Seattle City Council Briefing 2/1/2021

Good morning, everyone.

The February 1st, 2021 Council Briefing Meeting will come to order.

The time is 9.34 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Morales.

Here.

Mosquera.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Here.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Here.

Juarez.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Council President Gonzales?

Here.

Nine present.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk.

Approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of January 25th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

And then really quickly, colleagues, in terms of the president's report, I did want to make some comments at the top of today's agenda.

I'm sure that this is an issue that's been at the top of mind of many of you.

I know it's at top of mind of many of our constituents, but I wanted to just highlight some significant concerns that I have related to the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations.

In recent days and weeks, I have become increasingly alarmed by the widening disparities, racial disparities in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations and the lack of shots making it into the arms of vulnerable individuals and groups, particularly from black, brown, indigenous and other communities of color.

News reports, statistical studies and anecdotal information all tell us a deeply concerning developing problem.

that marginalized communities, particularly communities of color, lack access to COVID-19 vaccinations proportional to the demographic makeup of our city and state.

I do want to acknowledge Mayor Durkan's efforts in this space already.

As we all saw last week, she did send out a message to us and members of the public calling on equity to be centered in COVID-19 distribution strategies.

And I want to thank her for for making those public statements and for making sure that all of us are thinking clearly about how to ensure that we are centering equity in this really important issue.

There is also clear evidence that our communities, particularly BIPOC communities, are experiencing the highest rates of death, severe illness, and loss of income from COVID-19.

So there are compounding negative effects if we do not have intentional and effective efforts to increase access to vaccinations in these communities right here in our own backyard.

We must address this deeply inequitable problem by shifting and improving our government's vaccine distribution methods.

And there is an opportunity for the city of Seattle to help collaborate on solutions.

Over the weekend, my office begun work on several potential actionable steps to address the issues of COVID-19 vaccination and distribution within our own community.

I'm working first on a resolution that will frame the challenges that our communities are facing in accessing available vaccinations.

and acknowledge the disparities that are most pronounced for communities of color and low English proficiency or non-English speaking communities and also for technology limited residents.

Second, this resolution will articulate the City of Seattle's principles and goals towards improving the equity framework of our regions and states to the vaccine distribution methods, but in particular focusing on what the City of Seattle believes should be our equity principles as it relates to vaccine distribution.

Next, this resolution will put forth an anticipated plan for improving COVID-19 vaccine access for marginalized communities here in Seattle and hopefully across the state and the county.

My intention is to have conversations about this resolution over the next week and to allow the city council an opportunity to consider on next week's introduction referral calendar as well as for potential final action at the city council agenda for final action next Monday.

In addition, my office is organizing a set of panels to participate in a problem solving dialogue at the next meeting of the Governance and Education Committee.

These panels will include a combination of impacted individuals, community health providers, and hopefully some government officials who we will be able to ask important questions to for the sake of transparency and also for the sake of understanding more broadly what is going right and what is going wrong.

Finally, my office is looking at pursuing emergency legislation that will ensure City of Seattle resources are being dedicated to the community outreach and engagement effort that is necessary in order to ensure that these vulnerable residents have clear understanding of how to access COVID-19 vaccinations when they become available.

This is important so that we can assist our partners in government and the healthcare system to effectively deliver vaccinations to those that need them most And in order to do that, we must be able to prepare members of our community who are really struggling profoundly to understand how to even begin the process of evaluating whether a vaccination is available to them.

We must give them the tools that they need through knowledge and deep community engagement and outreach.

We did this kind of deep work when we worked on the uh, census structure here at the city.

And I think we need to replicate that model in order to make sure that we are reaching deeply into these communities who are very confused, very frightened and are losing relatives every day to this pandemic.

So this will be a large effort and I want to welcome everyone's input and collaboration.

And so I want to encourage all of you to reach out to me.

I hope to be able to reach out to you in the next few days so that we can all come together, find common ground here and common purpose and advance a citywide strategy together.

to make sure that we are addressing this really critically important equity and public health issue that I know many of you, just like me, continue to hear significant concerns about from members of the community.

So I look forward to having more conversations with each of you after today's council briefing and look forward to rolling up our sleeves and getting to work on this really critically important issue.

And colleagues, I did want to let you know that I did let members of OIR know that I was going to be making these comments and have invited them to also provide us with the benefit of any knowledge and information that they gather from our state and county partners as we all come together to address this really critically important issue.

I think what we want to avoid is people feeling like they're being asked to participate in the Hunger Games as a result of trying to figure out how to access this vaccination.

And to hear stories that high donors at private hospitals were given first dibs on vaccinations regardless of the phase approach is just abhorrent.

There have to be consequences for that.

And more importantly, we have to be intentional in this space around centering equity and making sure that the most vulnerable people in our community are getting access to those vaccines first.

And that starts with making sure that we are all on the same page as it relates to those equity goals and that we are equipping our community with the information they need and the tools they need to actually be able to access the vaccinations when it is available to them.

So I look forward to partnering with all of you on this really important work that I know is of huge significance in all of the districts and across the city and across the state.

I will close out my remarks there.

Happy to hear any other comments.

And if there are no other comments at the top of the agenda today, we'll go ahead and dig into our next agenda item.

Colleagues, any comments or questions?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and begin the other items of business on today's agenda.

We do have a rather full agenda today.

We are going to hear from OIR first and then we're going to move into a presentation on the Black Brilliance Research Project Preliminary Report.

We do have several guests with us this morning who are going to run through their report and a presentation.

So without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Lily Wilson-Kodega, director of our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, who is going to provide us with a state legislative session updates.

But first, I'll hand it over to Lily so she can introduce herself.

And if you can popcorn amongst yourselves to make sure that we get your names on the record, that would be great.

Lily, good morning.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'm going to turn it over to Robin next.

Robin Kosky, deputy director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, handing to Quinn.

Majewski, State Relations Director, OIR.

Hannah?

Hannah Smith, Government Affairs Program Director, OIR.

Good morning, Council President and Council Members.

We are before you today with a state legislative update with one month down and approximately three to go in the remainder of this long, very long 105-day virtual legislative session.

I do want to note we are working very diligently to keep our time and our briefing today until I believe 10.05 So we're happy to take questions.

We may move through our sections rather quickly, but we'll stay as long as you'd like for questions.

Just last week, a few highlights.

A big week for firearm safety with bills restricting high capacity magazines and armed intimidation at public demonstrations, thousands of sign-ins from public health experts, concerned medical professionals, parents, and advocates from across the country who have lost children to gun violence.

I wanted to make sure to thank Chief Diaz for his excellent testimony.

I believe Councilmember Morales also spoke in, testified this week in Olympia as well, or virtual Olympia, so appreciate her testimony as well.

The legislature is also exploring House Bill 1264, which would require equity impact statements in the legislature, kind of modeled on the You know, racial equity toolkits that the city council has spearheaded.

So some really interesting discussions moving forward there.

Also a big week for revenue with Representative Frame's wealth tax dropping.

And Quinn has more of that in his report.

So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Quinn, our state relations director, to begin.

Thank you, Lily, and thank you, Councilmembers.

As Lily said, I will endeavor to be brief, and we will answer any questions if you have them.

In the budget and revenue space, I want to start with an update on the federal funding early action COVID bill, House Bill 1368. The House bill version was heard and exact out of committee last week.

It is currently scheduled for a hearing in the Senate in anticipation of it passing the full House.

There's also a hearing scheduled on the Senate version tomorrow.

with executive session slated for Thursday.

I know there is a lot of interest in how funding for rental assistance, utility assistance, and distribution of vaccines and other public health response will flow, especially as it relates to the city.

There remains, I think, a lack of clarity in that regard, although we are working, are doing our best to secure more information there and we'll provide it as soon as it is available.

Moving on to House Bill 1406. This is Representative Frame, who's the chair of the House Finance Committee.

This is her wealth tax proposal.

In essence, it would institute a 1% tax on financial intangible assets.

This is generally cash and cash equivalents, as well as a whole host of financial assets, stocks, bonds, other sort of financial investments.

It exempts the first billion of assessed value on worldwide wealth, and it applies to persons, or as the bill defines, artificial persons, which includes most corporations that are domiciled in the state of Washington.

I will pause there and take any questions on budget and revenue.

I see one question already.

Thank you, Council Member Salant, for using the raise your hand feature on Zoom.

Colleagues, I do want to encourage you to use that function on Zoom to get into the queue if you have any questions.

First up is Council Member Salant, please.

Good morning.

Thank you.

My question is something that I had asked a couple of weeks ago, I think, when Quinn and the OIR were presenting about this.

I see that the wealth tax bill has been put forward, but I continue to be extremely concerned about what is going to happen in terms of either preemption on municipal big business taxes or in some shape or form, undermining the big business tax that the city council passed last year, the Amazon tax.

But it's not only about preemption.

It's also about any possibilities of phasing out or...

or in any other way limiting.

I'm sure my imagination is not capturing the possible ways in which that could be done.

And I mean, just from a standpoint of strategy, I would expect that the bill, when it comes out, it would not have preemption, which as OIR shared with us last week about the bill, that it's not there right now.

But I would be extremely worried that it will be slipped into the bill later in the process as an amendment when things are much farther down the road.

And so my question is, one, is what is OIR hearing about this?

And also, I wanted to ask, what kind of advocacy has the office, our office, the City of Seattle Office of Intergovernmental Relations carried out?

to oppose it.

I mean, in your public and private conversations with state lawmakers, have you emphasized it?

And I would just say that it's important that we emphasize it now, not when things are about to happen and go down a bad road.

So even if things are not happening right now, and even if lawmakers are saying, well, no, we're not doing anything, I still think we need to absolutely keep emphasizing that.

So I just wanted to know how we're doing that.

And also if there is an opportunity to testify coming up, I absolutely would want my office to be there to testify.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Swant.

Happy to provide a quick update there.

We do anticipate that the statewide payroll tax legislation, the higher-earners payroll tax legislation, will be introduced in the next couple of weeks.

I think the exact timing is still to be determined.

This is the Macri-Springer legislation.

As you identified, the current iteration doesn't include any sort of preemption or reduction in the city's authority.

In terms of the advocacy that the city is doing, as we have been meeting with members of the Seattle delegation, as well as budget leaders in both chambers, we continue to emphasize that, you know, the local measure that we have adopted here is going to affect this year.

It's booked in the budget and, you know, reducing the city's revenue would have a significant and deleterious impact on our ability to provide key services, especially during a public health crisis.

So I do assure you that that is something that we continue to emphasize in our meetings with key legislators.

Thank you.

And just to add a clarification, again, I want to emphasize the other aspect as well, that we want the statewide progressive revenues as much as possible to be raised.

Obviously, as you said, especially in the case of a pandemic and such enormously compounded suffering for ordinary people.

So we welcome any of those progressive taxes, whether it's capital gains tax or wealth tax on billionaires, or taxing corporate payroll like the Seattle tax does.

So we welcome any and all of that.

And we need those taxes to be passed.

But we need that on top of the Seattle tax.

And we disagree with the comments that have been made by some of the lawmakers that this will be somehow double taxation.

I mean, it's sales and property taxes, which are both regressive and land on poor people and working class people.

They're not even double, but in fact, you know, more than double double tax that ordinary people pay.

So we don't we don't we don't accept that logic.

We want the city tax and we want the state taxes.

Yes, and I did not mean to imply that we are opposing a statewide payroll tax in concept.

We certainly are not per the legislative agenda.

As long as there's not an impact or a preemption of the city, it's something that certainly we are supporting.

Council Member Samant.

Okay, let's see.

Next up, let me make sure I get this order here, is Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

So I just have a couple of follow-up questions on the wealth tax.

I'm very excited to see the wealth tax formally introduced.

I read some of the reporting over the weekend about this bill.

I wonder, Quinn, just to follow up on a point that you made, I wasn't aware that this tax would also apply to corporations domiciled in the state of Washington, or at least that wasn't clear from the coverage that I read.

Can you talk a little bit more about how that would work?

What would the subject So for example, like Amazon, which one of the states is domiciled in as Washington state, a 1% annual tax on Amazon's assets would be huge to the state coffers.

But would it only be things that are in the state, or would it be the global footprint of Amazon?

Because the coverage I read was mostly talking about individuals, but obviously if it also applies to corporations, that could be a very big revenue driver.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Yeah, absolutely.

The tax is levied on worldwide wealth.

So regardless of whether the wealth is sort of held or generated in the state of Washington, the tax is levied on worldwide wealth for individuals or artificial persons who are domiciled in Washington.

Thank you.

And just a quick follow-up.

How does this proposal compare to wealth taxes being discussed in other states?

I know that California is considering a wealth tax.

Do we know if this is, if we have a fairly standard proposal?

Is it more ambitious, less ambitious than what is being proposed in other places?

I would have to get back to you on that.

I haven't had a chance to do a comparative analysis of other wealth taxes in other states.

Great.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Happy to do so.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Any other questions for Quinn on revenue?

Okay, hearing none, let's continue going.

I'll hand it off to Hana for education.

Thanks, Quinn.

A couple education bills continue to move through the process that we're monitoring.

1121, which allows the State Board of Education to waive some graduation requirements during a pandemic, passed the House, and is scheduled for a public hearing in the Senate this week.

The child care licensing bill passed Senate Early Education with an amendment sunsetting the cancellation of fees and has been referred to Ways and Means.

That's the bill that...

takes away the licensing fee for childcare providers.

The big Fair Starts for Kids Act by Senator Wilson and Representative Senn promotes a variety of early education investments and that both versions of the bill were heard this earlier in the session and are expected to be exact out this week.

There's continued conversation about the cost of those, but they're moving forward very well.

And then finally, House Bill 5044 adds equity, diversity, and inclusion, and anti-racism training to school staff.

It directs school districts to prioritize one of their three professional learning days to focus on those topics.

And that passed the Senate last week, 30 to 19. So those are the big updates on education.

And I'll pause for any questions.

ELIZABETH BUTLER- Colleagues, any questions All right, looks like there are no questions.

You can continue.

Moving on to environment, there's not a significant amount to report this week on environment.

Several of the high-profile pieces of legislation, including Building Decarbonization 1084, the Climate Commitment Act 5126, and the HEAL Act 5141 all had hearings last week.

There's a lot of work going on in the background as the lead sponsors and advocates receive and incorporate feedback there.

The one thing I would highlight is The Clean Fuel Standard Substitute House Bill 1091 has a hearing this week in appropriations after passing out of the Environment and Energy Committee, and that's coming up this Thursday at 3.30.

I'll pause there for questions on environment.

Yep.

Colleagues, any questions on environment?

All right.

Hearing none, let's continue.

And then in general government, just two quick highlights.

House Bill 1016, making Juneteenth a legal holiday, has a hearing coming up today in appropriations at 3.30.

And then another bill, scrolling down a bit, House Bill 1258, microenterprise home kitchens, which I know is of interest to several council members, that was scheduled for a hearing last Friday.

However, because of COVID, time running over on other bills in the agenda.

It had to get moved, so it's now up for a hearing tomorrow.

So just something to be mindful of, as I know it's of interest for numerous offices.

And I'll pause there for questions on general government.

Any questions, colleagues?

I don't see any hands raised, so we can keep going, Quinn.

All right, I hand it off to Hana on health care.

Thanks, Gwen.

Jumping over to health care, House Bill 1074, which allows suicide and overdose fatality reviews similar to maternal mortality and child mortality reviews, moved out of committee with strong support and is now in the rules.

Another big one we're following is House Bill 5068. That's the postpartum Medicaid that passed last year but needs to go through the process again because of the veto at the end of the session.

That moved out of Senate health care and has been referred to Ways and Means.

and the opioid reversal medication bill that we're tracking also moved along this week or last week out of the senate health care subcommittee on behavioral health so those are some quick updates on health care happy to answer any questions looks like we have one question a couple questions on health care so councilmember mosqueda and then councilmember herbal good morning

Good morning, thank you so much for the summary on health and obviously last year was a really tough time at the very end of session with the COVID crisis just hitting our communities and the concern about the potential impact on our local economy and I think you know thankfully we didn't have as much of a economic hit to our revenue forecast at the local and the state level as originally anticipated I know that that was the reason that there was a veto for the postpartum Medicaid bill.

If you could scroll back to that bill real quick.

I know that this also received broad support last year and thanks to the city of Seattle for weighing in.

Having worked closely with the folks who are part of that coalition, just want to echo our ongoing support.

You've already mentioned that we've been weighing in support, but do you anticipate that there will be any concerns regarding this bill again in the end as it relates to funding or do you feel like

there's general uh sense or consensus that uh if this bill makes it to the governor's desk then it will be able to be implemented this year i think we're optimistic this year since it made it through so far and the as you mentioned the revenue um has forecast is stabilized since the end of the year um i'm hopeful but we'll continue monitoring and advocating all the way through since it would be a great policy to actually get enacted this year

Thank you, Hannah.

And Council Member Mosqueda, was that the only question you had?

Okay, great.

Council Member Irvold, please.

Thank you.

I'm also interested in the bill related to menstrual products.

And specifically, I know in addition to looking at the impacts of those costs on users.

We had also talked about expanding the scope of this bill to also include diapers, and I'm just wondering what the status is on that.

I'll get back to you on the diapers thing.

I don't think it's included now, but that is an excellent point.

Thank you.

All right, colleagues, any other questions?

All right, looks like there are no other questions, Hannah.

I believe I'm passing it off to Robin for housing.

Hi, I just wanted to highlight in the housing forefront that Representative Orwal is working on a suite of foreclosure prevention bills.

I know that's of interest to the council members.

House Bill 1108, an early action bill that would fund assistance for homeowners navigating through the foreclosure process, passed out of the House unanimously on Friday and is on its way over to the Senate.

So that's good news.

But we do expect that there will be another bill that will drop possibly this week addressing foreclosures.

I also just wanted to let you know that document recording fees bill that would generate at least an additional $100 million for homelessness services and rent assistance passed out of the Housing Human Services and Veterans Committee.

It was amended in that committee with a provision that says that the money that is generated must be awarded proportionally to the amount generated in the county that's receiving the money.

So that would mean that the proportion of the fees generated in King County, would need to be used in King County, which I believe is likely to result in probably some additional resources coming to King County.

That bill is in appropriations.

That's all I had today on housing in an effort to be brief.

If there are any questions, I'll move on to police reform.

Colleagues, any questions about housing?

Council Member Herbal.

Council Member Herbal.

Thank you so much.

Just wondering, had received some notification from stakeholders and advocacy organizations a few weeks ago who are interested in meeting to discuss fair chance housing implementation at the state, but am getting some indications that that may not be moving forward this session.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

You know, Councilmember Herbold, I'm going to have to check into that and let you know.

I will get back to you later today on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robin.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Any other questions on housing?

All right.

Looks like there are no other hands up, so let's keep going.

Well, Council Members, there's a lot of activity still on the police reform forefront.

This week, the Governor's Independent Investigations Bill, House Bill 1267, is up for executive session.

Thank you very much to the Council President's Office for submitting some written testimony on that bill this week.

Then also, Council Member Morales, as Lily said, testified on House Bill 1310 on the use of force on Friday morning, and that bill is also up for executive session this week.

The decertification bill continues to move along through the process.

It's today scheduled for a hearing in the Ways and Means Committee at 4 o'clock.

I do believe that there's a House and a Senate version of that bill, and the Senate version is the one that's moving forward.

Senate Bill 5066, Senator Dhingra's duty to intervene bill is also being heard at that same hearing this afternoon.

So it continues to be quite a bit of focus on police reform and OIR is closely monitoring the progress of all of the more than 20 bills that are moving in the legislature.

Colleagues, questions or comments on police reform?

Councilmember Herbold, please.

Sorry, I couldn't get to my raised hand function.

Just wondering, since testimony on the House version of the bill week before last related to Impeachment of officers, but we refer to as the Brady list and some requests to make some specific changes to that bill.

Specific changes that potentially could.

some limitations that law enforcement has in making decisions about officers that are appropriate to hire or not, as well as allowances for management to relieve their police departments of officers who are on the Brady list for good reasons.

I'm just wondering if there have been any shifts to the language.

since the House hearing?

So far, there have not, Councilmember Herbold.

And we have also been talking with Senator Dhingra, who is working on that bill.

And so far, we have not gotten any amendments.

But I can follow up with you as well with a little more information on that offline too.

Thank you.

Okay.

Colleagues, any other questions?

Looks like there are none, so we can keep going.

Terrific.

On the public safety front, as Lily said, last week was quite an active week in the legislature, and gun responsibility measures this session are focusing quite a bit, given the time and place we are in in history, on addressing armed intimidation.

Another bill that is sort of a companion to the bill that Chief Diaz testified on, 5038, that would...

prohibit open carry of a firearm or other weapons with at the state capitol or in any public demonstration is house bill 1283 by representative sen which would make open carry of deadly weapons in a manner that would make a reasonable person feel threatened a crime of criminal mischief and that's being heard in the house civil rights and judiciary committee tomorrow morning um and i think that that is all that i have this week in the effort of being short

A lot there, I know, Robin.

So we appreciate you highlighting the ones that are sort of high level, at the sort of high level and need for...

collective awareness and know that there are a lot of other bills moving in this space.

So we do have the benefit of having the full summary here.

So for colleagues who are interested in a deeper dive, that is available to you.

Any other questions for Robin before we move along?

It looks like there are no additional questions.

So let's continue.

And safety net and civil rights, a couple bills to play.

House Bill 1073 that's expanding the paid family leave by Representative Berry continues to work on reducing the cost but keeping those equity concerns elevated.

That bill is expected to be exact this week.

And House Bill 1151, which is the large human service priority, addresses a lot of safety net needs, passed out of committee and has been referred to appropriations.

And then finally, Senate Bill 5061, which expands unemployment insurance to high risk individuals, those who live with them, and those who quit their jobs during a public health emergency has passed out of the House and then quickly moved over to the Senate where it passed as well.

So that is great news in the public safety realm.

Great.

Any questions or comments, colleagues?

All right, looks like there are no questions or comments, so let's keep going.

And routing it out with transportation, two bills to highlight here for you.

First is House Bill 1301. This would essentially allow regional transit authorities, Sound Transit, to conduct alternative fare enforcement, including allowing them to provide a notice of violations instead of citations.

And then House Bill 1304, which I understand is a priority for several offices, this would essentially allow the existing city transportation authority statutes and revenue mechanisms to be applied to grade-separated transportation, including light rail.

This bill is not currently scheduled for a hearing, but my understanding is that it will be scheduled for a hearing likely sometime next week, but the exact date is to be determined.

And then finally, I do want to provide, I know we're running short on time, I do want to provide just a brief update on Senator Hobbs, Chair Hobbs' transportation revenue proposal, which was released last week, last Wednesday.

Very high level, this is approximately $18 to $19 billion in transportation revenue.

There is a range here because the proposal includes two options related to carbon pricing.

The first assumes the governor's cap and invest legislation passes and that 50% of the revenue would go towards transportation projects.

In that option, there's also a standalone funding mechanism for culverts, which is currently to be determined.

The other alternative is a carbon fee of $20 per ton on uh transportation sector uh carbon emissions uh in addition in sort of for for both options there's a six cent gas tax increase uh an air quality surcharge which is applied at the sale or retitling of vehicles as well as a statewide transportation benefit assessment which applies to most non-agricultural forms of property This one, you know, there's a variety of funding revenue allocations.

I won't go into right now, but I will follow up with a summary.

I would note this one does include a project list, unlike the houses proposal.

There is 25 million for the West Seattle Bridge.

There's also 70 million for Aurora Bridge.

safety improvements.

I think given that was included last year, I think given some of the dynamics further north on Aurora with pedestrian safety, we would be looking to broaden that to address the full scope of desired safety improvements along Aurora, but that funding is currently included in there.

And I'll pause there in the interest of time and happy to take any questions on transportation.

Thank you, Quinn.

Any questions on transportation?

Looks like there are no questions.

And that concludes our presentation for today.

We're also happy to follow up offline with any additional questions as they arise.

Great.

Thank you so much, Lily, for that.

And thank you to everybody on OIR.

I see that we have a couple of hands up for perhaps general comments or other questions that weren't covered.

So we'll go ahead and take these two questions before we go ahead and close out this section so we can move into our fourth item of business on the agenda.

So Councilmember Strauss and then Councilmember Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

It's great to see everyone's face.

I will keep my remarks brief and maybe we can follow up offline.

That would be helpful.

I've become aware of Senate Bill 5022 regarding plastics and styrofoam.

I have an interest specifically in the styrofoam section.

In the Senate bill report, it talks about expanded polystyrene ban for the sale and distribution of the following EPS products.

wondering is this much like what seattle has already done banning styrofoam for takeout food containers or if it goes further and i'll focus uh my question here in particular is i recently went into the grocery store around the corner from my house and noticed that they were selling styrofoam coolers my question is you know at this day and age why are we continuing to sell styrofoam coolers when we know that this is As somebody that loves the beach and loves the water, I see styrofoam everywhere.

I don't understand why we're continuing to pollute our waterways with styrofoam.

So question in particular is would this bill ban the sale of such styrofoam coolers in our supermarkets?

Or is this more like what Seattle previously did with the food to go containers?

And if I know I may have caught you off guard with this question, so feel free to follow up with me offline.

I would have to follow up on the specifics of whether it bans styrofoam coolers.

Generally speaking, you know, it creates a producer responsibility system for the management of a variety of recyclable and non-recyclable content.

But I'll follow up on styrofoam coolers specifically.

Thank you.

Thank you, Quinn, for that.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Mosqueda, please.

Good morning.

I think the last time we chatted, I had asked about any type of legislation that would be needed to address the Sarah Silver, Inner Bay property and expedite the transfer of the properties that we can start building housing and mixed use opportunities in that Sarah Silver, Appreciate that.

I think the packet in front of us.

When I didn't have a chance to ask you about it during general government, but a house bill 1173 by representative was Barry creates the Ballard Interbay PDA that we talked about to help with the transfer of the property that currently holds the armory.

Thank you for including that.

Is there anything that we need to do as a city to continue to express our support and I guess the urgency for accessing that public land and turning it into something more productive?

And any crystal balls on how likely it is that that's going to pass this year?

At this point, so the bill had a hearing and was exact out, I believe, on Friday.

It's headed to capital budget now.

So we'll continue to engage there.

I think, I don't, I unfortunately don't have any crystal ball predictions to offer.

I think the general – there's a lot of interest in proceeding with creating a plan and a structure for this site and the National Guard's move.

I think there continues to be some discussions around industrial uses there, and we're tracking and monitoring those.

But I think that's the best I can offer at this point on that particular piece of legislation.

Katie Ahlman, Okay, great and i'm happy to talk to anybody about that, I think that, as we had talked to people in the past absolutely wanting to maintain access to industrial use as a big priority, I also think that there's a way for it to be done in a mixed use.

Katie Ahlman, It through mixed use strategy to allow for housing as well.

So I would love to make sure that we're marrying those two priorities, supporting our industry and also creating more opportunity for folks to have access to high opportunity areas like access to grocery stores and transit, which having lived just around the corner from there, I know well would be a great way for us to use some of the airspace over that large piece of land as we also accommodate for additional industry.

Thank you, Quinn.

Absolutely.

Happy to keep you engaged on that legislation as it moves forward.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate that conversation.

Super important.

Any other comments or questions before we go ahead and close out?

One last call.

Okay.

Looks like no one else is raising their hand.

Really want to say thanks to the team over at OIR for all the work that they're doing and for keeping us apprised and also presenting us with lots of opportunities to engage in this virtual legislative session to make sure that the city's priorities continue to be at the forefront of discussions so really really appreciate all your efforts so with that we are going to say goodbye until next time to our folks from oir and we are going to go ahead and begin Our fourth agenda item, which is a presentation on Black Brilliance Research Project preliminary report.

Excuse me, pardon me.

I believe that Council Member Morales, there you are, I was looking for you in the Hollywood Squares format here.

I believe Council Member Morales has some introductory remarks that she would like to make and then Council Member Morales, in the course of making your introductory remarks, can you sort of just give us a run of show in terms of, because I know we have Council Central staff with us available as well.

So if you can just sort of walk us through the order of sequence in terms of the presentation this morning, that would be great.

It is, we're about 10 minutes late here.

So yeah, we're about 10 minutes late.

So we're scheduled to go until about 1045, adding an additional 10 minutes to the back end.

So So take it away.

Sure.

Thank you.

I will try to be brief here.

As we know, we heard from the researchers in December.

We've had some time to review their most recent update.

All of you colleagues should have received that last week.

And so we've asked them to come and answer any questions that you have.

But first we wanted central staff to come today and share what they see as some of the policy considerations that council may want to consider.

I do want to also let you know, this is preliminary research.

This is not a report on the public, on the participatory budget process itself.

That process will begin once we lift the proviso on implementation funds.

So my office has been meeting with Deputy Mayor Washington.

We've met with some of the department heads to talk about how we begin preparing for that.

And the Deputy Mayor and I agree that we need to be meeting regularly with some department heads, with researchers, because we need to start drafting a spending plan, which is the requirement for lifting the proviso.

So those conversations are continuing.

so um so we today will be hearing from central staff as well um and as we hear from them i do want to ask folks to keep in mind that this is leading us to a process that will change the community conditions that have led to violence but also have led to poor health outcomes conditions like racism food insecurity poor economic conditions poor mental health supports This is about community safety, but it is not about a one-to-one replacement for SPD functions.

We are doing some of that work in public safety.

Last week we talked about the community safety initiative.

But this is really, I think of this as a public health framework and working to make population level change.

It's not necessarily about tracking outputs.

So if we're really committed to healthy, thriving neighborhoods, then we have to ask ourselves if we're investing public resources that we need to get us there.

So when we passed the PB budget legislation, it was with the intent of having better outcomes for our black and brown neighbors, not just in terms of addressing violence, but also in broader outcomes so that we can create greater stability and greater economic prosperity for our neighbors.

So we've asked central staff to come and talk about some of the policy considerations, and then we do have folks from the research and from KCEN here to answer questions.

So I'm going to hand it over to them, and then I will have just a couple of closing remarks to let you know what next steps are coming once the presentation is done.

All right.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for those comments.

So Amy Gore is up first.

okay so amy um take it away and then um and then we will uh shift gears again good morning amy good morning thank you council president gonzalez um for the record my name is amy gore with council central staff um also on the call is dan eater interim director of central staff as well as several members from the black brilliance research project team who will be speaking in just a minute and will introduce themselves at that point um i'm going to go ahead and share my screen This morning we'll be walking through a very short summary of the preliminary report of the Black Brilliance Research Project and a list of potential policy issues or choices for participatory budgeting for Council's consideration.

I have a presentation which outlines the contents of the memo that is provided on the agenda of today's meeting.

Before we jump in, I just want to acknowledge that the Black Brilliance Research Project represents months of work by over 100 individuals.

I hope that folks will take the time to look at the results of the work in the preliminary report, since we really don't have time to do it justice this morning.

By way of background, during the summer budget session, Council appropriated $3 million to the legislative department to enter into contracts with community-based organizations to research processes that will promote public safety informed by community needs.

The council's intention was that this initial funding would be used to develop recommendations for a participatory budgeting process for 2021. The adopted budget includes over $30 million for participatory budgeting, including up to $1 million for community-based organizations and city departments to run the process.

$500,000 to support the development of a civilian crisis response and social service triage system app.

And the third, the remainder of the funding will be used for investments recommended by the PB process.

As Councilmember Morales mentioned, these funds are under proviso, which states that the money cannot be spent until authorized by Council and that Council anticipates that the proviso will not be lifted until the executive submits a spending plan for the funds.

In November, council hired the Freedom Project with King County Equity now as a subcontractor to conduct this work.

The Black Brilliant Research Project is conducting qualitative and quantitative research about community safety and community needs.

This research provides the basis for the team's recommendations for the city's participatory budgeting program, including identifying community needs to support participation, a framework for an equitable participatory budgeting process, and recommended priority investment areas.

Council heard more about this research during the December 14th council meeting.

The remainder of my presentation is focused on the results of the research, but I wanted to pause and see if the consulting team wanted to add anything at this point.

And I'll turn it over to Sean and Amaisha for that.

Thank you so much.

Imijah, go ahead.

Hi.

Thank you all, Council, for this opportunity to speak.

I just want, my name is Imijah Smith and I have recently joined King County Equity Now and their leadership team.

And I just wanted to be here just to give an introduction about King County Equity Now and really be a support as Sean shares the report.

So King County Equity Now is basically a Black-led research organization.

that does advocacy amplification research.

It stands on the shoulders of historic Black organizing in Washington state, primarily centered from the Central District, the historic Central District in Seattle.

I also just want to do a share out to say thank you to all those who are the winds behind our back.

That means the Black organizers, that's all the volunteers who have shown up and it's been really strong in supporting the organization, private donors, anyone who's just given support and really calling out our leadership in terms of our elders, our healers, our educators, what have you, that has brought King County Equity now to the place it is today to even have this presentation.

I also would like to allow Treyonna Holliday, who's also part of our leadership team, to do a quick introduction as we pass it along to Sean.

Thank you.

Thank you, Imijah, and thank you, Council, everyone present today.

It is important that folks understand King County Equity Now and the organizations that it really represents creates a collective surge of energy.

When we talk about advocacy, policy and amplification, I love to call it personification because a lot of the numbers and data that we're able to gather through our research and other mechanisms really indicates that there's people that are on the ground that are the experts.

And King County Equity now by bringing all of those experts together has really been able to create a sense of connectivity amongst all of us.

And it is really built on the backbone of the black organizing right here throughout Washington, particularly in Seattle.

And it's great to be a part of a team that understands that the answers are already within our community.

The research highlights a lot of that.

And I think that it's important to understand when we talk about some of the wins we've already seen, It's really because of that collective organizing and that people power voice that we've been able to mobilize and move it from the moment into a movement and also taking all of that information and expertise and moving it through policy.

So I'm really excited to be able to be here and I'm looking forward to answering any questions you may have.

Go ahead, Sean.

Thanks, y'all.

So I'll be presenting on the research findings related to the Black Brilliance Research.

Thank you, Amija, and thank you, Trey, for that intro.

There are several organizations that are part of this work, including King County Equity Now.

And so we also have Freedom Project, the Silent Task Force, East African Community Services, Bridging Cultural Gaps, Black Trans Prayer Book, Sacred Community Connections, Forever Safe Spaces, And that's just like a portion of the work.

What I'd really like to highlight for you all, because I saw, I had a chance to see the memo that you'll be sharing more details for, is the need for a comprehensive and multi-pronged approach.

What community really wants to make sure is clear and that wasn't as clear in the memo is that when people think about community safety, they think about how housing, mental health, youth development, economic development, crisis and wellness are intertwined.

How we are only as safe as our most vulnerable, we are only as healthy as our most vulnerable as COVID-19 has underscored, and that those closest to the issues are closest to the solutions.

Another key point I'd like to make sure is highlighted for this work is that as Trey had said, we really know that community-based response is the name of success.

If we really want to see a 2021 and beyond that is healthier and safer, what we really need to focus on is hyperlocal responses.

We see some of that reflected in the state bills that were presented at the top of this hour, but we also hear this over and over and over again from community, how in many cases we want to move away from a system where things are super centralized and more towards a reality where several people, including your neighbors, have the skills needed to handle, to prevent, handle, and respond to crises.

The last pieces, because I know we're short on time, related to this work is I saw there were several questions in the memo about specific priorities that people have related to the five buckets of housing, housing and physical space, mental health, economic development, youth and children, and crisis and wellness.

I have specific slides on that as well that I could share as part of this presentation.

Amy, I want to do a quick time check.

Is it okay for me to take two minutes to show the slides, or how would you like to proceed?

That is fine with me.

Go ahead.

Okay, great.

So I'm going to share my screen.

So as we mentioned before, this research, there are over 100 paid researchers as part of this.

several volunteers that help support this work.

I'm gonna go here.

So housing and space is one of the top priorities for the research over and over and over again, whether it's interviews, focus groups, people coming to office hours to give us feedback, which are public, by the way.

So if you wanna come to our office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays 10 to 11 to share with us, please do.

And then also we've had community conversations.

We're hearing about these key things.

that there needs to be more Black land ownership and home ownership, office spaces, cultural spaces, spaces for specific communities within that.

So that includes people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated, trans people, youth, as well as several other very specific types of interventions people want to see.

For today, what I will hold up in particular for housing and space is that we really need to be thinking about communities that are left out of our existing systems.

So one clear example that we heard from a community member who had interviewed several people as part of their research was that there's not enough support for single mothers and there's not enough support for people who are experiencing domestic violence.

That when people think about violence and how housing can help domestic violence isn't often one of the things that people talk about.

So we've heard community talk about things like supportive shelter, as well as temporary shelters and temporary housing and buying of hotels to provide immediate shelter.

In terms of mental health, we've heard, again, a need for more comprehensive wellness programs, especially Black specific ones.

What I would like to share here, because I know that some of this is reflected in the memo, is that when we talk about culturally competent care, what we've noticed is there's a disconnect.

that the current existing system thinks that you can sort of sprinkle black and brown providers into the existing system and provide culturally competent care.

But what we're hearing over and over again is a need to really radically shift how these systems function, change the way that they are compensated and paid and invested in, as well as really expand out how many people without professional credentials can provide the kind of behavioral health, relational health supports needed to create a safer community.

So for that, I'll save some of those questions for our Q&A if we have time.

But there really is a need to shift the way that we deliver services.

And it doesn't necessarily mean expanding out the professional services, although that is helpful.

It's really about really thinking about how to create those hyper-local responses.

And part of that is training community members and supporting community members through this work.

Third piece is youth and children.

Here we have things that include expanding access to child care, high quality child care, and living wage jobs.

In the memo, it mentions expanding living wage jobs for some people, I believe youth.

But we were really key on noting that it's both youth and also adults.

that when you think about creating safety and health and thriving, you think about how you're able to really provide enough support so that people can live a life that is able to create the world we want to see.

So that means addressing root causes of harm.

That means doing education around healthy relationships and mentorship and making sure that art and cultural work is part of the core for where we're going.

The last two pieces are on economic development and crisis and wellness, and I know our time is short.

For economic development, one key thing that was missing from the memo that we want to make sure gets highlighted in the public record is the need for expanding out digital literacy and also for funding Oh, sorry.

And also for hiring community members as consultants to do this work, because part of what we are seeing over and over again is when left to its own devices, city government can get us part of the way, but community voice really needs to lead in terms of creating the fundamental shifts we want to see.

Thanks, Kido.

Go ahead and go into the other room for a little bit.

I'm almost done.

Last piece is crisis and wellness.

um so for here of course we have divesting from systems that harm us that goes without saying um but what i really want to highlight for this one is the need for hyper local culturally responsive linguistically appropriate um care so what that looks like and if you want to think about it is people are really pushing for something that looks closer to a pilot program where there are many pilots many different community responses to care things like um training up your skills in restorative and transformative justice, as well as being able to take these existing workers who are doing this work and get them the resources they need to be able to grow and to expand our community of care.

So with that said, I will stop for a moment and turn it back over to Amy.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Sean.

And I'll keep going through the remainder of the slides very quickly unless we want to stop for any questions now or wait until the end.

Council President, do you have an opinion about that?

The slide should take me just probably five more minutes.

Okay, I'll keep going.

Okay, so I'm going to pull this presentation back up.

Thanks, Amy, for pulling that.

As you're pulling that up, colleagues, for those of you who might have questions and want to get into the queue, I would encourage you to use the raise your hand feature in Zoom now to get into the queue.

We have about eight to 10 minutes left here this morning.

Amy, go ahead.

I'll do this as quickly as possible.

The consulting team and their research partners developed a community needs assessment This is the result of that work.

The chart indicates the most frequent responses to the question, what would help you do your best work?

As you can see, transportation was a key concern, with free Orca cards the number one response, and gas money as the third most recent response.

Grocery money was the second most frequent response.

In addition, there was a significant interest in technology support, such as high-speed internet, hotspots, laptops, and tablets.

There's also a need for childcare and childcare support as well as physical accessibility to the space where any meetings might occur.

I'm going to skip over this slide since Sean did such a great job of providing the overview of these as well as some really great additional detail of the priority investment areas.

Let's see.

The report includes a preliminary budgeting roadmap with the five steps outlined in this slide.

In addition to the steering committee, the consulting team recommends that the project be supported by several work groups, including outreach, accountability, lived experience, a research and evaluation team, and budget delegates and process facilitators.

The team has provided roles and responsibilities as well as desired qualifications and a selection process for these participants.

participants, which are summarized in attachment two of the memo.

Let's see.

So the next, the final few slides included a list of policy issues that council may want to consider as the PB program is developed and implemented.

First, community needs assessment data.

As I mentioned, the team did a great survey and it included a question about languages spoken.

And it might be helpful to get the specific responses to that question to help determine the language needs for the PB process.

Priority investment areas.

The priority investment areas identified by the team represent a really broad range of potential programmatic approaches.

I think the additional details like Sean was getting into earlier today about priorities within those investment areas could help direct investments and set clear guidelines for the PB recommendations and to make sure that the projects that are selected are consistent with the recommendations of the BBR projects.

Let's see, community safety strategy.

The recommendations in the report include some investments which are intended to create alternatives to certain functions of the criminal legal system.

But the majority are longer term upstream investments, which are intended to reduce the need for the criminal legal system at all.

And so understanding how various projects and the various investment strategies fit into that context will help the PB participants balance investments into these short, mid, and long term strategies.

Some of these are kind of like detail-oriented about related to participatory budgeting.

I think having a timeline so that everyone in terms of consultants, participants, legislative department and executive department are all on the same page and have a shared understanding of what the timeline for this project will be, for PB will be.

Amy, excuse me for interrupting.

I think you're one slide ahead of your speaking notes.

Sorry about that.

Let's see.

And then B, the report identifies compensation of community members for their time and expertise as a priority.

Additional information about what an equitable pay structure could look like, including what roles should be compensated and how, I think would assist in operating that policy and that choice.

I keep doing that.

I apologize.

The roadmap includes detailed information on roles and responsibilities at various groups, including the steering committee and the different work groups, also city staff and departments and the PB project team.

The recommendations specify that community should lead this process.

However, it's unclear whether the recommendation is that one or more organizations are hired by the city to lead or if the process should have a diffused organizational structure funded and coordinated by the city.

The report recommends that participatory budgeting continue to be organized by council district, which is how it has been done in the past in terms of outreach, project development, and voting.

Recommendations on funding strategies or set-asides to make this more equitable I think would be helpful because there probably is not the same level of impact as it relates to community safety within within the districts.

And reflecting that through the funding would probably be important.

Engagement with legislative and executive departments.

The report includes recommendations on the role of staff in both the executive and legislative departments.

It will be necessary to get everyone on the same page about roles and responsibility moving forward, particularly related to what departments will have what role in this process moving forward.

Finally, on this slide, city contracting policies.

The report highlights the need for the city to share information with participants about existing city investments so that their choices can be deeply informed by that.

I would recommend that the program should also include training for budget delegates and facilitators on city contracting requirements, understanding the legal and regulatory constraints of the city's contracting policies such as prohibition of public funds, excuse me, gifts of public funds will help ensure that the project development is in accordance with those requirements.

And this is the last slide.

Finally, the city has several concurrent interrelated initiatives related to community safety and criminal justice, including the community safety initiative, the criminal legal system realignment project, amongst many others.

Considering how the city can coordinate and leverage these processes with the Black Brilliance Research Project and participatory budgeting may result in more impactful and efficient investments.

I also wanted to mention that the 2021 funding appropriated for participatory budgeting is one-time funding.

Unless ongoing funding is identified, this should inform project development Um, voting and funding so that ongoing programs are not stood up without continuing resources.

Um, and the last thing I wanted to note is that the report represents a tremendous amount of work and to ensure that the work is accessible to the community and city staff and policy makers, um, council and the consulting team may want to consider, um, hosting the document on the council's website, maybe creating smaller sections and chapters that are easier to download and navigate.

as well as including a centralized link to all of the research products, including the podcast and survey results and things like that to make it easier for council members and the community to see all of that good work that's been done.

So that concludes the presentation.

Before we go to questions, I just wanted to mention briefly that there are two next steps.

First is that the consulting team will work on finalizing the report.

And second, we will be working with the executive on legislation to lift the proviso, which will hopefully be before council in March.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions or turn it back over to the council president.

okay thank you Amy so much for that presentation we are a little crunched for time here but do want to offer the opportunity to council members to ask one or two questions of staff and or our guests on the panel so Council Member Mosqueda, I see that your hand is up, but I'm wondering if that's a layover from a hangover from the previous presentation.

I do have a question, Council President, but I might not have been the first one to try to raise my hand, so I'm happy to also wait.

No, you are the first one in the queue, and then we'll hear from Council Member Herbold.

Okay, thank you very much, Council President, and thank you all so much.

Amaisha, it's great to see you.

Congratulations on your new...

uh gig it's been an honor to work with you in the past and really excited about this new appointment and for all the folks um on the zoom today it's great to see all of you uh sean and triana and others who have been engaged in this work over the last you know, eight to six months.

It's really great to see all this coming together.

Amy sort of got to the question that I had in her last slide.

Thank you, Amy, which was, is there like an executive summary?

I tried to download the report and the slides that you were showing, Sean, I think get to the heart of the question that I have, like, are there high level takeaways that we should start preparing for now?

And then are there, is there a timeline, like a visual timeline that we should be able to anticipate for when these recommendations will be sent.

Amy mentioned working with the executive on legislation to release funds and stuff like that.

But I'll give one example.

The small bits that I saw from the housing work that you all did affirms, validates everything that we've been hearing about where funding should be going to create more stable housing.

So it's really helpful to have that real-time data and qualitative information to go along with those policy recommendations.

A lot of coverage has been made of the city of Austin for being able to purchase a hotel to help shelter folks who are currently living in-house.

And I was thinking as we were reading those reports, Much of that similar strategy, I think, is what Seattle is looking at, right?

But you all are doing the process to identify what types of housing and what types of shelter folks need first so that it's really making sure that those dollars can go into the housing stability options.

in very similar vein, I think the city of Seattle, when we release those funds to go into either purchasing structures or building the housing that we need, we'll see similar trade-offs where we have taken funding that would have otherwise gone to traditional policing models and actually created greater stability to prevent folks from ever being in situation that involves police in the first place.

So I see a lot of similarities, but I just want to show the public, hey, this is the timeline and here's where you can expect to see some of these recommendations come to council and the money go out the door and for that that transformational change, whether it's funding to organizations or purchasing or standing up housing and shelter, this is when it will happen.

And it's just, it's so important to have our policy decisions rooted in the experiences that you all just highlighted today.

And so being able to translate to the broader community, what that timeline is, I think will be very helpful, but I'm just incredibly excited about the snippets that I saw, Sean, from the presentation that you shared.

So any sort of update to be able to maybe give me an update for when that timeline is going to be available and that the executive summary would be great as well.

Sure, I can answer that super quickly.

In terms of timeline, this week and next week, we are wrapping our interviews, including with city employees.

We've been talking to them in office hours to get a sense of level of detail that would be sufficient to create realistic timelines, as well as talking to more community members.

With that said, the final report, which we are slated to turn in February 19th and present on the 26th, will have that level of detail as well.

We're also wrapping up some conversations around participant compensation this week.

So finding out from those who are most likely to score highly in terms of being on the steering committee, what does equitable compensation look like to you?

What we've found so far has been pretty surprising.

So I'm really looking forward to sharing those details.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, next up is Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

Really appreciate folks coming and taking the time to share with us some of the initial outcomes of your research.

This is really exciting work and I'm really thankful for your guidance to us in moving these recommendations forward.

One question I have is really for the categories of of wellness and physical spaces.

Just wondering how it is that we are, or if we are, looking at and whether or not the report itself includes recommendations for how to integrate the Black Brilliance Project recommendations with, for instance, the work of the Equitable Community Initiative or the the other equitable initiative, the equitable development initiative, or the $12 million investment in community safety capacity investments, the work being led by the executive on the criminal legal system realignment work group.

Either how to integrate the processes or if not the processes, the recommendations themselves.

Just really interested to know, again, because in both of those categories, I think there's some intentional a lot because, again, these are two of the high priorities for the community.

And it's also some of the work that the city has been doing independently of the Black Brilliance Project.

So just really interested to know what your thoughts are about whether to integrate that work.

And I'm not assuming that you would as it relates to the processes, but just interested to hear what you think.

And then on the, not just from the processes, but on the alignment of the recommendations or funding approach.

Thank you.

Sure, absolutely.

Lots of pieces there, but I think I got them all.

One is in terms of the mayor's task force, which is sort of a parallel process that the mayor created after we won participatory budgeting.

My understanding is that they may decide to allocate part or all of their budget towards participatory budgeting, which would be great because really no one wants to see communities pitted against each other, especially when it's not the community themselves doing the pitting.

So what's really great about this is this research can be used to inform just if you're interested in where city investments should go, where public money should go, this report is pretty comprehensive in that regard.

Second piece I'll say is in terms of equitable development, my understanding is that the Office of Planning and Community Development had already planned to explore a participatory budgeting process before all of this really kicked off.

I'd even attended trainings about what it could look like to distribute that money this way.

So being able to say, wow, what great timing it is for us to be able to have research like this to help inform potentially a process like that is really exciting to me.

Third piece I'll say is that in terms of participatory budgeting and how it might be related to other city initiatives, I saw that note in the memo, which is now we're drafting up a section on that for the final report.

I can tell you that luckily, because the existing work does work with well-known community partners who have also been involved in this research, I can expect that you'll see a considerable amount of overlap and also thoughtfulness about how to line those pieces up.

We've also been working with the restorative key passageways group as part of the research to learn more about what that regional sort of effort is to really thinking about taking steps towards a new world where we have less punishment, criminalization, and more care and comprehensive support.

So I'm hoping that answered all of your questions, which is that basically because the communities that we are engaged in are also recognized as experts in other spaces and makes it really easy to coordinate and report.

Thank you for that, Shawn.

Did you have something to add?

If I could?

Oh, please.

Just the one piece related to also on the the wellness and safety side.

Just wondering whether or not you've been invited to come and present to the city's IDT on the criminal legal system realignment work group.

I will have to double-check.

We get a lot of invites, but I'll double-check and get back to you.

Thank you so much.

Great.

Amijah, did you have something you wanted to add?

Yes, I wanted to add definitely supporting what Shonda shared.

the how imperative it is in these collaborations or collective conversations with other departments, which I support that, but it's imperative to have the Black community voice there with the gentrification that has happened in Seattle, has moved across King County, the displacement and Black community trying to resettle in other spaces.

our voices can oftentimes be invisibilized, erased.

So although this is focused on the city of Seattle and PB is for the whole community, not just for one, but it's very imperative that we have conversation and have some centering of some Black experiences within those other departments.

So I definitely agree and support that that needs to happen and figure out how we can best do that.

Please reach out to King County Equity now and especially around criminal legal system that is our community king county has been impacted in some of the worst ways across the state, thank you.

Great Thank you so much for that conversation colleagues any additional questions.

Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands raised.

Councilor Morales, any closing remarks?

Sure, I wanna thank everybody for coming and sharing your updates with us.

As Shawn mentioned, the next steps for us will be a final report in my committee.

So I'm really excited about this chapter in our city's history and I wanna, I hope my colleagues will really step into this work with curiosity and with a willingness to make this a success.

Our next committee is February 26th.

We will hear the final report at that time.

And I would ask council members, if you have questions about what you have seen or read or heard today, Please do send those to me, to my office.

Our hope is that we can compile everybody's questions and send one document to the researchers so that they can be ready at that February 26th meeting to address any final concerns that you have.

So you can send them to me.

I will most likely be in touch as well with central staff so that we can coordinate that.

And really looking forward to this.

I think it's important that we remember, again, these existing conditions are the result of generations of underinvestment.

And this is a real opportunity for us to shift the way we use public resources and our taxpayer dollars.

so that we are investing in a much more meaningful way to make more prosperous and more thriving communities for our neighbors.

So thanks again to everybody and I look forward to our next conversation.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales, for those remarks and thanks for coordinating with my office and opportunity for us to have this presentation in council briefing.

and look forward to the future conversations around this that I think will be hosted in your committee, I think so.

Okay, thank you so much to all of our panelists, Sean, Amijah, Triana.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning and for all of the work that you've done to date.

We look forward to continuing to have important conversations with you all.

Have a good day.

Stay safe out there.

Take care.

Okay, colleagues, we're going to go ahead and shift gears here over to preview of today's City Council Actions Council and Regional Committees.

Just as a reminder, the order of reports for today is going to be Council Member Morales, then Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herbold, Juarez, Lewis, and then I'll conclude this agenda discussion.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and dig in.

First up is Council Member Morales, and then we will hear from Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thanks, everybody.

I feel like I've talked a lot already.

So I will just say that there are several items on today's agenda from the Community Economic Development Committee.

We will be hearing an ordinance changing the name of the formerly People with Disabilities Commission to the Disability Commission.

And then we also have, I think it's 15 appointments for various commissions.

And that's it.

That's on the agenda.

I do want to state, although our Office of Intergovernmental and our governmental relations folks did mention already.

On Friday, I testified before the House Public Safety Committee in support of House Bill 1310, which would limit the use of deadly force.

My understanding is that that bill is now in executive session, will be in committee February 4th.

So I'm hopeful that that will continue on its way.

I'm gonna call that good.

That is my report for today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, hearing none, we're going to go ahead and hear now from Council Member Mosqueda, and then we will hear from Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you very much.

Council President, today on the introduction and referral calendar, there are two appointments to the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

and an appointment to the Seattle Housing Authority.

On today's full council agenda, there are quite a few appointments and reappointments from the Finance and Housing Committee.

We have Paula Houston from the Seattle Housing Authority Board who is getting reappointed.

We also have the reappointments of Paul Breckenridge, Julian Crowner, Bob Fisco, George Staggers, Derek Belgrade, Rachel Ben Samuel, all as members of the Community Roots Housing Public Development Authority.

and we have the appointments of sarah cubios michelle morlan michelle pernell hepburn all to the community roots housing pda as well and then four appointments and reappointments to the labor standards advisory board janae chun um iliana ilona lorne and arty nazrati as well as samantha grad There is not going to be a Finance and Housing Committee meeting this week.

Colleagues, thank you for your flexibility.

We have a light agenda, including a few reappointments and appointments that we're going to go ahead and hold for the next two weeks.

So our next regularly scheduled meeting is on February 19th, and that will be at 9.30 a.m.

Colleagues, we also have a few updates from Office of Labor Standards that I wanted to pass along.

We will, at our next meeting, be able to have a discussion and briefing and possible confirmation on the interim director who started today on a temporary basis until the council affirms their appointment.

This is Director Steven Marchese at the Office of Labor Standards.

The mayor's office is going to be reaching out to council members to make sure that we have time to meet with the appointee in advance of the meeting on the 19th as we consider the appointment process.

We did receive the full packet as requested by this council a few years ago to make sure that there was robust stakeholder engagement.

And we will be reviewing that process as well as the other materials that the executive sent down as we consider the director's appointment.

We will also be sending around a list of potential questions for you all to continue to chime in on as we consider that conversation on the 19th.

Our friends at the Office of Labor Standards wanted to highlight three important partnerships that they are engaged in for the public's awareness and for the council members as well.

Many of you have had your fingerprints on the legislation and opportunities for partnerships that I'll be mentioning right now.

So I think it's a great opportunity for us to highlight the ways in which your good work is being carried out by the folks at the Office of Labor Standards.

First, the Office of Labor Standards is announcing the 2021-2022 Business Outreach and Education Fund partners.

Through this fund, Office of Labor Standards partners with organizations to provide labor standards resources and information to businesses who are typically not served by our traditional outreach efforts.

This includes businesses owned by immigrants and refugees, people of color, women, veterans, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQIA community.

Last week, OLS announced the recipients of $1.1 million of funding that will be given out over the next two years.

And these types of partnerships include organizations like the Ethnic Chamber of Commerce, Latino Community Fund, Ventures and New Partners, Business Impact Northwest, and Taper 100. Office of Labor Standards looks forward to the next two years of partnerships with these organizations, as does the City Council.

Congratulations, everyone.

The second partnership to highlight is with King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.

The council may remember that we passed the Protecting Hotel Employees from Violent and Harassing Conduct Ordinance, Seattle Municipal Code 14.26 this requires hotel employers to take certain measures to prevent and address violent and harassing conduct against workers at hotels the law also required ols to establish an agreement to make referrals to community-based organizations such as victim advocacy programs with confidential advocacy services for employees to contact for additional support OLS is happy to announce that they have entered into a one year contract with King County Sexual Assault Resource Center to support hotel employees covered by this law.

And for more information about KCSARC, you can go to their website at kcsarc.org.

And for more information about the ordinance protecting hotel employees from violent and harassing conduct, please go to seattle.gov backslash labor standards.

And finally, there is a partnership with Hand in Hand.

Folks might remember this amazing organization that worked with us as we passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.

OLS is announcing that they're pleased to continue their partnership with Hand in Hand.

This is a national network of employers of nannies, house cleaners, and home attendants by entering into a one-year contract with them to provide outreach and education on the Domestic Workers Ordinance that we passed.

This will be a contract for 2021 for Hand in Hand to work with community, And collaborate with organizations focused on outreach to domestic workers.

They've done an incredible job over this last year.

I want to echo my appreciation for them.

I want to also highlight that they have had monthly webinars, one of which was entitled My Home is Someone's Workplace, COVID-19 Edition.

which features the ongoing ways that we can make sure that folks who are hiring any domestic workers know that they really are, under Seattle's new law, considered hiring entities and have responsibility as such under our Seattle ordinance.

Again, appreciate the work that Office of Labor Standards is doing to make sure to get that information out.

And a connected reminder, the domestic workers ordinance requires those who pay for services of a domestic worker, called hiring entities, as the people who hire people to come into their home, either to clean or to offer nanny care or the variety of services as defined in the ordinance to pay domestic workers at least the Seattle minimum wage.

Many folks who are in independent businesses, they offer a lump sum, but as we engage in wanting to make sure that those lump sum services equal at least the minimum wage, a reminder that the minimum wage for most hiring entities is $16.69 an hour.

For more information, the Office of Labor Standards has made this easy for you all to understand what requirements employer entities have, including rights to meal breaks, protection from retaliation.

Please visit the Office of Labor Standards website, and you'll find resources such as model notice of rights, and they are working on available information that employers can make as model templates for workers as well, for those independent contractors.

And the TNC driver minimum compensation updated their per minute amount on February 1st.

That's today.

The transportation network company's minimum compensation ordinance took effect on January 1st.

Again, thanks to this incredible council for all of your work on that over the last year.

The TNCs must pay the greater of the minimum per mile amount of $1.33 and a per minute amount.

The permanent amount is adjusted each month until it reaches 57 cents on April 1st, 2021. February 1st, that's today, is the first adjustment.

The permanent amount increases from 32 cents to 41 cents per minute.

Additional details on this and key provisions of the ordinance can also be found on the Office of Labor Standards website.

And finally, from FAS, they have been engaged in a series of ways to participate to help get the word out about vaccines.

Again, I'm gonna hold that to add to anything Councilmember Herbold may have to share with us all on vaccine distribution, COVID updates as part of her weekly updates there.

But also wanted to note from FAS, that they have obtained the mayor's signature on a letter encouraging President Biden to allow the use of priority hire preferences on US Department of Transportation funded projects like the West Seattle Bridge.

The letter written by Jobs to Move America, which is a national advocacy organization for community benefits through public purchasing, is collecting signatures from mayor's offices and transit authorities across the nation.

I thank them for their work on this.

I thank the mayor for signing that letter.

In terms of race and social justice updates from FAS, they continue to partner to establish the city-wide department-specific WIMBY goals for 2021. And this year, FAS is raising awareness of historically low minority business enterprises, MBEs utilization, and more specifically, Black-owned firms.

FAS provided guidance and direction to the Mayor's Cabinet on departmental goal-setting.

and outreach plans.

In addition to establishing, FAS provided an overall WMBE report card by department and its performance on citywide ethnic lease spread.

FAS will continue to identify strategies and best practices that will increase spend with MBEs.

There are no updates today from the CBO or Office of Housing.

I also want to note that today is the first day of Black History Month.

I encourage folks to join a presentation at 1230 Pacific Time here from the National Poor People's Campaign.

Dr. Reverend William Barber will be presenting there, and folks I'm sure are familiar with Reverend Barber.

incredible speaker and has been a longtime champion of the Poor People's Campaign.

Opportunity to join is a national conversation, a national Zoom, Heal the Nation, 14 Policy Priorities for the First 100 Days of this Upcoming Administration.

time directly into the priorities that I know many are going to be lifting up over the month of February as we honor and recognize Black History Month and also the current ways in which past policies, past racist policies, continue to influence public policy today.

Well, you can find more information about that on thestand.org, from our partners at the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

And finally, I just want to say a very quick note of appreciation.

Thank you to the amazing volunteers, the team of both medical and non-medical volunteers, our first responders, including firefighters, those who've been volunteering countless hours to respond to the COVID crisis over the last year, but especially as the vaccine becomes more available.

I know many Folks have spent already a number of hours out there volunteering and people are asking what they can do, how they can help.

We are going to continue to fight for the macro policy changes, the policy discussion that you heard Council President speak to this morning, which I've been engaged in a conversation over the last week as well about a similar topic.

Looking forward to marrying those and appreciate the Council President's comment this morning about equitable distribution.

And we also know that there's a lot of folks who want to help on the ground by volunteering.

King 5 ran a report last week and provided this number to text if you are interested in volunteering.

Text to 206-448-4545.

Text the word volunteer again to 206-448-4545.

And you'll get a list of opportunities, ways that you can volunteer on the ground level around the Puget Sound region.

Thanks again to all of the incredible folks who are putting themselves out there and making the time to volunteer if they are able, physically able to do so.

It's greatly appreciated and we appreciate you.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda, for that report and looking forward to that partnership effort.

Really, really look forward to it.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions for Council Member Mosqueda?

Okay, hearing none.

I got a note from Council Member Morales that she forgot to mention one very important update as part of her report.

So we're going to double back for just a couple of minutes here to give her an opportunity to provide you all with this very timely, timely update.

Thank you, Council President.

I apologize, everyone.

I just want to say quickly that over the last couple of days, I learned that Bobby Lee, our Office of Economic Development Director, has been called back to Portland.

He, I think tomorrow is his first day working with the Portland mayor.

so i want to wish him well it makes me very sad to know that he's gone bobby has a real vision for inclusive economy and we had many great conversations about what we can do here in seattle to be building community wealth so i know that his team shares that vision and i look forward to working with whoever is selected as the interim director i have every faith that that person will be able to to carry on the work of the department.

But I do want to note that Bobby has left Seattle and that I am very sad about it.

So wanted colleagues to know about that and again want to wish him well in Portland.

Thank you, Council President.

Absolutely.

Thanks for noting that.

We wish Director Lee much luck in his next chapter and next adventure and look forward seeing who will be identified as the interim replacement in the Office of Economic Development, and look forward to getting those updates from you as well.

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

I think if memory serves me right, it's Councilmember Peterson that is next.

Yep, Councilmember Peterson, and then we'll hear from Councilmember Swann.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Adam L. While our transportation utilities committee has no items on today's full City Council agenda.

We've got a couple of items on the introduction referral calendar.

Adam L. Our next meeting of the transportation utilities committee is this Wednesday, February 3 at 930am I wanted to address a column that was published in yesterday's Seattle Times by John Talton.

I appreciate John Talton encouraging us to recognize how vital our local businesses are for the well-being of our economy, but I wanted to correct something that he said.

He said that he wrote, mass transit is in crisis, yet the council, which never fails to meddle, isn't interested.

That is false.

The City Council is passionate about expanding transit and has achieved concrete success despite the crises of 2020. Even though transit ridership is down during the pandemic and is structured to be funded regionally by King County Metro and Sound Transit, This city council established a special committee of all nine city council members to craft a comprehensive transit funding measure, boosting bus service throughout Seattle.

Our measure was ultimately endorsed by the Seattle Times and approved by 80% of voters to provide tens of millions of dollars each year for mass transit.

Moreover, whenever this council discusses new funding or policies for transportation, our first instinct is to support transit.

So I just want to correct the rector.

I believe this council is more than interested in transit.

We boldly boost it.

Speaking of transit.

With voters overwhelmingly approving that measure, we are considering the new transit service agreement with King County Metro for bus service, but that'll be on our February 17th committee.

The transit service agreement will spell out the terms of enhanced bus service that Seattle residents are funding with the Transportation Benefit District.

And for those interested in the spending proposals still being developed by our Seattle Department of Transportation, SDOT, for the vehicle license fees, VLF, our committee is likely to discuss those in March.

As a reminder, there are two buckets of funding.

There's the first source, which is the $60 VLF reserves that are left over from the previous measure.

That's about 23 million in one-time reserves.

SDOT is likely to be posting this week their initial ideas for how to invest those dollars.

The focus is likely to be on speeding up existing transit-related projects.

The second source of VLF funds is the new $20 car tab approved by this council recently.

This will generate only 3.6 million this year and 7.2 million in the following years.

This is the one where we pass the resolution 119951 about the stakeholder process.

So that will be coming later in March to our committee.

Just wanted to flag those for everybody.

I'll obviously put in my plug for Bridges to the extent we can have some of the $20 funding go toward Bridges.

That would be great so that we're responding to that audit from our city auditor.

Regarding Vision Zero, Our transportation data from 2020 demonstrates that Seattle needs to do much more work to meet our vision zero safety goals of sharply reducing traffic related deaths and serious injuries.

While there were fewer collisions in 2020 than in 2019, the reduction in fatalities was disturbingly minimal considering how few vehicles were on the road since the March 2020 COVID shutdowns and how much SDOT has been doing to improve safety, such as lowering speed limits and improving crosswalk signals.

Unfortunately, Seattle was one of many U.S. cities with this pattern last year.

The Transportation Utilities Committee will explore this more this, year you know earlier this year and we look forward to sdot continuing to install safety improvements at dangerous locations including rainier avenue south and state highway 99 aurora thank you thank you councilmember peterson any comments or questions on that report hearing none we'll go ahead and go down oh i'm sorry we got a question councilmember lewis

Thank you, Madam President.

It's not so much a question.

I just want to join and echo Councilmember Peterson's urging for bigger investment in bridge infrastructure and bridge replacement.

As we heard this morning from our Office of Intergovernmental Relations team, There are a lot of resources available potentially in the state budget.

We know there will be a big federal infrastructure package.

Being well positioned with the assets Councilmember Peterson mentioned in his briefing to fully capitalize on that possible support is something that I continue to be interested in, and I do appreciate Councilmember Peterson raising that issue again.

Thank you for those comments, Council Member Lewis.

And just a reminder, colleagues, if you raise your hand, please remember to lower your hand after you've made comments so that it's easier for me to track who's in the queue and who is not, appreciate it.

Okay, next up is Council Member Salant followed by Council Member Strauss, good morning.

Sorry.

No, that's okay.

I was like, I had you on off mute and then you went to mute.

So go ahead.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, Council President Gonzalez and Council members.

On today's City Council agenda, there are five items from the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee.

There are the appointments and reappointments to the City of Seattle Renters Commission.

We have reappointments of Christiana Obey-Sumner, Lori Goff, and Marcy Tate Lamar, and new appointments of Sharon Crowley, who is a member of the Housing Justice Workgroup at UAW Local 4121, and Maya Garfinkel, who is an organizer with BC Seattle.

Last Tuesday, we also discussed possible legislation to extend the moratorium on evictions and also a companion bill to guarantee the right to counsel to all legal counsel to all renters facing eviction in Seattle and some other cities.

like New York City and San Francisco have already done.

And I'm happy to also share, as was also reported by the Seattle Times, that Council Member Lewis has joined me in supporting this bill.

Neither of the bills have been introduced yet, but we will be working on that and we will be working with Council Member Lewis's office on the right to counsel bill.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee will be Tuesday, February 23rd at 2 p.m.

And we will have, my office will have updates on that.

various proposals between now and then.

I appreciate that Council Member Peterson brought up what I consider just an absolutely mind-boggling op-ed from John Talton in the Seattle Times, and it troubles me.

It's deeply troubling to me.

As of last night, this was the most liked article by online statistics on the Seattle Times.

I do agree with Council Member Peterson that the City Council does care about transit, yes.

But during the budget, my office put forward an amendment to increase the Amazon tax to avoid the $100 million cut to SDOT.

But there was no agreement from the rest of the council.

So that's just one example of how we should actually be doing things.

Not that John Talton is right about anything in the article, but just a point.

I do think it's quite striking how, anti-worker this op-ed is and it's obviously motivated by an attack on the city council's really important policy that was passed just last week on hazard pay for our grocery workers who are taking on real risks every day during the pandemic because they're going to work every day And he says, John Talton says, the hazard pay, quote, the hazard pay is limited to grocery workers.

Why?

What about delivery drivers, ride hailing drivers, janitors, restaurant employees, etc.?

End quote.

That's a good question.

I'm glad, John, you brought that up.

all frontline workers should be getting hazard pay, but that is not a reason to attack a really good policy for supporting grocery workers.

In fact, all grocery workers should be getting the $4 hazard pay.

It's good news that the state of California actually has announced that they are considering a $5 hazard pay for grocery workers.

These are bare minimum proposals that need to be done in the face of a pandemic and a recession that is hitting ordinary people extremely hard.

We've already heard from Council President Gonzalez earlier this morning about just the stunning inequities in the dissemination of the vaccination.

I also would comment very quickly on how he ends his op-ed by quoting H.L.

Mencken, who was an Ayn Rand favorite, to attack the idea of a democratic process.

This is just complete nonsense.

It's just really terrible And we should not be giving any credence to this.

And in fact, we should be going forward on progressive policies.

Lastly, he says in the op-ed, and this is perhaps the only important thing to take from this op-ed, he says a backlash will eventually come.

And I think that's an important warning.

Yes, big business and the billionaire class will be pushing back against the progressive policies.

that cities like Seattle have succeeded in passing because of the grassroots movements that we have seen in some of these cities.

And so we should actually be defending the policies that we have already been able to accomplish and be pushing forward on more progressive policies.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

you council president thank you colleagues good morning there are no items from the land use and neighborhoods committee on the introduction and referral count committee today calendar today there are four items from the land use and neighborhoods committee on today's agenda council bill 11992 which adopts construction code new construction codes including Boiler codes, building codes, electrical code, fuel gas code, mechanical code, plumbing code, and residential code, as well as Council Bill 119993, which adopts the new Seattle Energy Code.

I want to take a moment now to discuss both of these bills as we heard them in committee and they passed out of committee last week.

Discussing that as we transition our society to address the climate crisis, we also have to recognize that there are people's lives that also must change.

One amendment that passed in committee was changing the implementation date of space heating changes.

One amendment that was brought forward but pulled back would expand the space and water heating requirements to commercial areas.

commercial space and change that implementation date.

While these changes reduce our reliance on natural gas, we will now rely more heavily on heat pumps.

Heat pumps also rely on refrigerants that if not maintained and inspected also have a great impact on our climate.

Understanding that making these changes directly impact the work of our unionized pipefitters.

And as we transition to address the climate crisis, we also must ensure that this transition is not at the expense of union jobs that provide family wages and apprenticeships rather than student debt.

So there are three items that I'd like to just call out that were not able to be taken up in these two bills that I will need to work with you colleagues on in ensuring that these new codes are implemented well and that union jobs are also utilized to maintain and inspect these new products.

Inspections are an aspect of our code that is administered through the Seattle King County Board of Health.

I've already talked to Councilmember Mosqueda about working to ensure that inspections require a unionized inspector who's maintaining the devices to be on site during these inspections.

Thank you Councilmember Mosqueda for Also, managing my expectations that the Board of Health is responding to the COVID crisis and that that is the appropriate place.

Also, with decommissioned lines, one aspect that occurred in the Greenwood neighborhood before I came into office was that decommissioned line was not actually decommissioned, which led to the Greenwood explosion.

From my research, it is my understanding now that this is housed within the fire code.

And so council member Herbold, I will be working with you to ensure that we can have the proper maintenance inspection and decommissioning of natural gas lines once they are no longer used.

And thirdly, creating additional structural safety for existing natural gas lines within buildings.

This will have to come in the next round of building codes.

I was not able to get this into this round of building codes, and that is going to be something that I will be moving forward on my own.

I just wanted to take that moment to understand that as we transition to address the climate crisis, we also must ensure that we are maintaining decommissioning and inspecting all of these different lines in an appropriate manner, because we also know that 50% of fires during seismic events are due to natural gas lines.

So we need to ensure public safety and ensure that union jobs are doing this great work.

We know that when unions are doing the task, it's done to a higher standard.

Other land use and neighborhoods bills coming before full council this afternoon is clerk file 314461, an application to extend a contract rezone of 1106 34th Avenue and council bill 119987, which is the corresponding council bill for that contract rezone.

Additionally, we are planning to cancel the February 10th meeting of the Land Use Neighborhoods Committee.

So the next meeting will be on February 24th.

Last Monday, my staff attended the Fremont Neighborhood Council meeting.

I attended the Association of Washington City's Legislative Policy Committee.

And this week we are meeting with the 36th delegation regarding the Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor.

I am participating on my long awaited HealthONE Ride Along.

I will be attending the Wallingford Community Council meeting this Wednesday and that has created a conflict with attending the North Precinct Advisory Committee Council.

So we are ensuring that staff will be present there as well as my staff will be attending the Finney Ridge Community Council on Tuesday.

Here in District 6, I continue to hold District 6 office hours.

Last week, I had robust conversations with neighbors from downtown Ballard, Ballard that is not downtown Ballard, Fremont, Tangletown, Crown Hill, and Fiddy Ridge.

We discussed police reform, the regional authority on homelessness, neighbors expressing interest in joining existing volunteer offers, opportunities to support Clean Cities Initiative.

The impact neighbors have of the city continuing to let people suffer in our streets.

And I want to thank the district six neighbors for giving me their time.

I look forward to speaking with these six residents on Thursday, February 4th.

Again, we have times before and after the typical nine to five office hours.

Lastly, and not leastly, happy Black History Month.

This is a month dedicated to learning and reflecting on the achievements of the Black people and their tremendous role in shaping the United States of America.

This year's theme, the Black family, representation, identity, and diversity.

2020 was a year that made the world stop and look at racism present in our world.

and for us here, how racism operates within our institutions.

We have the power to change our society and to begin to right historical wrongs.

And colleagues, I look forward to endeavoring on this work with you.

Thank you, Council President and colleagues.

That is my report.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss for that report.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

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

Next up is Council Member Hurbold, and then we will go from Council Member Juarez.

Good morning, Council Member Hurbold.

Good morning, and thank you so much.

First off, just want to share that there is one item on the full council agenda today at 2 o'clock, and that is an item from my Public Safety and Human Services Committee, and it is appointment of Curry Mayer as Director to the Office of Emergency Management.

He'll be up first on the full council agenda.

Interim Director Mayor came to committee and was introduced by Deputy Mayor Fong on January 12th.

My office then followed up with a list of 34 questions, many of them submitted by fellow council members and developed also by council central staff.

Curry returned those questions, which were then discussed at the Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting on January 26th.

the committee voted unanimously in favor of her appointment.

Some quick background on Cori Mayer.

She has over 20 years of emergency management experience at the local, state, and national levels.

Most recently, Dr. Mayer served as emergency manager for the city of Bellevue, overseeing the design and implementation of comprehensive emergency management programs.

She also previously worked for the California governor's office of emergency services, where she served in a number of roles.

over the course of nearly 20 years.

Will not be a Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting this week, but there is one coming up next week.

Items related to my committee portfolio include my weekly announcement of Fire Department testing administered at their four sites.

It is now cumulatively nearly 600,000 tests through June 5th through January 28th.

As it relates to vaccination, we know that in King County, 181,000 people have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 38,000 people have been vaccinated with two doses.

And just as a comparison to The percentage of folks that that means have been vaccinated or had their first vaccination in King County, we're looking at about 7.09% of King County population as compared to statewide, about 6.75%.

The numbers related to demographics that are available on King County show that although Black and African American residents make up 6% of King County's population, Only 3.5% of that demographic have received vaccinations.

There is a lot of variance in how data on race is collected.

That makes it difficult to compare.

For instance, the census has an option for Hispanic, but it's not reflected.

in the information provided by King County.

There's also, of course, the more than one race specified category.

Again, it makes it challenging to examine further our work towards eliminating disparities, but I think it does certainly make the case that we have a ways to go.

It relates specifically to the very small program that the city is doing right now.

Again, I want to emphasize this is a very small program because the fire department has not been allocated very many dosages at this point.

But we want to thank the human services department and specifically the aging and disability services staff who are working very closely with public health in Seattle, King County, the mayor's office and community partners and identify sites for the Seattle Fire mobile vaccination team operations.

They are exclusively focused right now on clusters of high priority, high risk populations, such as Medicaid, long term care, case management program clients.

Aging and disability services case managers are supporting vaccination sites in SHA senior housing and engaging aging and disability services staff to encourage COVID vaccine participation.

I'm going to be reading tomorrow with representatives from the mayor's office to better understand their planning for city-sponsored vaccination sites once we get more access to additional vaccines, such as learning more about how partnerships with community-based organizations work.

and other groups that represent high priority populations, such as the partnership with UFCW last week, and hopefully eventual mass vaccination sites similar to the drive up or walk up COVID testing sites that the city currently runs.

Again, the city reports that it has the infrastructure to turn what was testing sites into vaccination sites, but we are really dependent on getting access to more vaccines.

The city reports it is preparing to partially or fully convert two or more testing sites into vaccination sites.

And I was able to announce last Friday that I received confirmation from the mayor's office that West Seattle will host a vaccination site again when there is adequate supply of vaccine.

After reading the alarming reports that I know you all have also read of multiple area hospitals providing priority access to vaccines to their wealthiest donors, last week I sent an email to the Secretary of Health and the Deputy Secretary for COVID Response at the Washington State Department of Health.

I wrote to them that I was dismayed to read reports of local hospitals offering their top donors preferential access to precious and rare COVID vaccine doses.

I told them how I regularly hear for residents of my district in Southwest Seattle who are currently eligible for vaccination and desperate to receive the vaccination, especially those with additional vulnerabilities who are all but housebound due to their fear of contracting coronavirus.

I wrote that I have been particularly concerned as my district is in Southwest Seattle and many of my constituents belong to BIPOC and vulnerable communities experiencing the highest levels of COVID impact and often unable to easily navigate online systems such as Phase Finder to get up to date information about vaccine availability.

I wrote that I believe that the actions of leaders that overlook and other hospitals amount to selling vaccine to the highest bidder, while many more vulnerable residents wait, worry and suffer.

I was really glad to see that Mayor Durkan spoke out strongly against this practice.

I asked in my letter that the Washington State Department of Health put out a statement clearly stating that the practice is unacceptable and that any providers who are administering vaccines must take steps to ensure that vaccines are not prioritized based on wealth and that we must make it clear that jumping the line is unacceptable so that vaccine is preserved for those most at risk.

I also asked for information about the corrective action that the Washington State Department of Health is planning on undertaking to guard against this practice in the future and to admonish providers who have already engaged in it.

Over the weekend, the Department of Health did make a post on Facebook calling the practice egregiously inappropriate behavior and saying in part that cavalier disregard for an allocation strategy that prioritized most at-risk and disproportionately impacted populations is acceptable.

They said that the practice is wrong, inequitable, and must stop immediately.

And they wrote that facilities or organizations found to engage in this practice risk not receiving additional shipments of vaccines.

I really appreciate the Department of Health's clear statement against the practice of prioritizing vaccine for the wealthiest and their willingness to cut off supply for organizations who are engaging in it.

It's essential that we do everything we can to earn the trust of Seattle residents right now during a really confusing and frustrating vaccine rollout.

Any institution that proves itself unworthy of that trust should not be allowed to distribute vaccine.

We must ensure that our communities most vulnerable are first in line, not last, to receive this life-saving vaccine.

Other items coming up for me this week include a regional water quality committee meeting on Wednesday.

Last week, I held office hours between 2 and 6 p.m.

And I think that's all I have for this morning.

It is.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbal.

That is plenty for us to chew on and to think about.

I want to thank you for your remarks specifically related to the COVID vaccination.

Couldn't agree more with you.

Look forward to making sure that we have aligned efforts at the city.

I know there's a lot of interest across the city and across the region, so really look forward to making sure we can find that alignment and and continue to move this really important issue forward towards real solutions here.

So appreciate all of the work that you did already in the background on that issue.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments for Councilmember Herbold?

Hearing none, we're going to go down the line here.

And next up is Council Member Juarez, followed by Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Before I begin, I want to make a few comments, Council President, and certainly with what Council Member Herbolt shared.

on the vaccines, two things.

And I'll have more for you next Monday on the first item.

Very quickly, the Seattle Indian Health Board, the Urban Indian Health Institute just put out their report on the National Survey of COVID-19 Vaccination Study.

And that is obviously getting the shots in the arm, not only in Indian communities, but urban Indian communities.

And the report is just phenomenal with the methodology, but the things that stood out for me, it's titled, Strengthening Vaccine Efforts in Indian Country.

is that native communities in the city and in Indian country value generosity over wealth, that we discourage individualistic thinking, and that we make these decisions for the good of the whole, and that all of these participants, a couple thousand, more than that, 75% of native people were willing to take the vaccine if it is going to protect their community.

We've seen this up at McCall.

We've seen this at Quinault.

We've seen this in the Sioux Nation, and we've seen this in the Navajo Nation.

And if you get an opportunity, and I will send you the report because some of the issues in there, believe it or not, kind of touch back to some of the things that Councilman Morales was speaking about that we're all talking about with participatory budgeting.

I know it doesn't sound like a link, but it basically is.

It's about having a mission statement of people taking agency to correct or decolonize and change a system by the people who are most impacted by it.

And that's what this study reflects.

I hope you all get a chance to look at it.

I wouldn't expect you to read all 40 pages, but a lot of the comments and the pullouts and the sidebars are really pertinent to some of the issues we talked today, not only about the vaccination, but also about some of the themes in participatory budgeting.

And so, Council President, I'm hoping that we'll come back to you with your resolution and have some comments to insert in that as well as we've been discussing with the Mayor's Office.

Some of you, I shared this with you, but just briefly getting back to the vaccine again, I listened to or participated or actually listened to, and I think I shared this with some people, to a series last week called Modern Credit Systems and Alternative Data and the American Dream.

I won't go into all the speakers, they're all amazing, but one in particular stood out to what you were saying this morning, Council President, and regarding the vaccine.

Chi Chi Wu, who's a staff attorney with the National Consumer Credit Registry, reported that a credit agency was using people's credit score to determine who gets the vaccines.

which is unconscionable and crazy that we already know that people use credit scores to deny people housing and employment.

but to use it usually as an exclusionary tool, but to use it as a tool, your credit score, whether or not you can get the vaccine is an example of what's happening on a national basis.

And council president and colleagues, I can share that information with you.

I think it's important to note, her name is Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney, National Consumer Credit Registry.

And it's just incredible.

And these things are all connected.

The economy, health, all of these things are connected.

And I think as leaders, It's our job to see those connections and how we can leverage that and make change.

So I won't go on any more about that.

Those are just my comments and notes from listening to this morning's briefings.

I will get to my council briefings, the stuff that I'm supposed to be saying.

There are no items of the Public Asset and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

The February 2nd committee meeting has been canceled.

I'll give you an update on what's going on with Sound Transit.

Sound Transit has hired an independent consultant called Tree Unity Consulting to provide an independent cost analysis of Sound Transit's project estimates.

We met with them last week.

Tree Unity Consulting includes Atsaki Associates, Common Street Consulting, and Capo Projects Group.

They presented at last week's board of directors meeting.

Their work will provide the board a series of recommendations that will improve the project development design management process and improve managing risks of the highly complex capital projects.

They will report back to us in March.

And basically what this is a fancy way of saying is this is the third party validator.

to look at what sound transit numbers are to see if they're sound in light of construction costs, property costs, modeling methodology, while the EIS is still pending and some other issues as well.

I think I've been sharing that with you guys every Monday, and I'll give you more information this coming Monday.

In regards to parks, as you all know, the Metropolitan Park District, we have a delay in our six-year plan.

Last Thursday, January 28th, Seattle Parks and Rec announced that they are delaying the next six-year park district planning process and spending plan by another year.

Therefore, in the fall of 2021, the Seattle Park District governing board, which includes all of us, will review and approve a one-year bridge budget proposal for 2022 rather than a six year spending plan.

As you know, we have been laser focused on essential emergency services.

And those critical services include childcare, the showers, the picking up the needles in the garbage, how we're using community centers differently now.

And in light of the health and economic impacts, we know that that has changed what our goals are for the six year plan.

And so that's, we kind of have to get our feet under us to decide and look at what that means.

and get community output or input, I'm sorry, from that.

So this will occur as part of the city council's review of the mayor's 2022 budget.

As you know, we always do the six year plan during budget cycle.

I also sent everyone an email last Thursday about my support for this decision as well as details of next steps.

We met with the superintendent last week about this with central staff.

If you haven't received it, please let me know and we will resend it.

It also includes meeting dates for 2021. South Lake Union Community Center, the online open house for community engagement and recreation priorities for the new South Lake Union Community Center part of the MRSA Mega Blok development is live until February 18th.

My office will tweet the link this morning and it will be listed in my weekly Seattle Parks and Recreation email report that I sent to you each Monday.

We just received this notice on Friday, and it is just in the design phase, so we'll have more to come on that.

The Salmon Bay Park, that's the one located in Ballard.

On January 21st, Seattle Parks held a virtual public meeting to share three concept designs the play area renovation about 20 people attended the meeting and provided important input about the concepts the design is moving forward clean city initiative and folks the numbers that i give you every monday are not cumulative they're actually new numbers on the on the um i'll just go through it on on the needles and the pounds of trash so from the week from january 18th to the 24th They recovered 1,339 needles.

They were removed from encampment locations.

They collected 106,560 pounds of trash that was removed from 44 encampment locations and two park cleanups.

That would be the Meridian Playground and Woodland Park.

Again, these are all new updates, not cumulative.

The shower program, Seattle Parks and Rec served 406 users from January 20th through the 26th.

And that's all I have there.

So let me give you a quick highlight from last week, which I'm really excited.

This is a project that we've been working on since 2019. Last Friday, I met with Executive Director of the Seattle Housing Authority, Mr. Andrew Lofton and his staff.

Director of Development Terry Galney, I hope I said his name correctly, to receive an update of the Northgate Commons redevelopment project.

This 8.5 acre development aims to double the current affordable housing is projected to build 12 to 1400 affordable and market rate units.

If you remember last year, we bought the 8.6 acres in December, we closed December 2019 of this 8.6 acres for $65 million.

Currently, it houses 211 low-income folks in affordable housing.

We hope to double that to 244, but we have the capacity to go up to 1,400.

So this is really big, and this is what they're calling the Northgate Commons because, as you know, it will be next to light rail.

What we're looking at now, it's so exciting.

We were meeting with Andrew last week.

It's going to be mixed-use community and social services, businesses, and market rate housing.

So we'll use the market rate side to leverage for the low income affordable housing side.

The people that are living there now get to come back.

So that's exciting.

So at least we know we'll have 211, hopefully 422, and hopefully we can go up higher.

Let's see.

So right now we are working, Seattle Housing Authority and Office of Housing are working on a cooperative agreement that outlines expectations and identifies the prospective roles.

We expect to bring this agreement to council in 2021. And I look forward to working closely with council member Mosquera, chair of the finance and housing committee as we move forward.

This has been dubbed the created the Northgate Commons Alliance.

So we will have heavy influence from community.

What those other parcels will be with mixed use besides just market rate condos.

We want business and community space, performing arts space.

I mean, we're really going to nail down with these charrettes what the North End needs and keep that walk shed, that 10 minute walk shed, so people can get to light rail.

This week ahead, I will be attending Sound Transit Rider Experience and Operations Committee meeting on Thursday, February 4th, 2021. I think I noted this morning that I think it's House Bill 1031, where we're still looking at how we're going to look at fare enforcement.

So that's still pending in our subcommittee is chaired by Mr. Joe McDermott.

Our operations meeting is Thursday, February 4th.

Okay, I think I said that.

Oh, and finally, oh, two things.

Woodland Park Zoo, I will be meeting with Alejandro Grajal, CEO of the Woodland Park Zoo to revisit the management and operations agreement between the zoo and the city of Seattle.

I guess we have some new changes coming up.

And finally, today I get to be on the Nathan Hale podcast, Council Member Strauss.

Yeah, so myself and my staff will be sitting down with Nathan Hale school students to record a podcast for the school's newspaper where we'll discuss being a woman in politics.

Just we'll try to talk about the good stuff.

That's it.

I love a report that ends with a little bit of shade thrown in there.

It's all fun and games.

It's all fun and games until someone throws shade your way.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

Thanks, Council Member Juarez, for that report.

Really, really appreciate it.

that robust report this morning.

Lots of good work happening across the city.

So next up, unless anyone has any comments or questions, anyone has any comments or questions for Council Member Juarez?

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

Next up is Council Member Lewis, and then I'll round us out this morning.

Take it away, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Madam President.

Only a few things this morning.

First off, I do have Resolution 31987 on the docket for this afternoon.

This is a resolution sponsoring the membership for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and the Washington Association of Cities Risk Management pool, the application to get in that risk management pool.

I'm going to reserve my comments on that till this afternoon, but did pass unanimously out of the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments last week.

And I look forward to considering that later.

I do want to just do a brief shout out to folks last week when my office launched our It Takes a Village initiative to scale up additional tiny house villages.

by engaging in partnerships with nonprofits, service providers, and indeed some members of the business community, really appreciate the big outflow of support for that initiative and that measure to really realize how we can come together and put more resources into something that we all agree has been a positive intervention of the various homelessness initiatives that the city has invested in.

I look forward to updating the council as that goes on, as well as updates on the shelter surge that this council put forward and that the executive is currently charged with implementing.

I can report that I have subsequently learned, Councilmember Peterson, that the tiny house village in District 4 in the U District on the Sound Transit site at 45th and Roosevelt, that site apparently has been approved, contracted, and is ready to be implemented, which is outstanding news.

And I will keep this council posted on the progress.

As I have said in the last couple of weeks, we will be getting standing shelter updates from the executive at my committee meetings.

So the executive knows to certainly be prepared for those cutting questions that we saw last Wednesday on a monthly basis.

I will also be providing shelter updates like I just did with that U District Village at briefing every week if I have additional information to pass on to the public and to pass on to council colleagues here.

I understand from reading the news that there has also been an issue with the hoteling contracting that is very concerning to me and I know is concerning to many of my colleagues here.

It looks like the Public Defender Association will not be standing up several of those hoteling placements with a model of care similar to Just Care, which has been exceptionally effective at providing relief and services to high-barrier individuals in the Pioneer Square and Chinatown International District throughout the pandemic.

I do want to explore ways.

that we can continue to work as a council and an executive and a provider community to figure out how to deliver that level of care at a higher level.

This is something that I think fundamentally we really need to do given that a lot of the individuals that are receiving services through Just Care are also folks that are contributing disproportionately to the sense of and some of the public safety impacts that are sometimes associated with our homelessness crisis.

So it really is something that needs to be a priority for us to come together and figure out how to make that level of care work and stipulate that sometimes it means that that level of care is gonna be more expensive.

So I look forward to continuing that conversation.

I do applaud the progress on the tiny house villages and I will keep this council apprised as we learn more.

about how those investments we made in November and the plan that this council put forward is being implemented by the executive team.

Moving forward, I do want to briefly address the energy code and echo Councilmember Strauss's comments earlier touching on the Really, our inability to extend some of those energy code standards to be more broadly applicable to commercial development.

I mentioned this in committee last week, but just for the benefit of the public, I was going to put forward an amendment to do just that and expand the scope.

It became clear that that would delay implementation of the overall project by at least a month and possibly longer because it would require additional review.

What I ultimately decided to do in consultation with Councilmember Strauss is to put those code changes forward as a separate bill.

to allow the bill that had been worked on through the committee to go into effect as intended and not be held up because of having to do the supplemental process and to let this process with the commercial changes work out on their own.

But I do want to affirm that I'm committed to doing that to the community stakeholders who I promised to be a champion for that amendment.

I am still committed to pursuing it.

But by doing it this way, we can realize the gains in the bill that we are going to consider this afternoon without delaying them to consider fully addressing those commercial changes.

So I did just want to mention that.

Finally, as Councilmember Sawant mentioned, I am proud to co-sponsor with Councilmember Sawant legislation that our offices are currently preparing.

for a right to counsel in eviction proceedings.

As a lawyer, I think that the right to counsel is very fundamental, especially in a lot of these civil proceedings where there can be a very significant deprivation and a very significant impact on people's livelihoods.

And we currently, in a lot of these civil proceedings, do not extend right to counsel, not just for eviction, but for a lot of other critical things that are civil matters.

A lot of other cities, as Councilmember Swant mentioned, have adopted similar right to counsel statutes, including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, New York, among others.

Houston has a pilot right to counsel program.

And even the state legislature, indeed, is considering a right to counsel bill in Washington right now.

So I think this is certainly the time, given the impacts that we're seeing on tenants uh to um to move swiftly on this and i do hope that it encourages other jurisdictions as well as leadership in the state to apply that new right with that madam president i don't have any additional updates i'm happy to take any questions if anyone has any thank you councilmember lewis any comments or questions for councilmember lewis councilmember herbal please

You are off mute, so you can just go.

Oh, there you go.

I don't need to get off mute.

Thank you.

So given that last year, we were told that the shelter surge program included 300 hotel rooms that I think were anticipated to be available mid-December, I think we were being told at the time.

What is your sense of...

Given that one of the two proposals, I believe there were two selected, that one of the two proposals isn't moving forward, what is your sense of how we are going to meet that goal of 300 rooms?

Is there another provider out in the waiting area, out in the wings waiting to apply?

or what's the path forward?

So Councilmember Herbal, that's a really great question.

And, you know, I'm very committed.

I mean, I did read, there was an editorial in the news over the weekend implying this council doesn't have a plan to address these encampments.

I think that that plan squarely falls in the fact that this council made a massive funding commitment to a shelter surge strategy and that now the ball is in the court of HSD to implement it.

So I look forward to continuing to work on that sense of urgency, as you imply, Councilmember Herbold, given that there were statements that those hotel rooms would be up and running by the end of December, potentially.

And we are now going into February, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

My understanding is that various providers did respond to the RFQ.

deputy mayor sixkiller in the committee um last week um if if you'll recall um councilmember gerbold did mention i believe that if something couldn't be worked out with the the current preferred vendor they would move down the rfq um to additional people that bid um so i You know, I'm definitely going to make inquiries this week as to programmatically what impact that'll have.

I was personally very excited about the Defender Association bid, given that they were going after the folks that have historically been the hardest to provide care to, and they have a demonstrated track record of successfully providing them care.

But, you know, I mean, we have a lot of other, Deputy Mayor Sixkiller indicated DESC had responded to that RFQ, possibly others have.

So, you know, I'm definitely going to be inquiring this week and how we're going to how they're planning to move forward on this.

And I'm sure there'll be an extensive discussion in my committee at the end of this month about this topic again, because as I said, it will be a standing committee item.

But I guess, sorry, the short answer to your question is I imagine they'll move down the RFQ, which is what they said they would do in the last month.

And I was under the impression that they've already decided that only two of the folks who had applied were deemed sort of at that first level to be eligible.

So I think they're still moving forward with one provider, have decided one of the two that were deemed eligible are no longer eligible, and they've already sort of – my understanding is they've already looked at the the list of folks below and for whatever reason um the they're they're not they're not considered um uh uh folks who have the qualifications in order to do the work because it's an art you know it's a it's an rfq um process so i look forward to learning more and i really appreciate um your leadership uh councilmember lewis in um helping us get the answers to these questions

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

And yeah, as I get them, I will relay them here at briefing or elsewhere.

Thank you for that conversation.

My recollection is consistent with what Councilmember Herbold said in terms of where they were at on the list of folks who would be qualified to do this work.

So really eager to hear more from you, Councilmember Lewis, on any additional details that could shed light on that.

Colleagues, any other questions or comments for Councilmember Lewis?

Okay, hearing none.

I got a note from Councilmember Mosqueda that she forgot to mention one thing as part of her report.

So I'm going to loop back to her before I give my report.

I promise you that my report is going to be short.

So I expect that we'll be done here in the next 10 minutes or so.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I appreciate your flexibility.

On that last topic as well, Council Member Lewis, thank you for bringing up the concerns as well as Council Member Herbold regarding the hoteling strategy.

I, too, as budget chair, sent a letter to the executive team underscoring our understanding that the 2.1 million dollars that the council appropriated as part of our budget actions in hom005e001 in the 2021 adopted budget should be used to the fullest extent um either all or most of that 2.1 million dollars should be used for the programming necessary to make sure that the hoteling pilot is successful especially in light of the information we continue to receive from federal and state legislators that the federal partners are being as flexible as they possibly can with responding to city and state needs for responding to COVID.

And this is directly related to our need to appropriately shelter those who are unhoused in non-congregate shelter settings.

So I have not received a response yet from that letter, but look forward to working with you as the chair of the Homeless Services Select Committee and also with the Chair of Public Safety as we make sure that folks get into the appropriate housing, especially as we made sure to appropriate dollars in the budget and recognizing exactly as Councilmember Lewis noted that in order to reach these folks with high barrier needs, it does require appropriate staffing.

So thank you for bringing that up.

Council President, thank you for the quick time.

I also failed to mention in my summary that we understand that the mayor intends to sign the hazard pay legislation that we passed last week on February 3rd.

We worked with the mayor's office to help disseminate information on when the hazard pay will go into effect as this is emergency legislation pending her signature and really appreciate the mayor's office's for working to make sure that that information was disseminated and the known date was out there so that flip could be switched, that switch could be flipped, and the grocers could be able to make sure that the pay was being applied across the board.

I also wasn't as familiar with what article Councilmember Peterson was referring to earlier in referencing the Seattle Times and We'll note that it is erroneous as well when it says it appears the grocery industry was sandbagged by the sudden ordinance with no seat at the table.

As I mentioned during the final passage, not true.

My office is constantly reaching out to people from various sides of an issue to make sure people have a seat at the table, engaged with the industry before the bill was introduced, engaged again after the bill was introduced to incorporate edits into the substitute bill, and have been engaging since in anticipation of the bill's date that we just mentioned on February 3rd.

It is my practice to do so and have also offered that clarification to KUOW.

Appreciate all the work that various folks are doing, including folks from the industry as we make sure that this ordinance is applied.

They have been great to work with and appreciate them as well as the folks on the ground with TFCW21 who represent many of the members who will be receiving We will provide the council as well with an update from the various cities and jurisdictions that I have been mentioning over the last three to four weeks who are also considering and have passed hazard pay ordinance between $4 and $5, just so folks have that in their hip pocket, and we'll be happy to send that around when we get an update later this week.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Mosqueda, for looping back to those important updates.

Any questions for Councilmember Mosqueda on those additional updates?

Hearing none, I will dive into mine really quickly here.

Report of the Governance and Education Committee.

So in addition to the COVID-19 vaccine related topic that I discussed at the top of the hour, next week's Governance and Education Committee agenda will also include a presentation by OIRA with a report on their activities in 2020. These updates will include a update on their rapid response to Trump administration immigration policies, as well as how they have played an instrumental part of Seattle's pandemic response and outreach in providing support for regional agencies like the Seattle King County Public Health Agency.

And just, sorry, just really quickly here, again, as a reminder, our Governance and Education Committee will be having its regularly scheduled meeting next week.

That's Tuesday, February 9th at 2 o'clock p.m.

Really looking forward to hosting folks in committee to make sure that we get those really important updates.

I have nothing on this week's introduction referral calendar.

I, again, do want to share some information about a different resolution that I expect should be ready for next week's introduction referral calendar and up for final action also on Monday, February 8th.

I'm currently working with the mayor's office to put forward a resolution denouncing white supremacy and hate crimes.

This resolution will also task our city departments with a review to identify improvements in internal processes and their response to constituents as we continue to see an increase in hate crimes.

I believe, as does Mayor Durkan, that we as a city can find improvements and better respond and support our constituents who may experience a hate crime in race or religious discrimination.

Again, this resolution is, I know we've done some really important work as it relates to hate crimes under Councilmember Herbold's leadership.

This is a resolution that was offered up in response directly to the Biden Harris administration's recent announcement about the FBI's actions related to white nationalist and supremacist organizations being placed on a domestic terrorism.

So look forward to continuing to shepherd this resolution through this process in order to, again, stand in solidarity with the Biden-Harris administration on these particular issues.

I do want to thank Mayor Durkan for her collaboration, and I want to welcome any of you colleagues who have interest in the subject.

and in the content of the resolution to please let me know or let a member of my staff know whether you have additional thoughts after you review the initial draft of the resolution.

I'm happy to, as always, partner on strengthening the language of the resolution.

Next up is just a quick report of regional committees.

I had an opportunity to attend the Families Education Preschool Promise Levy Oversight Committee last week.

We had an opportunity to have a robust conversation on how we are ensuring there is a racial equity centered in the body of work for DEAL and how they have restructured programs to meet the needs of our families during the pandemic.

We have here at the City Council taken several legislative actions to allow DEAL an increased amount of flexibility to be able to adapt our programs during the pandemic and am really appreciative for DEAL's ongoing work to make sure that we have flexibility and are still able to get programming and services out to our families as originally intended.

We will have an opportunity to hear from DEAL and receive updates on the FEPP levy through my committee in the coming months.

We're working with them to establish a standing issue during my committee meetings every month to have them come in and report out on much of the pandemic work that they've been doing and how they see their work moving forward in the future.

Again, last Thursday, I joined Council Members Lewis and Strauss and Mayor Durkan at the Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board meeting, and I am happy to report that the Executive Board unanimously approved critical funding for the West Seattle Bridge repair.

That is the additional about $14.4 million that came out of the Transportation Policy Board.

I want to thank again Council Members Peterson and Juarez for their really important advocacy in the Transportation Policy Board that allowed the Executive Board to be able to consider final action on that bridge report.

So I do want to thank the City of Seattle staff at SDOT and our Office of Intergovernmental Relations and all of the regional staff that really rolled up their sleeves, got to work and found a compromise that would work for the city of Seattle and for regional partners on making sure that this funding would be available for this critical infrastructure need in our city.

So a huge thanks there.

This week, there will be two joint meetings of the Regional Homeless Authority Governing Committee and Implementation Board.

You may have recalled that last week I mentioned that we were going to be convening on Friday to consider CEO applicants.

Unfortunately, that meeting was rescheduled, canceled and rescheduled, and we are scheduled to convene this week to have that really important conversation and to review and consider the final candidates for the CEO position for that regional homeless authority structure.

On Thursday, the Governing Committee and Implementation Board will have a joint meeting in open session to formally vote to appoint the CEO.

That meeting on Thursday will begin at one o'clock and will be live streamed via the King County website and really encourage those who have interest to tune in.

Okay, just a little bit more here.

Let's see, just making sure.

All right.

So I think Councilmember Morales mentioned last week that we had an opportunity to meet with a group of community members and stakeholders concerned about ongoing gun violence at the Rainier Beach Safeway parking lot.

I'm really deeply appreciative of that ongoing work that is being done by community groups who are working to ensure that we have a community-based and community safety solution to um, those gun violence issues.

And I'm really appreciative for the opportunity to have engaged in those conversations and look forward to continuing to engage in those.

And then, uh, two quick last updates, um, had an opportunity to connect with BIA directors across the city about some of the recent challenges that they've been having in their, um, in their, um, particular districts.

So every met with every BIA director from Soto to, um, to Ballard to the University District to downtown and really appreciated an opportunity to hear from them about their commitment to being partners on finding solutions towards greater public safety and livability concerns for our communities.

appreciated an opportunity to have that initial conversation and have committed to continue to have conversation with them to identify some potential opportunities for us to continue to work together to address some of their public safety and mobility concerns in their respective BIA districts.

And then lastly, I want to say thanks to the University of Washington's president, Ana Marie Gause, who reached out to my office for an opportunity to connect I got an opportunity to hear from her about how the University of Washington continues to host Tent City 3 on their campus.

And she also shared available emergency relief funds that they've created to support the University of Washington community, so students and workers.

And I appreciate their eagerness to continue to partner with city council and the city as a whole on future recovery and livability efforts, including volunteering to work with the city council on any potential strategies related to addressing public safety concerns that continue to be an issue and concern for them and for their students and for their workers.

So that is it for me.

I'm happy to open it up for questions.

I see that Councilmember Herbold has a question or a comment.

I just wanted to take this opportunity when you mentioned the hate crimes resolution that you're going to be bringing forward.

I really appreciate knowing that in advance.

I appreciate knowing the area that it is intended to cover.

But I also want to take this opportunity to say that I have been trying to get some information from the executive about the status of the executive order that was enacted last February to combat the rise of hate crimes and bias in Seattle.

This particular resolution was supposed to have deliverables in October, and some of those deliverables included establishment of a pilot grants program to support community safety initiatives aimed at preventing hate crimes with the intent that grants would be made available in the fall of 2020. It established a hate crimes and crimes of bias work group.

And I understand from talking both to the Office of the Employee Ombud and the Office of Civil Rights that there was a decision made last year in around sometime in March that they were going to suspend the work associated with the executive order and the The decision to, yes, this was in March in 2020. They decided that they would suspend the work because of specifically of COVID-19.

And I just, you know, I appreciate that.

President Gonzalez, you bringing this up.

We know that hate crimes and bias crimes are actually increasing in the face of COVID.

And so it's...

I literally learned last month that the decision, again, was made that they would suspend that work until, quote, the pandemic is under control.

And so I hope maybe there's an opportunity with your resolution to uplift some of the work that we had hoped would be done with the executive order.

and work to pick that up.

One of the things that I understand that the executive has been pointing to is not just the need to focus on other aspects of the pandemic, but a concern about lack of funding.

And I think I've mentioned before that it's my understanding that King County, for its bias and hate crimes work, has actually successfully used CARES funding to support their efforts.

So they've actually used the funding that has been created to address impacts of the pandemic to move forward their work.

I'm just hoping that we can do something similar in Seattle.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hurdle, thank you for that flag.

I know you have been steeped in this issue for, gosh, I want to say three or four years at this point, of course, in your role as a councilmember, and appreciate the flag.

I would welcome a conversation.

between our offices about how to thread the needle on some of these issues.

And V Nguyen in my office is leading the work on this resolution, but would certainly welcome an opportunity to have conversation to see if there's a way for us to thread the needle here.

Great.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions?

Okay, dokey.

Yes, go ahead.

I just wanted to offer my support in trying to get some questions answered here.

If there are questions that we have for the Office of Civil Rights.

That we can follow up on happy to do that and and support this work.

Great.

Thank you for that.

I know my office has been in contact with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights on some of these questions, so we'll make sure to stay coordinated here so we can advance this hopefully sometime next week.

Okay, are there any other questions or comments?

Okay, hearing none, colleagues, that does conclude the items of business for our council briefing agenda.

We don't have anything else for this morning, so we are adjourned.

I look forward to seeing you all at 2 o'clock.

you