Seattle City Council Briefing 1/30/23

are recording.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

All right, thank you, everybody.

Good afternoon.

So, today is Monday, January 30th.

It is two o'clock.

This is council briefing.

And, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

And Council President Juarez.

I'm here.

Seven present.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna move to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of January 23rd, 2023 will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing objection, the minutes are adopted.

Let me go to the President's Report.

On today's agenda, we will consider a proclamation for signature proclaiming 2023 to be the year of community gardening.

This proclamation is going to be sponsored and addressed by Council Member Morales.

We have individual reports, of course, from each council member, and you should have all have received a copy of the roll call, which will begin with Council Member Lewis today.

We have no executive sessions today.

As you all know, we do not take public comment during council briefings.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as four appointments recommended by the Public Safety Committee.

As usual, we will take one vote on all items on the consent calendar unless, of course, any council member requests that some of them be removed and we address them at the end of the agenda.

Um, let's see, coming up, we will be hosting our office of intergovernmental relations, our state lobbying team for regular presentations at our Monday council briefings throughout the legislative session.

And the weekly presentations will begin next week on Monday, February 6. And, of course, the next council briefing will be next Monday on February 6. So with that, I'm going to move over to signing of letters and proclamations.

Council Member Morales, and I'm guessing you all got this Friday because I know I did, will be doing her proclamation.

We'll speak to it for the 50 year anniversary of the Peepatch, which I understand started in 1973 in the Wedgwood neighborhood.

So with that, Council Member Morales, do you want to introduce your proclamation so we can see which of your colleagues would like to have their name fixed to the proclamation?

Yes, thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, today I am excited to present this proclamation declaring 2023 the year of community gardening in Seattle.

As many of you know, I was a food justice consultant, worked on food systems issues for about a decade.

Urban gardening and pea patch programs have really been a cornerstone in communities that lack access to whole foods and to resources, particularly for foods that are culturally relevant.

A little bit about the P patch program here in Seattle.

It turns 50 this year and has grown from one garden and Wedgewood into a city wide community building and urban agriculture initiative, serving more than 3500 households across 90 gardens in the city.

Annually, the Pea Patch Program donates thousands of pounds of fresh produce to local food banks.

It improves environmental sustainability in our local food system.

It provides culturally responsive gardening opportunities, particularly to immigrant and refugee communities.

It's really fun to knock on doors in South Seattle and see all the different ways that people, different gardening structures that they use to grow their different fruits and vegetables.

really helps offer an important source of food security for low-income gardeners.

It also prioritizes, the program itself prioritizes historically underserved populations with new plot assignments.

In 2022, nearly half of all new Peapatch gardeners self-identified as people of color, as low-income, or in need of an accessible raised gardening bed.

through their collective stewardship of Pea Patch Garden sites, gardeners help maintain approximately 50 acres of public open space.

And I will say, just last week, I heard on NPR, the Lancet Journal recently published a study by the American Cancer Institute Cancer Society that demonstrates that community gardening plays a preventive role, an important role in preventing cancer.

Just access, having access to fresh healthy food can lower rates of cancer, chronic disease and mental health disorders.

So another really important reason for us to continue to support this and I'm really proud to be able to do that.

I do want to thank Mayor Harrell for co-sponsoring the proclamation with council.

Tomorrow, we will present the proclamation in chambers to Kenya Freedy, the P-PATCH supervisor at Department of Neighborhoods.

I'll reserve my comments about Kenya until tomorrow.

I do hear that she is a wonderful constituent of District 6, and Council Member Strauss has some remarks he'll want to provide as well.

I did not know.

Sorry, I did not know she was in District 6. She did win an award from Mayor Harrell this week, this year.

Sorry, I will stop talking.

I interrupted.

Well, there you go.

So colleagues, I'm excited about this proclamation and look forward to the roll call.

I'm asking you to join us in celebrating the P-BATCH program.

Thank you.

Thank you, Casper Morales.

Or is there anybody that would like to also customer styles looking at you talk to about or speak to the proclamation that council member Morales and he comes from Ross?

Has the peep patch always been a deal in from our neighborhoods?

But you customer herbal knows it's well, it's been there for at least 15, 20 years.

I think it's been there the whole time.

OK, so is there anyone that would like to respond or have any comments to say at this time?

Okay.

Okay.

But you're going to say something else member Strauss, but I guess you're going to hold your comments for tomorrow.

I mean, yeah, I'll hold my comments for tomorrow.

P patches are amazing.

Ah, here you go.

Council President, you got me going.

This counts against my 10 minutes.

P patches are just such an amazing asset to our community.

They sit on private property.

They sit on SDOT right of way.

They sit on Parkland.

It is a actually quite challenging program to administer.

And we have some really amazing folks that work for Department of Neighborhoods.

Kenya was already awarded this year by Mayor Harrell, and I'll speak to that more tomorrow.

And then I'll probably also speak to a number of the other people that help administer the program because they are Seattleites' first contact and oftentimes only contact when dealing with so many different issues.

And at the end of the day, they just want to plant and grow vegetables for their home and for their neighbors.

Thank you Council President.

Thank you Council Member Morales.

Um, the other thing too is does a lot of the P-PATCH folks donate a lot of their overflow to the food banks, which has been a big issue up in D5 anyway, so that's always that's always nice to know that they get donations from P-PATCH folks.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if I have the pounds, but thousands of pounds every year to folks who are who are struggling and need access to fresh produce.

OK, so we'll see here more to come tomorrow with Casper Morales introducing it and having having a guest here for that.

So with that, I don't see any further discussion regarding Casper Morales I would like to be added, yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

And Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Seven signatures will be added to the actual proclamation.

So with the outstanding, the other two, can they sign on tomorrow?

Because I know Council President Sawant's not here.

Or do they get another opportunity to maybe affix their name?

Or do we have to do that?

I believe they're both excused for tomorrow's City Council meeting, Council President Juarez.

Okay, so we're gonna so seven is a majority, obviously.

Okay, that's fine.

Thank you.

Okay, folks.

With that, let's move on in our agenda to preview of City Council Actions Council and regional committees.

As I shared the roll call this week, we'll start with Council Member Lewis, then Morales, Mosqueda, Nelson, Peterson, Strauss, Herboldt, and then me.

So with that, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Uh, so this week, the public assets and homelessness committee has been canceled.

We moved through a lot of our early year.

Um, uh, docket, uh, at our last committee meeting, when we passed a significant amount of legislation.

Uh, out of committee regarding the waterfront and the office of the Seattle center.

So our next action is not quite queued up for consideration.

And we are able to give folks some time on their Wednesday back.

So don't do anything with that time.

I wouldn't do, but no need to come to that committee meeting.

We have canceled it for this week.

Some updates from the Seattle Public Library.

The Seattle Public Library is excited to bring back in-person free tax help at 8 library branch locations.

Tax help begins on January 23rd as part of a agreement in partnership with the United Way of King County and AARP and they'll launch their in-person assistance on February.

They will launch their in-person assistance on February 1st.

United Way will provide services at the Seattle Central Library Monday through Thursday and Saturday from 11 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

and on Sundays from 1 p.m.

to 5 p.m.

They will also offer tax help at the South Park branch and that schedule is currently being confirmed.

So I will relay it in future briefings when we have that information.

The AARP will provide tax help at several locations one or two days a week for four hours per day.

They will be at the Broadview Thompson branch on Mondays and Wednesdays, the Ballard branch on Tuesdays, and the Southwest Branch on Wednesdays, Greenwood on Thursdays, Northeast on Saturdays, and Queen Anne on Saturdays.

On Wednesday, February 1st, Governor Inslee is going to visit the United Way of King County Free Tax Help site at the Central Library to hear from volunteers, staff, and patrons, as well as to discuss access to new tax credits available to Washington State residents.

So very much looking forward to the return of that service.

As a reminder a quick general update about library branches.

The Green Lake branch as is recently reported in the Seattle Times will be temporarily closed starting Wednesday February 1st to begin major renovations and we are looking forward to the newly renovated Green Lake branch of the library and do apologize for any inconvenience for the closure to effectuate that renovation.

Clean City Initiative for January 16th through January 20th.

The Clean City Initiative recovered approximately 1960 needles and removed 60,000 pounds of trash from 69 different park locations.

No focus park for this week, but always good to get those updates from the Clean City Initiative.

I want to close by addressing the horrible tragedy in South Lake Union that our community experienced on Monday, January 23rd when community member Janavi Condola was killed in the South Lake Union neighborhood of District 7 by a Seattle police officer while that officer was responding at high speed to a call for service.

I want to start by expressing my deep condolences to Ms. Condola's family and my heart and grief goes out for their loss and the loss to our community from this tragedy.

Ms. Condola's family has created a publicly accessible GoFundMe to help defray the costs the family is currently experiencing as a result of this tragedy.

And I invite committee members to join me in supporting this GoFundMe in solidarity and support and expressing their support for them in this very difficult time.

I support Mayor Harrell's call on Friday for an investigation into the circumstances that led to Ms. Candela's death.

The investigation that occurs has to be thorough, transparent, and the findings need to be made available to the public.

This investigation has to also include full disclosure of any relevant background information regarding the officer involved.

And there has to be accountability for the result of the investigation once it is concluded.

So I look forward to following up with Mayor Harrell on that call for an investigation and making sure that that is transparent and the public is being brought along and information is being made accessible as this ongoing story continues to develop and more information comes out.

Our city's response has to be focused on justice for Ms. Candela's family and a path forward to prevent these tragedies in the future.

And appreciate the opportunity to share those remarks and the other remarks in my briefing.

And if there's no comments on my briefing, I will hand it over to Council Member Morales.

I have a comment.

Council President.

Thank you.

2 things so are you posting where the GoFundMe is?

I've seen some of it on social media.

Is your office posting that as well?

I did include it on my personal social media council president.

I'm happy to make it generally available to members if they wanted to share the GoFundMe link.

Great and just a little background since we've gotten some interesting constituent mail.

When we had done the clean cities initiative, which is still kind of still call that and funded it.

The reason why we had been started asking under superintendent to post.

is because people wanted to know how the $9.3 million was being spent between SPD, SPU, Parks.

I can't remember what other city department, but there are like four departments that were working together during COVID and then still.

So I think people thought that we were posting.

I think we just wanted a little just to kind of put in context why we we post those numbers.

I mean, we don't have to.

And that's certainly your call, Mr. Chair, since you chair that committee, not me anymore.

But that was the reasoning behind that.

So people could see that the money was actually being used to clean up community centers, parks, ravines, green spaces.

And the reason that we post the needles is because we're still trying to make sure that we for public safety purposes, obviously, that we collect those needles that are in the public spaces.

So I just want to share that's why we do that.

And I want to thank you that you're continuing that information.

So thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Yeah, thank you, Council President.

And in that same spirit, we are continuing to get broader quarterly presentations from Clean City Initiative and committee to expand even deeper in addition to the update every briefing.

So I do appreciate the opportunity to follow both of those uh, traditions that you established in this role.

So, uh, continuing strong there.

Thank you.

And seeing no additional comments, I'm going to pass it on to Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Good afternoon colleagues, let's see I'll start with my committee at the last meeting of the neighborhoods Education, Arts and Civil Rights Committee.

We voted to recommend confirmation of one appointment to the Human Rights Commission, and also voted to recommend passage of Council Bill 120456. which deals with making administrative review permanent for some of our historic preservation boards.

Both of these will be at full council on February 7th.

The next committee meeting for me is on February 10th, where we will have several appointments to different Office of Civil Rights commissions.

We'll have a panel on generational wealth building, And a panel on neighborhood mobility and how it relates to social well being and community care.

Last week, I met with students from Rainier Beach High School.

alongside King County Council Members Ahalai.

The students want to be part of the decision-making process for how the city's new mental health resources will be allocated.

So we talked a lot with the students from the student associations there about the kinds of mental health support students need and what kind of programming they think would be most beneficial to students who have suffered from the trauma of repeated gun violence in their communities.

I also met with Director Chappelle and his research team just to understand where we are in the implementation process for those funds.

And we'll be following up to better understand how students can get involved, not just to monitor how the money is getting spent, but how their school will benefit.

I also met last week with parents and staff at South Shore Elementary.

We met with the principal of Dunlap Elementary, which is just a half block away.

And we all stood out at the crosswalk in front of the school with the crossing guard and the security guard and parents to see just how fast people drive down Henderson Avenue.

Even during after school time, and watched repeatedly as people sort of slow rolled through the crosswalk with students in them in it, and spoke with the crossing guard who was a block up who had him had been hit.

Just a couple weeks ago.

I think we're all hearing and becoming acutely aware, I certainly have been talking about the issue of pedestrian safety for a couple years now and the fact that our parents are really concerned about the safety of their students, just sort of brings the whole thing home.

And if that wasn't enough, last week there were seven people hit by cars in my district, including a family of three who was in a crosswalk, a parent, a 10-year-old and a 16-year-old.

I don't know if you've seen the video, it is available.

They were in the middle of the crosswalk and somebody turned left and hit all three of them.

As Councilmember Lewis just mentioned, Janavi Kandula lost her life in a crosswalk being hit by a police officer and a high speed response.

In 2020 and 2021 more than a third of all fatal collisions involving a pedestrian or a biker also involved a driver fleeing the scene.

47% of pedestrian fatalities were hit and runs.

I don't know what else to say except that my office will be working on safe streets policy this year.

I can't not do that.

We can't keep shrugging our shoulders as a city waiting for the next levy or the next study or the next step in the Seattle process.

My constituents are demanding that we act now.

to change the way we make decisions about safety when it comes to our roads, because what we're doing now is not working.

And focusing on throughput of traffic rather than the safety of people who aren't in cars can't stand anymore.

So that's my commitment on mobility.

My office is actively researching policies that can work to curb this sort of traffic violence with the goal of addressing the problem with the urgency that it merits.

I did attend to fun events.

This weekend, I attended to community events at the new Holly gathering hall on Friday I joined the Somali family safety task force, along with the Seattle and King County libraries and Mayor Harold to celebrate the publication of six new children's books.

These are bilingual Somali and English.

So I'm excited that our young people in the neighborhood will have access to these resources that help them celebrate their, their own traditions and honor their own traditions and family stories, and also increase support increased literacy in the neighborhood.

On Saturday I went to New Holly again, this time to join the Vietnamese Senior Association, senior residents who live at New Holly have been meeting once a week for the last several months, just to build community and to have social gathering space, and they decided to host a lunar new year celebration so.

We did that on Saturday.

I want to thank Evelyn Chow on my staff for going with me.

We also got to see Deputy Mayor Wong there and really enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the new year, to celebrate with community and good food and pass out red envelopes to to the young people there.

So just want to thank the community and and wish them all a happy new year.

That's all I have, colleagues.

And I don't see any questions.

Oh, Council Member Herbold, did you have something?

No, okay.

I will pass it to Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Hello, colleagues.

Our next Housing and Finance Committee will be scheduled for this week on Wednesday, February 1st at 9.30 a.m.

We will have the following items on our agenda.

It's a little dark in here.

We'll have an update from the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Community Advisory Board.

The co-chair will be coming to our committee to talk about the deployment and the use of the tax that is generated from Sugary Sweetened Beverage.

And as folks will remember during the budget season, We had a downturn in the tax revenues from the sugary sweetened beverage tax.

So talking with them about the priority investments that they are putting forward in the community will be of interest.

And we also made a one-time allowance for the higher than anticipated revenue from Jumpstart to go into backfilling, especially food security that would have otherwise received tax support from sugary sweetened beverage tax.

So we'll hear an update from the CAB members represented by the co-chairs of the board.

Excuse me.

We will also have the 2023 Capital Improvement Projects.

This is, as I think, if my memory is certainly correct, this is a request that the Council had put forward, I believe, led by Councilmember Herbold in a request to ensure that there was greater transparency and accountability for the Capital Improvement Projects and that we ensure that there was quarterly monitoring for the investments that are of large scale to ensure that we are on time and on budget and this watch list makes it possible for us to keep a pulse on how the deployment of those dollars are working.

This is the first of those quarterly reports.

And also just echo the statements made by my colleagues.

Again, we see another unconscionable incidents of violence, police violence in the headlines with the murder of Tyree Nichols at age 29 in Memphis.

We all continue to stand in solidarity with those who are demanding action and accountability across our country.

And we continue to send condolences and our deep condolences to the families of the loved ones there, but also as we have heard from our colleagues as well, to the loved ones of Jahana B. Kandula, who was struck and killed while crossing the street by an officer responding to a call.

So I will not repeat some of the comments that were made by our colleagues, but continue to echo the appreciation for not just sentiments and support for families, but that we act quickly with policy and action, especially for BIPOC communities nationwide, who continue to be on the receding end of trauma and incidents that result in death and injury.

And I'm encouraged by the ways that many of our council members and that this council has worked together to acknowledge the ways in which we could do better and work upstream and make investments on community safety through a broad lens.

I want to thank you all for the work that you've done and the community members who've been calling for that action.

And I'll continue to work with you all and our trusted community partners to continue to invest in solutions upstream and in actual safety infrastructure as Council Member Morales noted as well, in addition to community safety investments that we have begun investing in over the last three years.

And with that, I will turn it over to my colleagues.

I do want to note, as Council President Juarez noted, while we don't have our team from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations with us, our team via Melanie Cray in our office is following very closely along with the ongoing public safety and gun violence reduction strategies that are taking place in Olympia.

And as part of our efforts to improve community safety and public health, and reduce gun violence like the kind that we continue to see across this country in recent weeks.

Our team has been monitoring and strongly supporting House Bill 1240, which is banning the manufacturer, importation, and distribution and sale of assault weapons.

House Bill 1178, which repeals laws that prevent cities and counties from having more restrictive gun laws in Washington State.

And House Bill 1144, establishing a 10-day wait period and requiring record keeping of all transferred firearm safety and updates on state firearm background checks procedures.

In addition to that, there's a number of other public policies that we're following in labor and housing policy, but as it relates to public safety and community health, I wanted to mention those bills and I'll look forward to the ongoing updates from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations on how the city can continue to engage in those important conversations.

Thank you very much.

Madam President, I'm not seeing any additional hands.

I'm going to turn it to Council Member Peterson as I don't see Council Member Nelson today.

Before you go, I was going to raise my hand.

I'm glad that all of you have mentioned what happened in Memphis.

If you all remember, we had legislation in Congress that passed the House but stalled in the Senate, the George Floyd Justice Policing Act, which again passed in the democratically controlled house in 2021, but failed in the Senate.

And it would have limited qualified immunity policies that protect officers accused of misconduct.

It would create a national registry, sustained disciplinary actions against officers and ban chokeholds and limit no knock warrants and among other measures.

So I'm guessing that that is something we're going to work with our OIR folks, not only locally, but nationally.

Leslie Palmer in Washington, DC, who's our lobbyist, Obviously, the George Floyd Justice Act has to hopefully come back again for those very reasons that we have been discussing for since 2020. I truly believe that those of us that want that type of community policing done right doesn't mean that you're anti-police.

It means that you want community policing in the 21st century to be centered on humanity and people.

not punitive in nature and allowing people, as you would say, customer mosquito with a badge and a gun, any kind of immunity or above the law.

This is just a standard human right, and it's unfortunate that five police officers killed a young man at a traffic stop.

I'm hoping, and I will be in DC the second or third week in February, I think the third week, and we will be meeting with Leslie Polner, and that is on our list to see where we're at on pushing again the George Floyd Justice Act again.

So thank you.

And I think you forgot who you passed it to.

Oh, customer Peterson.

Sorry.

Thank you, Council President.

And yes, I want to thank the council.

We did pass the resolution three one nine six three to support the George Floyd for Justice Act.

So hopefully that resolution will come in handy when you go to our nation's capital.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

There are no items from the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

Our next meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will be on Tuesday, February 7 at 9.30 a.m.

We're still finalizing the February 7 agenda, and as of now, we're planning to have three items.

The first item will designate an honorary street name near Seattle's central waterfront.

The next item is a council bill regarding 3,800 Latona Avenue Northeast in Wallingford, which would grant final approval to the Dunlumber Company for the construction, maintenance, and operation of a private communication conduit under and across Latona Avenue.

That's for a 15-year term.

Last year, the council granted conditional approval for Dunlumber via a resolution.

This resolution directed us to come back with the ordinance, so we'll be giving it final approval.

The second is a proposal from King County to grant conceptual approval to construct, maintain, and operate a transformer and retaining wall at 63rd Avenue Southwest intersecting with Beach Drive Southwest and Southwest Spokane Street to support the operation of the Alki Wet Weather Treatment Station Facility and 63rd Avenue Pump Station Facility in the West Seattle neighborhood.

and that's again on February 7th.

As I understand it, Central Staff Analyst Litch Whitson will be drafting a memo on those term permits.

We had asked SDOT to provide a report to our committee in February on its expert recommendations for substantially reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries as part of improvements to its Vision Zero program.

The executive has requested more time so they can actually combine that with solutions.

So we'll get that at our March 7th committee instead, but we still do anticipate the executive to preview for the public.

There are pedestrian safety initiatives within the next few weeks.

That should include key highlights of vision 0 safety improvements.

No later than the mayor stated city address on February 21st.

Then we can follow that up with a discussion at our March 7 committee.

There is recent good news from a funding standpoint, I understand the US Department of Transportation is poised to make an award to the city of Seattle, as part of the federal government safe streets and roads for all grant program.

I want to thank SDOT, our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and our congressional delegation for their work in applying for and hopefully securing this funding.

As I understand it, a significant share of that funding will go towards South Seattle, which Council Member Morales mentioned we all know has the highest level of traffic-related fatalities.

There's much work to be done in this area this year.

Last week I accepted an invitation to speak with the Seattle Transit Advisory Board where we discussed the various investments from the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.

I really appreciate the members of the Transit Advisory Board volunteering their time and experience to monitor STBD and I look forward to teaming up with them to get more details on upcoming investments from SDOT.

It is regarding District 4. It's with sadness and frustration that we need to report a fatal shooting this past weekend inside the homeless encampment under the I-5 ship canal bridge on property owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation near Northeast 42nd Street.

This is a dangerous location which my office and Parents of the adjacent elementary school have been urging the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and WSDOT to address for months due to other shootings and fires underneath the highway there.

In addition to our concerns for the victims inside the encampment, the negatively impacted public school, and the repeated stress on the city's first responders to that location, I'm concerned that KCRHA's recently released five-year plan will struggle to earn public trust if we don't have more visible progress achieved this year in reducing dangerous encampments like this on state property with its existing $250 million annual budget.

I look forward to hearing back from KCRHA and WSDOT regarding rapid solutions for this location.

That concludes my report.

Any questions before we move to Council Member Strauss?

Council President.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson, thank you for bringing up the encampment that's been under I-5.

That has been going on for years.

I'll just say, just be who I am, be candid here.

We cleaned that up once with WSDOT, It got all cleaned up, the fences went up, and within six months, people were back and now it's even bigger.

We see it all the time, not last year, but the year before we did a press conference.

I thought you were in that press conference as well with the governor, with the money that they put in for WSDOT rights of way property on I-5 to clean that up.

We had another initial issue with WSDOT property up north in D-5.

an encampment on WSDOT property.

And I know you get the letters, as we all do, people, the distinction between what city property, what Seattle Public School property, what Sound Transit property, what's WSDOT.

But I know at the end of the day, people feel like we're, you know, passing the buck, but we're not.

We have to be clear about what is our property and what we can actually go on to and clean up immediately.

and our efforts with WSDOT, and we can work with you.

We worked with WSDOT on this last cleaning that they did up on 100 off North Gateway, off I-5.

And they were really good about working with us.

So hopefully, if you want, we can connect with your office, the folks, our contacts at WSDOT on that property.

And I keep saying WSDOT, but it is their property.

And about four years ago, we had a different, the state had a different philosophy about homeless encampments in the city of Seattle.

And I think we've kind of come to a good place in negotiations.

And so I was also happy that the governor had put in the budget money specifically to clean up rights of way on I-5.

And of course, that's not just I-5, but statewide and we need more.

So thank you for bringing that up.

And I've echoed the concerns that you have for the last couple of years.

breaks my heart and it's quite sad that it takes either an explosion or a murder or a fire to get things done.

I think we have to own that.

When people tell us, well, we have a list and there's 400 encampments and we can only do so many.

As you have as well, I've been working with the mayor's office and Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington, On how we're going to be strategic and cleaning and working with these other agencies and state agencies.

So hopefully more to come on that.

And we can work with you on some of those issues and some of the contact people that we work with to push hard to get right away property that washed out owns cleaned up.

We're more than happy to do that with your office.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm, I'm all finished with my report I appreciate it.

Turning it over to Councilmember Strauss.

Excellent.

Thank you Council President Thank you colleagues, I'm going to set my set the clock, see if we can beat the minute 30 seconds although I think A couple minutes ago it started already so thank you counts present colleagues, there are no items from the land use committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

The next regularly scheduled land use committee meeting is on February 6 we anticipate hearing the following items, some design commission appointments.

The arborist registration addendum legislation, which Council Councilmember Peterson, just keeping you up to date, changing the posting requirements to require it to be online, requiring vehicles of registered arborists to be marked, changing the wording of quote major pruning, unquote, to quote reportable work, unquote, but not changing the threshold of permanent requirements.

and adding in environmentally critical areas.

I'm going to be meeting with some stakeholders later this week to make sure that we have done everything correctly.

And thank you to the urban forestry commission for your feedback on this.

We did hope to have the larger tree ordinance transmitted by now.

And unfortunately we haven't received it.

And this is okay.

Just letting everyone know I had requested an early and urgent schedule so that we could get through all of the work in the land use committee this year.

So this just means that we need to adjust our schedule.

So items planned for committee later in the quarter will be moved up.

We will still schedule special meetings in March.

because when we receive the legislation, there is a 30 day public hearing notice.

So don't worry, we will make time for everyone's voice to be heard.

Something that I've heard and I just call it out now is that this legislation has been in the works for 12 to 20 years, depending on how you count it.

So if this process feels fast, it is in comparison to decades of no action.

And we will be taking the time to be diligent and legislating these important protections.

So just as wrapping that up, We are no longer having special land use committee meetings in the month of February, and we will in March.

With that, that is the end of our committee report regarding the preview of city council actions, council and regional committees.

Colleagues, do you have any questions?

Two minutes, 11 seconds, council president, not including my earlier comments.

So I didn't beat last week, but there's always next week to try, right?

You don't get rollover minutes, Council Member Strauss.

Well, with that, colleagues, hearing no questions from me, I will pass it on to Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Items on the full Council agenda tomorrow include some items on the consent calendar, including four appointments from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

One is a new appointment to the Pacific Hospital Preservation Development Authority Governing Council, as well as to reappointments.

And we also are reappointing Andrea Shealy as the Executive Director of the Civil Service Commission and the Public Safety Civil Service Commission.

Again, those items will be on the consent calendar on tomorrow's full council agenda.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee does not meet this week.

The next meeting will be on February 14th.

As both council members Lewis and Morales mentioned in their reports, last Monday evening, a Seattle Police Department officer fatally struck a pedestrian with their vehicle, killing Jadnavi Kandula, in South Lake Union on the way to respond to what has been described as a nearby priority one call.

SPD's Traffic Collision Investigation Squad is investigating the incident.

I joined the call for transparency and for the report and other publicly releasable information to be made available to the public and in consultation with the grieving family.

I hope that the conclusions of the investigation support SPD policies, procedures, officer trainings to ensure that this does not happen again and appropriate discipline.

I further understand that the Office of Police Accountability has also received a complaint from a member of the public.

Moving on to the horrible and brutal killing of Tyree Nichols at the hands of Memphis police.

I wanna take this opportunity to thank Chief Adrian Diaz for his initiative in late 2021, suspending traffic stops for certain types of driving violations that do not threaten public safety.

This work was done in collaboration with the Office of the inspector general and a number of stakeholders focused on reducing contacts between community members and police officers with the understanding that those contacts sometimes can escalate and also in recognition that There is great disproportionality in SPD contacts with members, racial disproportionality.

And one way to address that racial disproportionality is to reduce the number of unnecessary contacts.

I wanna also take this opportunity to flag that there's actually a bill in the state legislature.

It's called the Traffic Safety for All Bill.

It is modeled after Seattle's policy, and Inspector General Judge has represented Seattle in testifying in favor of the statewide legislation.

Further, the brutal killing of Tyree Nichols brings up the topic, as we've heard today, of qualified immunity.

I want to again flag, we don't need We should go to D.C.

to support the national bill, but we don't need to go to Washington, D.C.

to support qualified immunity in Washington State.

House Bill 1202 is Washington State's own qualified immunity bill.

It provides a cause of action for a person who is injured by a police officer acting under color of authority if the officer engaged in a specifically listed conduct, and it establishes standards for the liability of the officer's employer.

Real quickly, I think most of us get regular reports from SPD on shots fired.

Sharing that information year to date, shootings and shots fired events are down 14%.

There are 44 events as of the 26th of January.

There were 51 same time in 2022. Of course, these numbers are measured against 2022, which were much elevated over prior years.

So the fact that the numbers are trending downward is hopeful.

But again, it's up against a very high measure.

And for folks in our communities that are victims, either injured or injured fatally, victims of gun violence, statistics are a cold comfort.

Recognize the loss this week at the homeless person's encampment I mentioned earlier.

Moving on to events.

On Thursday, I'll be testifying at the State Senate for Senate Bill 5232. This bill will standardize waiting periods and training requirements across all makes and models of firearms.

And Friday, I'll be attending the Seattle Fire Department swearing-in ceremony for Recruit Class 116 here at Bertha Knight.

All I've got today.

Any questions or comments from my colleagues?

Not seeing any.

Pass it on to Madam President Morris.

Thank you.

Just back in time.

I'm sorry, I was listening.

Speaking very slowly.

I saw that.

Thank you.

Okay, folks, let me see.

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

The next Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments meeting will be Thursday, February 16th at 930. Last week, we met with the Human Service Division regarding the impacts of encampments in District 5. HSD reported that the city's unified care team has been picking up trash and debris weekly in the area around Midvale Avenue North, 96th, 97th, and specifically picked up 800 pounds of trash in that area on January 17th.

I'm sure you all get those updates like we do about how much trash and where they're trying to do cleaning from HSD.

We attended the North King sub area briefing, where we discuss safety and security on sound transit vehicles.

We participated in the monthly sound transit board meeting where the board considered the 1 dollar fair and also ways to coordinate the openings of Linwood link and the East side starter line, given construction impacts of the work that's being done currently on.

And so, particularly proud as on Friday, January 27, our office attended a celebration at the writer center to mark the passage of funding for a new sidewalk between 95th Street and Ravenna Avenue Northeast, which will serve children attending the writer center rather has been around since 1941. The Ryther Center provides outpatient mental health programs to help young people struggling with mental illness, trauma, substance abuse, and the autism spectrum disorders.

This project will provide a safer place for youth to walk between public transit and the center.

The effort to build this sidewalk began with Charlie, a young leader at the Ryther Center who saw a need and worked with the community and our office to advocate for this project.

I want to personally thank Charlie, along with Ben Wall.

Ben is the Reither Center's director.

But anyway, with the Aspiring Youth Program, and Anna Zavartz, the Director of Disability Mobility Initiative at Disability Rights Washington.

for working with our office.

The sidewalk is scheduled to be completed in 2024. So I have a few personal thanks.

I want to thank Brian Doherty at SDOT, who worked with our office starting two years ago.

A big shout out to our former colleague, Dean Alsop, who was our D5 district director, who worked directly with Ryther and the community and followed the project from day one till it got funded to the celebration on Friday.

Um, and I also want to thank, um, the mayor's office and, um, in particular their team or their support, uh, council member Mosqueda, who is the budget chair who made sure that this got funded.

But for all those folks for the last two years that we've been working on this, who shepherded this project from listening to community members.

And since I've, you know, I've been familiar with Ryther since my public defender days, um, to now.

to now it actually came to fruition and we actually have brick and mortar that we can point to for badly needed sidewalks around the Reither Center for a community civic program asset to all of Seattle, not just District 4 and 5, but the whole city.

And so with that, I want to thank everybody who helped do that and get that done.

Let's see.

Next I attended the North King sub area briefing where I already said that didn't I?

Did I already say that?

I already said that.

Sorry about that.

I'm going back to my old schedule.

So coming up this week, we will be going to the, I will be attending the Sound Transit Rider Experience and Operations Committee, which is meeting this Thursday.

And let's see what else I got here.

Oh, I'm going to be meeting with the Washington State Hospitality Association.

Our office will be meeting with them.

We meet with them.

So today I got elected, you know, meet with them at least once a year.

If I don't meet with them personally, my staff meets with them.

Let's see.

I do not think I have anything else on in my report.

So thank you.

Are there any questions?

Oh, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I got so excited with your report about the sidewalk out in front of Ryther because I read about Charlie's advocacy in their annual report maybe two years ago.

I cut it out and it's been on my fridge as a gentle reminder to keep it in the back of my mind.

And this is just a descriptive example of why district representation is important.

I remember a decade ago, it would be very difficult to get infrastructure in Lake City because the majority of council members were based in other parts of the city.

And I just want to take this moment to applaud you, Council President, to applaud Charlie, everyone at SDOT and Rither for great work on this.

I got super excited because this has been something that's been sitting in the back of my mind for so long.

So thank you all for your great work.

Thank you.

And, you know, two things.

This is like we've we've done a lot of these things.

I think Councilor Morales knows this as well.

Another person, our Murphy in our office did the cookie chest park.

And that was another one where we met with the community, worked with council, with the budget chair, council member Mosqueda in the mayor's office and got the money in there to make sure that that got done.

But going back to the district system, I mean, it isn't that we all represent the city of Seattle, but we try to honor those needs of our district, whether it's sidewalks, a street, you know, a crosswalk, a light, a community center, You know, that's the stuff where you're on the ground and we can best assist those colleagues of ours that are elected citywide about what's going on in our neighborhoods.

So, of course, as you know, I'm a big fan of the district system.

I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of mail about that, but I'll leave it at that.

Is there any other comments before I adjourn us?

OK, I do not see any other comments.

So with that, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a good afternoon.

Thank you.

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