Seattle City Council and they provide food to elderly people.

And we recently partnered with them and Amazon to purchase a van to help transport elders to and from activities for the meal programs.

So we worked with them and Secure the money and they bought a new van and we're really happy because they were using people's cars.

So we are going to go and see the van and meet with the elders and also a big shout out to my former staffer Dean.

I'll stop who is now at Amazon, who worked with us to make sure that The sound generations folks could purchase this brand new van because they provide a wonderful service for those particularly during coven that couldn't come to be to come actually have lunch and dinner at the community center up in D5.

So this is great.

They were actually delivering food in people's cars.

So this is wonderful.

We will be meeting with city staff regarding the upcoming sound transit issues, including the anticipated March 23rd vote on the West Salem Bellary link light rail discussion.

We're going on a field trip, and I believe I invited council member Strauss to come along with us.

And today I will be attending the farewell celebration for Robert Nelums to recognize and thank him for 40 years of service to our city as director of Seattle, of the Seattle Center.

And again, thank you to Council Member Lewis for bringing forward the resolution.

So with that, that concludes my report.

And now I'm going to move us into executive session.

So let me do the magic words to legally move us into executive session.

Is there any other business?

All right.

Not seeing any other questions or business, we will move to the executive session.

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

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

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential.

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