Seattle City Council 9/12/23

Madam Clerk, good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Tuesday, September 12th.

This is a meeting of the Seattle City Council.

I'm Deborah Juarez.

I'm calling the meeting to order.

It is two o'clock.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council President Ores.

Here.

Eight present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We do not have any presentations for today.

So let's move on to public comment.

My understanding is that we have 10 folks in chambers and we have six people online.

So let's go ahead with our six people that are, I'm sorry, I have it reversed, don't I?

Did I say that right?

10 remote, six in person?

That's correct.

Okay.

Let's do the six folks that are in chambers.

And give everyone 2 minutes, so let's before we start with the 6 people in chambers, and then, of course, move to the 10 people in remote is, you know, what the instructions are.

Please speak to the items on the agenda.

There's 1 item on today's agenda.

I'd ask that you'd be respectful and you will hear a chime.

and that will let you know you have 10 seconds to wrap up your comments.

Please pay attention to the chime.

I hate cutting you guys off.

All right, so let's start with our six remote people with two minutes each.

Madam Clerk.

Our first speaker is Dr. Ruth Fruland, and she will be followed by Andrea Suarez.

Hi, my name is Dr. Ruth Verland.

I live in District 4, the Wedgwood neighborhood of Northeast Seattle.

Thank you for the opportunity to explain why I think you should pass Resolution 32107, supporting the National Infrastructure Bank, now in Congress as HB4050.

The NIB is the 21st century version of four previous national banks, the most recent one being the Reconstruction Finance Corporation established by Herbert Hoover in 1932. It was continued by Franklin Roosevelt to put Americans to work on useful infrastructure projects.

We have Grand Coulee Dam because of their courage and foresight.

Fast forward to today's droughts, fires, and floods.

Aren't we glad?

How can the National Infrastructure Bank benefit Seattle?

First of all, it's big enough to meet all of our needs, according to the civil engineers who have studied this problem across the country and in Washington State.

We need enough credit, which is what this bank will provide, to invest in our city.

which private banks just don't, let's face it.

What I want to speak to is climate disaster preparedness in particular.

This past summer, again, we breathed unhealthy smoke from fires in eastern Washington and California.

We need to establish the infrastructure for people to stay safe during catastrophic heat events, to prevent as well as fight fires, safe and abundant water for people, ecosystems, and regenerative agriculture.

Our food system that employed in a regenerative way actually becomes a carbon sink and keeps the carbon in the soil where it can do some good.

I see a bright future.

What do you see?

Please pass Resolution 32107 in support of the National Infrastructure Bank.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Andrea Suarez and will be followed by Timothy Emerson.

Hi everybody, Andrea Suarez with We Heart Seattle.

Continuing my comment this morning about the open air use of drugs and possession of drugs here in our city and that I urge the council to pass the ordinance that allows our police officers to have an additional tool that can compassionately pivot people off the street and into treatment and a variety of other choices available to them.

Do you have that book?

We have a drug resource guide that we've created that I urge the council to use and adopt.

There are places for people to go.

Realizing it's a controversial subject, an ordinance to pass would urge the council to adopt an intervention forward model of outreach, which emboldens our outreach agencies to bring up treatment as a form of harm reduction.

Right now, it's all harm, no reduction.

It's more like harm acceleration given the current death toll and the number of overdoses that our city first responders are responding to, including outreach workers.

The DSA ambassadors talked about this this morning.

It's affecting all of our mental health to deal with the death toll and the number of overdoses on our streets.

So arrest just means stop.

It doesn't mean incarcerate forever.

It doesn't mean convict you for your crime.

It doesn't mean convict you for doing drugs.

It just means just stop.

Stop harming yourself or others.

Just like if we were to walk by with somebody with a loaded gun playing Russian roulette, we wouldn't walk by and say, do you bodily autonomy, meet you where you're at, we would take the gun, we would be hysterical.

And these fentanyl pills are just that, it's playing Russian roulette with our neighbors suffering from substance abuse disorder, disease, and anybody in recovery that I know has told me in three years, hundreds if not thousands of people said it was arrest, and they can name the officer that saved their life.

So please pass that ordinance.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Timothy Emerson, and Timothy will be followed by Martin Tallarico.

Okay, thank you.

Martin Tallarico is next, and Martin will be followed by Keisha Kaye.

Thank you.

My name is Martin Tallarico.

I'm from West Seattle, and I'm here to ask that you pass HR or Resolution 31027 in support of HR 4052, the National Infrastructure Bank.

Some say that the $5 trillion size of this bank is quite large, but I believe the challenges we face are even larger.

The NIB, the National Infrastructure Bank, is large enough to not only provide low-interest, long-term loans to communities that can afford them, but also large enough to issue grants to the many communities across our state and nation that cannot even afford that.

The NIB will also be large enough to fund high-speed rail throughout the heavily-traveled corridors across our country.

The Cascadia high-speed rail line is planned and practically shovel-ready from Eugene, Oregon to Vancouver, B.C., and the NIB will get people out of their cars and cargo out of trucks helping clean our air.

It will also be big enough to provide $25 million union wage, earn-as-you-learn jobs, and jumpstart our economy.

Previous national banks have done this four times without adding to our debt or increasing our taxes.

And again, it's been done four other times in our nation's history.

And each time, it's added to the national treasury and increased our gross national product.

Please vote yes on Resolution 3210. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Keisha Kaye, and Keisha will be followed by Kathleen Brose.

Good afternoon.

Can you hear me?

My name is Keisha, and I'm here to speak today on the legislation as far as making drugs illegal.

The rise in drugs on the streets has directly impacted the public safety in Seattle.

Crime, drug use, as well as homelessness in Seattle is at an all-time high.

Seattle has passed a grim milestone, 57 homicides so far this year in 2023. It is the highest level of homicides that the city has seen in nearly three decades.

In March of 2002, oh, I'm sorry, 2022, Washington reported 2,351 drug overdose deaths.

In March of 2023, Washington reported 2,200, I'm sorry, 2,948 deaths.

I don't think that I need to point out the obvious, but because I feel the obvious is greatly ignored for climate change, I will say this.

This council has completely missed the mark with addressing the drugs and public safety.

If this current council is not able to address the real issue of this city with real legislation, with real teeth that it matters, you will need to be replaced with someone who will enforce the current state Blake Bill and protect the people of Seattle and make drugs illegal.

You're tying our hands.

You're making it difficult for us as women.

We are not safe.

We are being attacked on the streets.

We just had someone last month stabbed 18 times on the light rail.

If we do not address the real true issues of fentanyl on our streets, drugs on our streets, the crime in our streets, the recklessness of everyone and anyone in our current economy, we will continue to have the ongoing problem that's not resolving itself.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kathleen Brose, and Kathleen will be followed by Marguerite Richard, and that's our last in-person speaker.

Good afternoon.

I am a lifelong resident of Seattle and currently live in District 6, but I care about my entire city.

Regarding arresting the open drug users in public places in Seattle, I support the Blake law.

I listened to your meeting this morning.

I wasn't able to attend in person.

And it sounds like you're going to have the vote on September 26th.

Let me know if I misunderstood that.

And there were a lot of changes.

Talk about the amendment.

And I'm just not sure what the final wording is going to be of that decision.

once you vote on it.

Anyhow, I really want you to support the Blake Law.

The substitute amendment that Council Members Herbold and Lewis proposed does not have enough teeth.

We need to save downtown Seattle and other affected neighborhoods and make them safe places to live, shop, and frequent entertainment establishments.

It is imperative that we allow the SPD or some other entity to remove drug addicts and the mentally ill from our streets and place them in caring treatment facilities.

Whether the behavior of the addicts and the mentally ill are threatening other people or they are just lying on the streets, benches, parking strips, parks, etc.

Some entity needs to pick these people up and take them to a caring treatment facility or some form of incarceration.

I'd rather it not be jail, but they have to go somewhere to keep the rest of the public safe.

Allowing a tyrannical minority of addicts, often involved in criminal activities, not always, but often, to affect public policy for the majority of people is negligent.

It just seems like some of you on the council care more about protecting destructive behavior than protecting the rights of their victims.

Please adopt the Blake Law in the city of Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our last in-person public commenter is Marguerite Richard.

Good day everyone.

My name is Marguerite Richard and I'm here today to piggyback on that.

It's not like I don't have something else to address but I'm a living witness to whatever they testify.

I was walking down Jackson over there by Sound Transit and I saw a white person They call them Caucasoids, also they call us Negroids, and the other folk, Mongoloids.

He was scratching his face on the ground, crawling with his face, crawling on the ground.

All I could do was just stand there and pray for him because I couldn't tell him to get up because he was out of his mind, obviously.

I just came from across the street addressing behavioral health.

How you gonna do it when the person's mind may already been troubled by something you people have done like you've done to me?

Mike Chen, he did the same thing that Rudy Giuliani did to those two women that the judge said, no, you ain't going to concoct no lies up like this without me not holding you responsible for it.

And it's the same thing here.

And you want to talk about somebody's behavior.

Get out of here.

That's why, I don't know where she at, Miss Wu, but I don't blame her for wanting to take care of a neighborhood where my uncle had his own record store on Jackson Street.

We didn't see that back in the 60s.

His name was Bob Summerizing.

He brought jazz to Seattle.

And now I have to see this cesspool of people disorderly because you, You gonna help me if you see me dragging my face on the ground out there?

Don't lie.

No, you're not.

You're not.

Oh, I heard the bell, but I'm still ticking, okay?

I took a licking, Ms. Nelson, but I'ma keep on ticking.

Thank you.

Our first...

Thank you.

Our first remote speaker is Ingrid Clare, and Ingrid will be followed by Linda Toste-Lane.

And don't forget you may need to press star-6 to unmute your phone.

Thank you Ingrid.

Hello.

Hi.

Thank you.

It's my turn.

Ingrid Clare.

Yes go ahead.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

My name is Ingrid Clare.

I live in Seattle's Leschi area.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on a resolution 32-107.

The National Infrastructure Bank can benefit Seattle by building affordable housing for the city's 35,000 homeless residents as well as the 22 percent of Washington State's extremely low income residents who cannot afford housing at today's rent.

The NIB supports Seattle Housing Trust Fund and mandatory housing affordability program to build and provide permanently affordable homes for the citizens less fortunate.

In Seattle the NIB can fund To update and build new public schools providing top technology, NIB can fund ports, airports, and supply chain issues.

We need to be competitive with Europe and China.

Those countries have used these types of banks to create huge infrastructure projects.

These projects, which will create over 100,000 jobs here, will also bring in revenue for the city of Seattle and Washington State, with spinoff businesses and small businesses will grow.

Consumers will have the means to make purchases they need, higher wages for people that need these increases.

Right now, we are seriously behind and need support to make this happen.

This has been proven successfully four other times in the history of the country.

Hamilton created it.

Lincoln paid for the Civil War.

Roosevelt paid for the WPA, Depression, and World War II, which Washington state benefited.

We need to catch up and go beyond.

Please support Resolution 32-107 and let's be part of the solution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Linda Toste-Lane and Linda will be followed by Marilyn Chase.

And Linda, you may need to press star six.

Linda, do I see, I don't see her.

Can you hear me?

Yep, can now go ahead.

OK, my name is Linda Toskey Lane and I'm a legislative co-coordinator for the Washington State National Organization for Women.

I'm also retired from the Washington State Department of Children and Family Services, where I last served as the area administrator for the state, including King County.

I want to thank you for allowing me to speak today.

I'm here to ask you to pass Resolution 32107, in support of the U.S.

House Resolution on the National Infrastructure Bank.

Much of our country's and state's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair.

Many communities lack housing, workable transportation networks, clean, safe, and sustainable water and food production networks.

For example, in the area of transportation, many low-income women and their families struggle to find reliable transportation that can affect their health, resulting in missed appointments and poor illness management even if Care is readily available, as well as access to resources to healthy food.

We are losing critical workers, such as teachers and firefighters, because housing is unaffordable.

Inflation is hitting all of us in the pocketbooks.

Individuals, families, small business, and government.

The new bank would create tens of millions of high-paying jobs, train our youth, and lift many of our disadvantaged people out of poverty and despair, ultimately providing housing, transportation, and a healthy environment.

Additional jobs mean more tax revenue for our cities, counties, and states, and will improve the lives of those in our communities.

A National Infrastructure Bank is a win-win for our state and local communities, providing reduced-cost financial instruments for our local and state government infrastructure projects, and a better quality of life for all of Washington State's residents, including women and children.

Thank you for your time today, and I urge you again to pass Resolution 32-107 in support of the U.S.

House Resolution on the National Infrastructure Bank.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marilyn Chase, and Marilyn will be followed by Diane Foster.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, and thank you for presenting Resolution 32-107 for consideration.

My name is Marilyn Chase, and I'm a former state senator representing the City of Seattle.

I'm here today to support the adoption of the City of Seattle Resolution 32-107.

And by this resolution, we are again requesting our congressional delegation to co-sponsor the U.S.

Congress to pass and the President to sign legislation creating the National Infrastructure Bank.

Our state's experience with an infrastructure bank in the last century proved that as a financial strategy, it will provide the financing capability to adequately invest in the infrastructure needs required for human survival.

There's a point called the tipping point at which there is such a high concentration of greenhouse gas that the temperature constantly rises.

Before the tipping point, the situation can no longer be corrected.

We are dangerously close to that concentration of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.

If we do not respond, our children and our grandchildren will face a silent spring again.

We have less than 10 years to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent to avoid passing the point of no return.

after which there is no recovery from a long excruciating trip down a road to an uninhabitable earth.

Resolution 32107 calls for a sustainable public policy in which the governance decisions we make today do not deny future generations the resources they need to meet their needs.

We must invest now.

Thank you for your attention and for your service to our community.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Diane Foster, and Diane will be followed by Alfeca Mutardi.

Go ahead, Diane.

Hello.

Thank you.

This is Diane Foster, and I would just like to piggyback on what all the other speakers said in favor of resolution number 32107, the National Infrastructure Bank.

We are at a tipping point, and I don't need to repeat what all the previous speakers have said, but I would just like to say a ditto to all of them, and then I'll yield my time to the next person.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alfeca Mutardi, and Alfeca will be followed by Randy Grein.

This is Alfeca Mutardi.

I am with the Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank.

I'm a macroeconomist, and I would like to speak in favor of your City Resolution 32107, which supports uh...

members of congress a call by members of congress to pass legislation enacting a five trillion dollar national infrastructure bank we need one of those because we simply cannot finance infrastructure through the budget uh...

question has been asked about this bill in congress how does it ensure that we get infrastructure into the city of seattle build affordable housing, put treatment centers and daycare centers in them and in close proximity to transportation, ensure that all the bridges are rebuilt.

The city needs $6 billion just for that.

All of these projects, there is enough money in the National Infrastructure Bank to cover them because that infrastructure has been monitored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

They come up with an estimate of how much money is needed, the bank covers all of that.

And then the bank lends directly to the owner of the infrastructure, the city or the county for its road or bridge or school.

And in that way, that infrastructure improvement can be tailored to the exact specifications that you need.

So altogether, we will be rebuilding infrastructure and rebuilding the economy and getting your workforce into great paying jobs.

So, I highly ask you to pass the Resolution 32107, calling on members of a Congress to establish a National Infrastructure Bank.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Randy Grine, and Randy will be followed by Naixin Fu.

Go ahead, Randy.

And you may need to press star six.

I, this is tile.

I don't see his tile up.

I see his tile, but it shows that it's muted.

Oh, there it is there.

Star six, Randy.

Okay, we can come back to him is available.

And they, she, you may need to press.

There you go.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon council members.

My name is machine.

I'm a resident of D6.

I'm calling to encourage you to vote to support Resolution 32107 to establish a national infrastructure bank.

I'm the President of the Board of Washingtonians for Public Banking, an organization supporting the creation of public banks in Washington State, and we have also endorsed NIV.

We need public banks at all levels of government, prioritizing the needs of people and communities first instead of maximizing profits for shareholders and executives.

Multiple events in 2023 alone have demonstrated how private banking puts profits over people.

In March, Silicon Valley Bank, the only bank of my partner's employer, which was our only source of income at the time, collapsed in part due to risk-taking behaviors.

This left us uncertain for several days whether we would see future paychecks.

In July, Bank of America was fined $250 million for creating fraudulent accounts and illegally charging customers.

The NIV would fund much-needed infrastructure projects in our city at low interest rates.

As the first staff member of the newly created How's Our Neighbors Action Fund, to push the successful implementation of social housing in Seattle.

I'm delighted to see the NIB will fund expansion of publicly owned housing and energy efficient building.

Please join the many endorsing organizations, including the Washington legislature and King County Democrats and endorse this resolution to create one more tool that we have to support the growth of our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I now see Randy Grine and following Randy will be David Haynes, who is our last registered speaker.

Go ahead, Randy.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate your patience with my cell phone.

My name is Randy Grein.

I am a Bellevue resident, but lived in Seattle for 10 years after college.

I want to say just a couple of things, although it is tough to follow Alpaca.

This is a potholes issue.

It's not politics.

I've talked with our Republican friends, and they've shown cautious optimism about this.

when they're not in front of a crowd.

We can get this going.

You've been told that this is on the Hamiltonian model.

Alexander Hamilton created this concept and it's used worldwide.

This creates no new taxes and it provides money that will create, and it has created every time we've used it, a vast increase in the economy.

benefits for everyone who's part of that economy.

You've been told that it's going to support broadband, rails, bridges, high-speed rail, airports and seaports, affordable housing, living wage jobs, and training for those permanent jobs.

What you haven't really been told is that this is a permanent bank.

This time, it will not sunset in 20 years.

And it will continue to provide those benefits forever.

This is as American as it gets.

And while this is dull economics, this is important and the city of Seattle should get behind it.

And I can't say anything more.

Please vote for this resolution so that we can get our Congress people to sign on and pass it.

Thank you.

Our last speaker is Dave.

Did you need to say something, Council President?

No, I was trying.

I was looking at the towel from hello.

Yes, Mr. Hey, go ahead.

Thank you.

Okay.

My name is David Haynes.

And I'm calling about the public safety concerns.

You have to have a law that trespasses drug addicts who've taken over the bus stop that the bus drivers never called Metro police about.

And when you trespass them with trained cops, you have to strategically question them to find out where they got the drugs and go shut it down.

And at the same time, you have to lead these people towards a low security conscription for their addiction treatment.

You can't voluntarily let them roam around deciding when they're going to stop doing drugs while the whole time they're still connected to the drug pushers.

But I hate to say this, the mayor has bragged that he has criminal underworld friends.

And the police chief is on record as saying he's making it up to the black and brown community for past wrongs.

And the result is, They're running interference for, along with City Hall and some people from George Soros's judicial system, for low-level drug pushers.

And they're not low-level.

They're just under 3.5 grams of crack meth, heroin, and fentanyl that the cops are refusing to train to go after.

They're training to propagandize the lies of the reasons why it's unsafe by blaming the homeless while they get overtime at law-abiding events, but they never pay overtime to sweep the neighborhood to grab 20 junkie thieves and trespass them and question them to find out their supplier and shut it down.

Yet these people that want to say the war on drugs failed never acknowledged that we only legalized proper grown marijuana.

Proper grown, not any weed.

Yet, they sabotaged, with this city council's budget redirections, the integrity of public safety and the safety effectiveness of it.

And now, you're allowing a war on the homeless with no capacity, and you desperately need the National Guard to step up and create authorized encampments for all the levels of mental addiction, conscription, and trauma, and have the service outreaches show up instead of working banker's hours.

OK.

Thank you, and that concludes our public commenters today.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you, those who called in and thank you to those who showed up in chambers and the public comment that you provided for us today.

So public comment is now closed.

So let's move on on our calendar.

Let's move on to adoption of the introduction referral calendar.

If there's no objection, the introduction or referral calendar will be adopted.

Not seeing or hearing an objection, it is adopted.

Let's move on to the adoption of today's agenda.

There's no objection.

The agenda will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing an objection, it is adopted.

Let's move on to adoption of the consent calendar.

The items on the consent calendar include the minutes from September 5th, council bill, payroll bill, council bill 120651. Is there any items that a council member would like removed today?

Not seeing any, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

The clerk, I'm sorry, the clerk, please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council President Uras.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The consent calendar is adopted.

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

Moving on to committee reports, we have one committee report today, a resolution from Councilmember Mosqueda.

So let's begin with Madam Clerk, will you please read item number one into the record?

Agenda item one, resolution 32107, a resolution requesting the United States Congress and the President pass and sign legislation creating a National Infrastructure Bank.

Thank you.

I move to adopt resolution 32107. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

Councilor Mosqueda, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much, Madam President.

And I want to thank all of the people who dialed in and also provided public comment in person today.

This is a really exciting opportunity for us to continue the momentum, the momentum that was created by the National Infrastructure Bank Coalition and here locally from the Washingtonians for Public Banking.

who have been advocating for this resolution to pass at all levels of government.

And they have asked us to support this resolution to support the greater push for approval at the federal level for the National Infrastructure Bank.

I'm very honored to have been following in the footsteps of Senator Bob Hasegawa, who every year that I have known him, has been working on a state or national infrastructure bank concept.

It is my honor that he has supported this resolution with the letter that he sent to counsel that we circulated for our colleagues consideration yesterday.

I also want to thank Senator Marilyn Chase who dialed in today to express her support and her longtime advocacy as well for both the state and a national bank.

In part, Senator Hasegawa's letter states the National Infrastructure Bank will create $5 trillion in lending capacity to maintain aging infrastructure and build new critical infrastructure that will create 25 million good family wage jobs, and will do this all without raising the federal debt or new taxes.

It's important to note that the National Infrastructure Bank has equity requirements in it, he continues, to ensure that it provides economic opportunities for marginalized and underserved communities, job training skills, and complies with the Davis-Bacon requirements on all projects.

This is why the National Asian Pacific American Caucus of State Legislators, as well as the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators labor organizations, and so many community-based organizations have endorsed the National Infrastructure Bank.

I appreciate that he sent that letter and continues to lead our state in calling for both the state and National Infrastructure Bank.

We are currently in an untenable situation, Senator Hasegawa notes.

Our infrastructure is crumbling and we have no way to finance maintenance without resorting to regressive schemes, let alone funding new projects to prepare for the future.

We are in this position because it was intentionally designed to ensure that we are paying more for routine needs.

That is why we need additional support to help ourselves be able to invest in the infrastructure that our community, our business, and our families so desperately need.

The National Infrastructure Bank works in the following ways.

It lends $5 trillion through a public bank for infrastructure projects only.

It covers 16 project categories.

monitored by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

It covers additional categories, such as affordable housing, as you heard in public comment today.

It includes high-speed rail, water projects to address drought.

It creates 25 million new jobs, in addition to supporting Buy America requirements.

It supports minority and disadvantaged business enterprise participation, significant investments in low-income and urban and rural communities.

It lends just like a commercial bank, providing low interest loans at treasury bond rates, flexible terms, loan maturity, and over the life of the project ensures that we continue to invest in our community and infrastructure.

It provides a trust fund that provides grants for poorly resourced communities.

And finally, what are the benefits to Seattle?

Many of my colleagues want to know when we're voting on resolutions that either have national or international impact that we lift up what the impact is in our local community.

Well, the coalition points to the fact that the National Infrastructure Bank provides direct benefits to the City of Seattle, such as the opportunity to build affordable housing for the city's 35,000 homeless residents, as well as the 22% of Washington State's extremely low-income residents who need assistance with obtaining affordable housing.

It replaces Seattle's aging bridges, including the 2nd Avenue Extension Bridge and Pioneer Square, built in 1928. and the Magnolia Bridge built in 1929 and University Bridge in 1930, all rated in poor condition.

I will note in conjunction with Council Member Peterson, I'm sure that the call for additional funding for these bridges is not in lieu of us doing something locally or within our own state.

This is in addition to that as we call for federal assistance to support these local and state investments in our local infrastructure.

Finally, it repairs Seattle's pothole roads.

Washington states are rated amongst the worst in the nation, and it helps to build high-speed rail and extend mass transit throughout our city and improve and bolster public transportation.

It could repair and replace water infrastructure, including drinking water, wastewater, stormwater.

and lead service lines.

And it addresses the entire backlog of projects in the city to bring the infrastructure up to scale in good repair.

It bundles these projects to save on construction costs.

Madam President, I will save on my comments of noting of other jurisdictions and states that also have supported the call for the National Infrastructure Bank for any closing comments that I'm allowed to make.

And I just want to say, how exciting it is that this has been so fully detailed, flushed out, that we have specific projects that we could point to within the City of Seattle where the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank could have some immediate investment opportunities.

We add our name, hopefully, with the passes of this resolution to the national call for a National Infrastructure Bank to pass Congress.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Council Member Esguerra, and thank you for the information.

I'm going to open the floor, and I see Council Member Herbold has her hand up.

Thanks so much.

I just want to say that I'm very happy to support this resolution in support of the National Infrastructure Bank.

I think the council has a long history of working to promote a state-owned bank.

In 2017, many council members supported a council budget action to study the feasibility of establishing a city-owned public bank.

My staff and I have met several times going back to early 2021 with District 1 constituents and advocates for the National Infrastructure Bank.

I advised the group on the importance of getting support from our federal delegation for a council resolution before moving ahead, and my office put advocates in touch with Representative Jayapal's office last December.

I also helped Facilitate participate in meetings with council member office earlier this year, given that customer data is our budget chair really deeply appreciate her willingness to meet with the group, engage with the concept and sponsor this resolution.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Customer herbal customer Lewis.

Thank you Madam President.

I'm very excited to be supporting this resolution today.

I appreciate the sponsor specifically calling out the Magnolia bridge in district 7 as a project that could ultimately be a beneficiary of the resource and partnership that is made possible through a national infrastructure bank.

and projects all over the city of Seattle, where increasingly we are looking for more opportunities for capital, for partnership, and for keeping up on our obligations to not just build infrastructure, but prioritize the lifetime replacement of that infrastructure when it is warranted.

So this is a really critical tool.

Like a lot of things, it is a sort of an exercise in going back to the future to when this country did emphasize a government policy of building things for the people, be it through national parks, public infrastructure, or railway systems.

So really support this and hope that we are successful in getting this legislation passed at the federal level and partnering to advance a lot of our long deferred capital projects.

Thank you, council member Lewis.

Is there anyone else before I hand it back to council member Muscata to close this out?

Oh, thank you for the.

Not only the ordinance, but the lovely flow chart and the fiscal note.

I keep holding up the flow chart.

I appreciate that and I'm glad that Senator Chase called in too.

I think that was important to hear from her as well.

Councilor Skader, do you want to close us out on this before we go to a vote?

Sure, and thank you for holding up the flowchart.

Thanks again for the coalition who has been so helpful with providing data and additional information.

The follow-up conversations, as Council Member Herbold noted, with our congressional delegation to ensure there was continuity between our support and our state delegations as well as we call on them to support this national effort to have a national infrastructure bank.

And you would not have all of this material in front of us, including the resolution and the fiscal note, without Melanie Cray's support.

So thanks to Melanie Cray on my team for helping to facilitate getting this in front of us.

I really want to lift up what the Council President noted yesterday.

There are a number of jurisdictions and states that have supported the call for a National Infrastructure Bank.

Washington State being one of the more recent ones, thanks in large part to the coalition and leadership from Senator Hasegawa.

We are now amongst 24 states that have called for the National Infrastructure Bank legislation to pass through Congress.

Washington State, again, joining half of the other states who are asking for a National Infrastructure Bank, hoping that we continue to tip the scale and have action on the call for a National Infrastructure Bank.

Locally, groups that have passed similar endorsements or resolutions supporting a national infrastructure bank include the 34th District Democrats, Seattle Indivisible, King County Democrats, 1st District Democrats, Salish Sea Chapter of the Washington State Federation of Democratic Women, the 45th Legislative District Democrats, the 48th LD Dems, and the 49th LD Dems.

It was also noted that there's a number of counties and cities that have passed similar resolutions.

I count 38 among those, and I'll just read the top five, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland.

Also noting this is not just blue states or blue cities, it's red states and red cities as well.

And I think that somebody spoke to that in public comment.

This is a bipartisan effort to try to really create support for our infrastructure, which should be a bipartisan investment.

National organizations that are supporting this include Association of counties, Latino farmers and ranchers, trade association, Congress, National Congress of black women, Association of minority contractors, U.S. high speed rail, public banking institute, American sustainable business coalition, and the list goes on.

In addition to that, there is at least 20 labor union associations that have supported this, especially because this is a way to not only invest in the infrastructure of our country, but to invest in the workers of our country.

This could be our New Deal-like investment if we created a national infrastructure bank and given the call for a Green New Deal and the opportunity to put folks to work on infrastructure that can help us address climate change, It's a really great opportunity for us to think about how we create a just transition to good union, green infrastructure jobs.

So, thanks to the support from the Federation of Federal Employees, the Virginia Building Trades Association, the plumbers from Ohio, the AFL-CIO Central Labor Body, and in Georgia and in Westchester.

There's, Council President, there are so many.

I just want to underscore how broad the support is here from Virginia and Ohio to California and New York, New Mexico, Washington State.

It is union members, community members, broad support from community calling for a National Infrastructure Bank.

Proud to have our city Added to the long list of folks who are calling for a national infrastructure bank.

Thanks for your consideration of support here today, colleagues and for the coalitions tenacity and continuing to push the discussion in Washington, D. C. Thank you.

You sure that's it?

I could read them all.

I believe you.

All right.

Is there anything else before we go to a vote?

I'm not seeing anyone else.

So with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of resolution 32107?

Council Member Peterson.

Abstain.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Abstain.

Council President Ores.

Aye.

Seven in favor, none opposed, and two abstentions.

Great.

Thank you.

The resolution is adopted.

The chair will sign it.

Madam Clerk, are you pleased to affix my signature to the legislation?

All right, so let's move on to items removed from the consent calendar.

There were no items removed from the consent calendar.

2nd is adoption of other resolutions.

There are no other resolutions for the introduction and adoption for introduction adoption today.

Moving on in our agenda to other businesses, there are 2 items and they're both mine, so I'll just go ahead and start.

If there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow council president me to appoint a new member to the select labor committee.

Is there any objection?

Not hearing objection, the rules are suspended and council president will issue a memo establishing the updated select labor committee membership.

All right, thank you for that.

2nd, item this has to do with customer Strauss in August council member Strauss was excused from the September 5th city council meeting.

Customer Strauss did attend September for the city council meeting.

Therefore, we will rescind his excusal from that meeting.

Is there any objection?

Thank you.

Not seeing or hearing.

I'm going to object.

I'm just kidding.

Not seeing or hearing any objection.

Council Member Strauss, excused absence from September 5th City Council meeting will be rescinded.

Hearing no objection, it is rescinded.

We rescinded your recusal, excusal from September 5th.

You good, Council Member Strauss?

Yes, Madam President.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Is there anything else before I move to adjourn from my colleagues?

All right, not seeing any, so this does conclude our items of business colleagues.

Our next meeting is Tuesday, September 19th and thank you all and we are adjourned.