Seattle City Council Briefing 832020

2020 Council Briefing Meeting will come to order.

The time is 934 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mosqueda?

Here.

Peterson?

Here.

Salon?

Here.

Strauss?

Present.

Juarez?

Here.

Lewis?

Present.

Gonzales?

Here.

7 present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council members, the council rules are silent on allowing electronic participation at council briefing meetings.

In order to continue participating remotely, I'm going to move to suspend the council rules through September 1st, 2020 to allow this meeting to occur while participating through electronic means.

If there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow electronic participation at council briefing meetings through September 1st, 2020. Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and council briefings will be held with council members participating electronically through September 1st, 2020. If there's no objection, the minutes of July 27th, 2020 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report.

I am going to dispense with the Council President's report this morning.

However, I do want to remind you, colleagues, that I sent out a message last night reminding folks that there will be a meeting of the Select Budget Committee immediately following this Council briefing.

I'm going to reiterate the request I made in my email last night, which is to ask that presenters and council members try to make the remarks as brief as possible.

For council members on your reports, I've asked if you could pretty please keep it to under five minutes.

I know that's a lot to ask, but any sort of budget-related comments can be made during the Select Budget Committee.

We have another long day ahead of us, so I really appreciate you all working with me to keep our agenda tight and efficient so that we can get to the Select Budget Committee.

Okay, let's go ahead and dig into a presentation on the proposed Council Bill 119840, which would prohibit the questioning of juveniles unless legal counsel is provided.

We have some guest community partner presenters with us today.

As a reminder, we ordinarily in this context have someone from Council Central staff to also present on the bill.

Unfortunately, because they are because they are busy with the rebalancing package exercise and process.

We cannot have someone from Council Central staff to jointly present on this council bill, so we will only be hearing from community partners.

Council members Herbold and Morales are the prime sponsors of this legislation, which is on this afternoon's introduction and referral calendar.

So, I'm going to ask if either Councilmember Herbold or Morales have brief introductory remarks before we dig into the presentation, which all of you should have in your inboxes.

Councilmember Morales, Councilmember Herbold, either of you want to make comments?

Yes, good morning.

There you go.

Esmeralda Morales, please.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

I want to thank Anita and Katie for the work that they're doing here with, that they've been doing with our office, with Council Member Herbold's office on this legislation.

It's really important that we move forward in thinking about how we protect young people in our community and make sure that they have a right to have access to council as soon as their Miranda rights are read.

And so I want to thank them both for helping us understand the legislation we're about to look at next week.

Thank you so much Council Member Morales and Anita are you gonna kick us off or is Sean gonna kick us off?

I'm actually gonna allow Sean to kick us off.

Okay is he with us?

Yes thank you.

Okay there you go Sean take it away.

Oh I see you now you're you're in a different part of the grid.

Take it away Mr. Goode.

Thank you kindly, and counsel, thank you for the opportunity to be before you this morning.

Anita, the Department of Public Defense, Choose 180, Community Passageways, Creative Justice, and a variety of other nonprofit organizations are strongly advocating that our young people have the right to counsel when being engaged by law enforcement.

Candidly, The work of our organization is predicated upon the fact that young people make poor decisions.

We wouldn't be in a position to serve if we felt like our 12 to 24 year olds throughout the county and in the city of Seattle made great choices in critical moments and were able to accurately.

that is used right and forward, particularly when we think about how frequently Black Indigenous people of color behavior throughout our county is criminalized.

When 36% of Seattle is Black Indigenous or people of color, and yet 72% of the Black Indigenous people of color were those who were charged in our juvenile court, and 86% were those who were detained, and 60% of incarcerated youth have behavioral health issues, it's quite clear that we're battling something that's deeper than how do we make sure a young person has an appropriate adult with them.

We are also battling this pandemic of racism that is clearly impacting our community at large.

In fact, as it's been proclaimed by King County Public Health, a second crisis in complement to COVID.

So our ask of the council is to move forward this opportunity to combat the disease of racism in our community by simply creating the space for a public defender to be present with a young person when they're likely to make a choice that's going to dramatically impact their future.

And a public defender's presence will simply allow for them to have a positive, connected adult that will help steer them in a direction that best aligns with their rights.

Young people, when confronted by law enforcement and the culture and climate that we're in today, truly feel like they're making a choice between death and disclosure.

Now, whether or not it's likely that they would be killed in a confrontation with law enforcement is irrelevant.

What's relevant is that that's what they believe.

It's kind of like my son, who's on his way to college, who thought he was going to be a college athlete and an NBA player.

He is not doing either of those things.

Or my 13-year-old daughter, who has aspirations to be an actress.

And that may be possible, but the odds would tell me it's not likely to be the case.

Our young people project forward things that aren't necessarily true based upon the thing that they believe to be authentic to themselves.

And presently in our environment, they certainly believe that police are a threat to their life and a danger to themselves.

And that being the case, all of our children, particularly our most marginalized children in our community, should have the opportunity to have a connected adult who is vested in their best interest with them present when being engaged by law enforcement and being asked to acquiesce their rights.

You know, young people say things all the time, like, well, he told me that I could go home if I just told him what happened, and then never end up going home but end up being detained inside of the criminal legal system.

Or, well, I thought I understood what my rights were, but I really had the right to remain silent?

I didn't have to concede to a search?

Like, these are things that young people aren't processing at these critical moments.

Anita has a presentation that's going to walk through so much of the brain development and other variables that are at play that prohibit young people from clearly thinking through these things.

But at our core, I mean, I'm a husband of the most amazing woman in the world and the father of two brilliant and incredible teenagers.

And even in the healthy environment that they've had the opportunity to be brought up in, they still regularly make poor choices.

So imagine my young people, my black children being put into context confronted by law enforcement, considering death or disclosure, they would certainly choose disclosure, even if it wasn't in the best interest of their future.

Anita, my friend, with that, I'll hand it off to you.

Thanks so much, Sean.

I am going to endeavor to share my screen.

And bear with me so I can try and make the PowerPoint show up for you all.

OK.

First, I just want to talk briefly about the proposed name of the ordinance, the My Chance Dunlap-Gittins Youth Right Ordinance.

My Chance Dunlap-Gittins was a young man of color who lost his life at the hands of law enforcement and who, had he had the chance to grow up, wanted to be a champion of rights for young people like himself.

So in theory, the Constitution protects the right to remain silent and the right to counsel.

And when an officer believes that someone has committed a crime or has arrested someone as a suspect, they read them these Miranda warnings.

And I think many of us have some familiarity with these warnings from TV.

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say will be used against you.

You have the right to a lawyer.

The Supreme Court has required that these warnings be given when someone is under arrest because the court has recognized that any interaction between law enforcement and a civilian is structurally inherently coercive.

And that analysis was not done specific to children.

And in practice, what we know from young people who are on the receiving end of Miranda warnings, they find them confusing and scary.

So one youth said to us, they try pressuring you to talking to them, and the next thing you know, you're saying yes to something you didn't do.

Because of this, the right to counsel is critical for young people, and that's true for a number of reasons.

First, research tells us that youth often do not understand their legal rights and their protections.

Second, power dynamics are coercive, and they limit meaningful consent and meaningful waivers of rights.

Third, as we know, the criminal punishment system is rife with racial bias, and that bias undermines trust between youth and law enforcement.

And procedural justice, which is something that this ordinance furthers, improves public safety.

And it protects youth in a way that existing case law simply fails to.

And I'll discuss these issues in greater detail.

So first, lack of understanding.

Adolescent brain science tells us two things, or tells us many things, but irrelevance here.

One is that Miranda is confusing.

Researchers who have looked at the issue have found that most young people don't actually understand Miranda warnings.

They don't understand that they can remain silent.

They don't understand that they can ask for a lawyer.

They don't understand that they can refuse to consent to an officer's request for a search or request for information.

The second thing that the research tells us, and that Sean just reminded us by talking about his own kids and those of us who have children all know, is that young people are impulsive, and they are not good at thinking long-term.

and understanding the consequences of what a decision today will mean for their lives in three months or six months or five years, right?

They're really only able to sort of think sort of short term impulsively.

They're often eager to please and therefore not able to really evaluate what is in their interest.

When we layer on top of the brain science, the power dynamics that exist between law enforcement and young people, and I want to be clear that this is not about particular law enforcement behaving well or not behaving well.

There is an inherent power dynamic between an armed adult and a young person on the street.

I mean, and frankly, I mean, even I, as a privileged middle-aged woman, find armed adults intimidating.

I used to do appeal hearings for young people who were banned from buses, and those appeal hearings occurred in a room full – with five metro armed officers.

And I would feel afraid to walk into that room to do that appeal just because those individuals are armed.

And I knew that they weren't going to kill me or shoot me or hurt me, but just that power dynamic, of them being individuals with power and weapons makes it really scary.

Less than 10% of youth suspected of committing a crime who have been Mirandized or received these warnings actually assert their rights when they're stopped by the police.

Children questioned by adults and authority figures are more likely to feel pressured to respond.

And that pressure doesn't necessarily result in accurate information.

They just feel the pressure to respond.

Police interrogation, as I discussed earlier, is inherently coercive.

And finally, I'm going to discuss this last point a little bit more.

Police can lie to young people during interrogation with impunity.

So our case law says that it is OK for law enforcement to lie to people suspected of committing crimes, whether they are adults or children.

These are techniques that were developed to manipulate, I think, were intended to manipulate adults into providing information that are used against children.

And so in this next slide, I have an excerpt from a law enforcement report for a client that DPD represented.

I won't go through all of it, but the first paragraph, the officer writes, I spoke with the first male who was later identified as a person client.

I advised client of his Miranda rights from a department issued code book since he was not free to leave and I was questioning him.

He stated yes to understanding my questions and yes to answering them.

In the next sentence, the client says he was coming from his friend's house and that he was going to that friend's house to pick up his school binder.

The law enforcement officer appears unhappy with the information that the client is providing.

And so then states, I used a ruse by telling client that it was all someone else's idea and that someone else was a mastermind of it all.

And he uses this ruse in order to then get the client to make a statement.

But I want you to know, just in the police report itself, the officer uses a phrase, used a ruse.

That is permissible conduct.

There's no shame.

There's no hiding it.

That is something that we allow police to do in the course of investigation.

And when you think about a young person who doesn't know that this is something that could be happening, that power differential is immense.

And again, it really breaks down any notion of trust between community and law enforcement.

Of course, we layer on top of this the structural racism of our criminal legal system.

Nationally, police officers are more likely to arrest black youth than white youth.

In 2016, black youth accounted for 15 percent of U.S. children, yet made up 35 percent of juvenile arrests that year.

And we know that we have a very significant problem locally.

Police stop black indigenous people and youth of color at a disproportionate rate.

In 2012, the arrest rate for African-Americans in King County was 1 in 38 in 2010, while the arrest for white suspects was 1 in 200. 72.4% of the youth charged in the juvenile legal system in 2019 were Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

And in 2019, 86.1% of the youth incarcerated in King County were Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

And we know that the Seattle Police Department's enforcement practices contribute significantly.

Nearly a quarter of the filings, a quarter of the cases filed against youth by the King County Prosecutor were sent over by the Seattle Police Department.

The My Chance Dunlap Gittens Youth Rights Ordinance will make our community safer.

And I want to use this opportunity just to call attention to a memo you may have reviewed from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, SPD, and the Sheriff's Office, who jointly wrote a memo.

raising concerns about the impact of this ordinance on community safety.

This ordinance, one very similar to it, was passed in San Francisco.

In fact, we have modeled this off of work done in San Francisco.

And Chesa Boudin, the elected district attorney of San Francisco, has stated that this ordinance, which in San Francisco is known as the Jeff Adachi Youth Rights Ordinance, now fully implemented in San Francisco, makes our community safer and has not diminished my office's ability to prosecute serious and violent crimes.

Further, the ordinance enhances procedural justice.

Adopting the My Chance to Unlock Gittens Youth Right ordinance will reduce racial bias and lead to safer communities.

Youth are more likely to comply with the legal system when they feel that system is less unfair.

And I don't pretend to say that this one ordinance is going to suddenly make our legal system fair.

But it is an important step in young people recognizing that we care about their rights and that we want to help them exercise them when they want to.

Patricia Lee, the managing attorney of the juvenile unit of the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, has stated that since this ordinance passed, I believe that my clients distrust the system less because they understand their rights and how to exercise them.

In the memo from the prosecuting attorney's office, I think one of the issues that they raise is that the ordinance will, in fact, diminish community trust in law enforcement.

And this quote, you can't erode what doesn't exist, comes from Kendrick Washington, who is the youth council at the Youth Policy Council at the ACLU.

This was his comment to the county council when they were considering the same ordinance as applied to the King County Sheriff's Department.

But simply put, he's absolutely right.

You cannot erode what doesn't exist.

And that trust does not exist.

Another argument that the prosecution attorney's office makes is that current case law is sufficient to protect the rights of young people.

But that is simply not the case.

And I'm going to Sorry, I'm going to quote from a letter, again, from Chesa Boudin, the elected district attorney, who wrote, and I think you have a copy of his letter, who wrote, existing case law and constitutional provisions do not adequately protect the rights of youth, especially youth experiencing poverty.

or who are Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

That anachronistic case law largely ignores what the science tells us about developing brains and pretends that young people and law enforcement are on equal footing in any interaction.

This is a truth that the prosecution's memo simply does not engage with.

And then when we look at the way the law currently plays out, even when the law requires courts to consider a young person's age in determining whether a confession or a consent to search was lawful, as a matter of fact, that rarely happens.

But even more importantly, even when it does happen, that's way downstream.

That can be weeks or months after the encounter has already occurred, after the traumatic interrogation has already occurred, a young person has had this unfair experience of interacting with law enforcement and waived their rights without really understanding that they didn't need to.

Quoting again from the elected district attorney in San Francisco, The Jeff Hidachi Youth Rights Ordinance rectifies this problem created by an anachronistic case law by considering both the brain science and the power dynamics between youth and law enforcement interaction.

The ordinance makes young people's constitutional rights meaningful by connecting them to a lawyer who can help them understand these rights.

So very briefly, what the ordinance does do, it provides that police may not subject youth to questioning after administering Miranda warnings until the youth has spoken to a lawyer.

It also provides that police may not ask youth to consent to the search of their body, property, or vehicles until they've talked to a lawyer.

Here's what the ordinance does not do.

It does not apply when officers want to ask questions during carriage stops or welfare checks.

So it has a pretty narrow application.

And this goes to the PAO's third argument, which is that it would be chaotic, and we don't know who we would have to get a lawyer for, and it would interfere with talking to victims.

Victims are generally not mirandized by law enforcement.

Unless you think that victim also committed a crime, you are not going to mirandize the victim.

The ordinance as written and I think PAO frankly was responding to an earlier version of the ordinance that was more broadly written and we tightened it in response.

recognizing that this would complicate law enforcement operations.

It also, the ordinance has a loophole where it does not stop officers from questioning you if they reasonably believe that the information sought is necessary to protect life from an imminent threat.

And finally, it does not require the exclusion of any evidence in court.

This is not an evidentiary rule.

So what the ordinance does do is it provides youth with access to a public defender via DPD's on-call service, which provides legal representation 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

We already have this on-call service, and law enforcement already routinely accesses it, so operationally it should not be a significant shift for them.

And it protects the dignity, integrity, and safety of youth in King County.

I will leave you with one final quote from a young person talking about their interaction with law enforcement.

They said, the police are really scary.

I wish I'd known my rights.

And counsel, candidly, if a challenge to our justice system being just is having a public defender present with a young person at a critical moment, then do we really have a justice system whatsoever?

And our ask is simple.

You know, all it does is take a Saturday drive down Alki in the middle of a pandemic to look at what decision-making is like for 12 to 24-year-olds.

This is low-hanging fruit in comparison to the variety of other things that are in front of all of you right now.

This is simply saying yes to children, saying yes, children should have adult voices that are educated and informed, present in their life when they're making critical decisions.

And yes, we understand that the children who are most often engaged by the criminal legal system are the black indigenous young children of color in our Seattle community.

And the last thing I'll say is in the system of injustice, we suppose that by the time it gets to the court, the judge would have an opportunity to preside over the case and make a determination whether or not the evidence that was procured was done in a manner that was in line with the law.

And over 90% of the cases don't even go before a judge.

And young people are taking pleas to things based upon the evidence that was acquired as a result of a ruse in some instances.

This is simple, family.

This is easy.

This is probably one of the more simple decisions you're gonna make in the middle of a pandemic and social unrest.

Create the space for young people to have an adult present who's informed and educated and can help them understand the truth behind their rights.

I appreciate every one of you and your time and we'd love to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you so much to Sean and Anita for that presentation.

Really appreciate it.

So colleagues, we do not have a lot of time for questions, as in we have one minute for questions.

So I'm going to run a very tight show today because we have the pressure of a select budget committee after us.

So I'm going to allow for, unfortunately, I only have time to allow for one question and one brief response.

and then we're going to transition into preview of today's city council actions.

Obviously, Shauna and Anita will be available to us offline for additional questions and context and would encourage you to take advantage of that opportunity.

Councilmember Lewis, I saw you raise your hand so you will get the one and only question available to our good community partners here.

If I'd known how much pressure there was going to be, I might have not volunteered for it, but I'll jump in just really quickly.

I mean, it's more of just a quick statement.

Totally agree with everything the presenters said.

You know, Sean, always good to see you, albeit virtually in this case.

You know, my friends down in the Bay Area who are still practicing law as public defenders and district attorneys have attested to the strength of this policy on both sides, uniformly very popular down there as the presentation alluded to.

And just want to signal, totally support it, would be interested in the fixing as a co-sponsor.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Councilmember Herbold, I know you are one of the prime sponsors of this, and Councilmember Morales had an opportunity to speak at the top of the agenda, so I'm going to let you close us out on this subject matter, so we can move to our next session.

Thank you.

I just want to very quickly thank DPD and Choose 180 for coming to present today, and just for my colleagues just letting you know what next steps are, depending on central staff's ability to review the legislation.

The bill could either come to full council on August 10th or August 17th.

Any alternative, it could come to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on August 11th.

We are referring it this afternoon to full council.

If we chose to have it go through my Public Safety and Human Services Committee next week, we would have to re-refer it.

Let's continue to talk about those next steps, but I agree this is a no-brainer and maybe one of the easiest decisions we'll have to make in a pandemic.

Thank you.

councilmember Herbold and we will stay in close contact with you around final action.

At this point we are thinking it will be August 17 due to capacity from our council central staff.

I want to signal that early on to our community partners and colleagues.

There will be time and space for each of us to shift our attention from the do appreciate the prime sponsors bringing this forward and of course to our community partners for proposing that we pursue this policy.

So I'm going to go ahead and close this out.

I want to thank Anita and Sean again for being with us.

Thank you so much.

I'm sorry that we're sort of running at a fast clip here, but you all make a very persuasive case for what it's worth.

And so we are looking forward to hopefully being able to act in due haste here.

Thank you so much and please don't hesitate to reach out if you have further questions.

Thanks to both of you.

Thank you.

Okay folks, so for our guests, you all are welcome to leave the meeting and we're going to go ahead and go through the preview of today's City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

We'll begin that conversation now.

Colleagues, we have until approximately 10.35 a.m.

to get through all nine of us.

Again, for things that are related to the Select Budget Committee, I'll ask that you please hold your comments until Select Budget Committee, and we'll go ahead and get started with the rotation of reports out now.

This is just my baby pulling my hair, no mind.

Okay, first up is Council Member Mosqueda, and then we'll hear from Council Member Peterson.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I will be short.

There are no items on today's full council agenda from the Budget or Finance and Housing Committee.

This week we do have two continued Select Budget Committee meetings.

One is starting today, immediately following the council briefing this morning.

Public comment period has already opened up, and so we will have a brief public comment period this morning, and a brief one on Wednesday as well.

This follows over three hours of public comment on Wednesday last week, and we'll continue to include public comment as we move forward.

Today we have the remaining 15 amendments that we began discussing on Friday and we are preparing to go through each one of those amendments with you and any additional amendments that anybody may have to walk on happy to hear those today because our intent is to really try to vote on Wednesday.

We have an opportunity to hear from the prime sponsors and then again if anybody wants to sign on you'd be more than welcome to do so for each amendment.

We are going to recess and give ourselves an hour break before the full council starts.

That is our strong intention.

Today's budget committee meeting is continuation.

Again, we're going to start with amendment number 40, where we left off last week.

The meeting on Wednesday, just quick flag for folks, that starts at 11 a.m.

We usually start at 10 a.m., but Council Member Peterson, thank you so much for being flexible on your timing of your meeting.

I believe you were starting earlier, around 9.30, and we will then jump in around 11 o'clock as our start point.

So council, colleagues, and members of the press, I'm sorry, members of the media, members of the public, you will have the chance to sign up for public comment starting at 9 a.m.

on Wednesday.

Finally, we are hoping to take final committee vote on August 10th at 10 a.m.

or after council briefing on the amended 2020 rebalancing package.

There are two items on the introduction and referral calendar, just very briefly.

Item number five is an ordinance relating to gig workers in Seattle.

As you remember, we just passed this ordinance making sure that gig workers have access to paid sick and safe leave, a huge win for especially our essential workers and especially folks who are gig workers who tend to be more likely to be this is an important policy decision.

We do have a technical amendment that clarifies that this ordinance only applies to independent contractors and not individuals already covered for employees under our existing Seattle paid sick and safe time ordinance.

I'm told this could have been done administratively, but the office of labor and standards is recommending clarification from council, so we are happy to put in We will be looking for a vote on this next Monday, August 10th.

Lastly, there is a resolution on today's introduction referral calendar, item number 6. This is a resolution affirming the rights of members of the press, legal observers, and medical personnel covering protests.

Following last week's court ruling that members of the press had to hand over photos and videos from the initial George Floyd Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle, we saw report after report of people talking about how this could have a chilling effect on reporters' ability to do their job.

chilling effect if people think that our press corps is an extension of the police force, and a chilling effect if we don't actually have separate and free press separate and apart from government.

The press corps, legal observers, medics must be free to document those expressing their First Amendment rights.

So this resolution condemns any intentional targeting of press, legal observers, or medical personnel who are otherwise engaging in lawful conduct and have the right to document and report what is happening in those protests.

It provides avenues for journalists and legal observers to be at protests and allows for medical staff to continue to do their critical work and not to be exposed to the harmful effects that we've seen reported.

This follows members of our local TV press and members of CNN being hit with flash bangs, members of the legal observer team being sprayed, and members of the intercept being arrested.

So I want to thank council for your possible support and anticipation.

This follows what Portland, Oregon just passed two Wednesdays ago, and looking forward to the conversation on that.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

I want to commend you for getting in right under five minutes.

Thank you so much.

Next up is Council Member Peterson, and then we'll hear from Council Member Sawant.

Hello, colleagues.

On today's City Council agenda, I have no items from the Transportation and Utilities Committee.

Now that the Mayor and Council have successfully advanced the Seattle Transportation Benefit District to the November ballot, we can get to some regular committee business that's been delayed.

So we're having a brief Transportation and Utilities Committee meeting this Wednesday.

We're starting early at 9 a.m.

So at 9 a.m.

Is the start instead of the regular 930 so that we can have more time to resume our budget committee meetings A real quick preview, street permits and scooters.

On the agenda, we've got two briefings requested by the executive.

One is related to COVID, and that's a briefing on temporary street permits for small businesses that want to use the sidewalks or parts of the street to expand their business outdoors, to have sufficient social distancing for returning customers.

We want to encourage this economic activity to help neighborhood small businesses and their workers, and because it generates revenues for vital city services.

While learning about that COVID-related legislation, the executive also asked that we receive a briefing on the overdue program for electric scooters.

I'm particularly interested in hearing how the executive proposes to mitigate the safety and liability concerns with electric scooters.

I'm hoping also there are no material costs associated with such a new program because I believe it's vital we preserve capital dollars for the West Seattle Bridge and bridge maintenance in general, especially during a period of budget deficits.

The committee is not voting on either item, but the forthcoming legislation is complicated enough that we want to have these preliminary briefings now.

I understand if not all committee members are able to attend as we prepare for the more pressing budget meetings that will continue at 11 a.m.

on Wednesday.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson, for that report.

Any questions or comments?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and move along down the line to Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

Good morning, everybody.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renter Sites Committee.

Hundreds of community members were deeply disappointed last Friday to see that no Democratic Council member proposed anywhere near defunding the police by 50% as our movement has called for and as was promised by City Council Democrats.

I am a socialist alternative and my office had warned activists that this would happen.

I will have more to say about this later this morning in the budget committee right after this council briefing where the City Council will discuss the proposal from my office and the people's budget summer 2020 campaign to defund SPD by 50% this year or by 85 million and to stop the sweeps of homeless people and disband the navigation team.

to support these demands from the justice for George Floyd movement will have a chance to do the right thing by supporting my amendment and I really look forward to your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Swann.

Any questions or comments?

Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and hear now from Councilmember Strauss followed by Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you, Council President.

There is one item from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the Introduction and Referral Calendar, Council Bill 119838, which is the 2020 Comprehensive Plan Amendment Bill, which will be considered in September.

There are no items on today's full agenda.

And the next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is August 12. And there are three items on the agenda, the Child Care Near You vote and the Land Use Omnibus Bill.

there will be a vote on both in a briefing in public hearing on rezones and Rainier Beach area for development of affordable housing.

Council President, per your request, I've deleted almost all of my D6 updates for today.

I do want to touch on Council Councilmember Peterson's note about scooters, that I will be looking to sponsor some of that legislation.

And while I have many concerns, which I'll speak to at a later date, I also know that if we're going to try this, we have to do it now.

We've gone back and forth for over a year.

There's still many questions to be answered.

And we can't address this in an academic fashion any longer.

Now is the time to use our academic analysis to implement a pilot to understand what could and can work for Seattle.

Thank you.

I will speak briefly about the everyday march that came to Ballard on Friday.

Instead of waiting for them to come to my home, I went and met them in the park.

We had a good discussion, and they asked me tough questions on camera.

What I saw is the next generation learning to lead.

I watched them have experiences, reflect and learn, and change behavior in real time.

They shared rules of no property damage, not to engage enough with the opposition, and ensure black folks are leading.

They also shared how to manage traffic.

As they marched, they asked people all along the way to join and even had masks for new participants.

Their focus was education, stopping to have discussions with neighbors on the doorsteps and porches, and highlighting the educational disparities between Ake Grocey and Whitman Middle School in my neighborhood.

This is a civics experience.

And after being asked tough questions by the organizers in the park, I remained available for anyone else to ask me questions.

The majority of the questions I received were actually not under the purview of city council.

And what I realized in answering these questions is that most of this conversation is rooted in not understanding how our civics operates for many people in our community.

And that was mostly from the D6 folks, not from folks outside the D6.

I want that to be clear.

This is a historical moment with protests occurring every day for the last two months.

The last time this happened was in the 1930s.

And for many people participating, this is the first time for them to engage in the civics.

Some folks are still learning to use their voice and how and where to direct it to.

For those of us who have received visits from Every Day March, we have each had a very different experience.

And I can't continue to speak about this without addressing the fact that Seattleites and protests have been particularly toxic to our colleague, Council Member Juarez.

This has been especially troubling for me.

She's our first Native American, and Council Member Juarez, tell me to be quiet if you want me to.

The reason that this is especially troubling for me is she's our first Native American woman elected to represent a city named with a mispronunciation of our Native American chief with a seal of a face that may very well not even be his face.

I'm not going to go into the thousands of ways of how this is messed up here at council briefing.

And I'm not going to tell people how to protest.

And I'm not condoning property damage.

What I am saying is it's okay to disagree and have disagreement, and it's okay to have different ways of approaching policy.

And it's not okay for Seattleites to terrorize an elected Native American at our home.

If the listening public doesn't understand what this means or the thousands of layers contributing to my remarks, we'd have a bigger problem.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for that report.

We're going to go ahead and go along the line here.

Next up is Councilmember Herbold, and then we will hear from Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

Keeping it real short, there are no items on the full council agenda or the introduction referral calendar for the Public Safety and Human Services Committee this week.

I just want to share with my colleagues that the weekly numbers from the Seattle Fire Department's COVID-19 tests administered at the Soto and Aurora sites cumulatively up to August 5th.

They have done 88,000, more than 88,000 tests.

On Friday, the city announced a third site, a walk-up location at Rainier Beach High School in South Seattle that is now going to be open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from 930 to 530 p.m.

And planning is still underway to add a site in District 1. No timeline has been announced.

I'm really appreciative of these additional sites in communities of where the virus hits people most vulnerable, BIPOC communities, both on the southeast and southwest part of the city.

I think it's really important that we recognize that there is a disparate impact.

both in getting the COVID-19 and also from dying from it.

So it's really important that we recognize that by ramping up testing in these neighborhoods.

Clients at the Walk Up Rainier Beach testing site will not be charged and will not receive a bill regardless of health insurance status.

For insured clients, the University of Washington Medicine will handle the billing of an individual's private insurance, Medicaid or Medicare.

and under Washington law, insurance companies cannot charge co-pays for COVID-19 testing.

To keep the wait times 10 minutes or less, please register ahead of time.

Go to Seattle.gov and search for register for testing.

While most people can and should access testing through their regular health care provider, Public Health Seattle King County hosts several testing sites throughout the city and county without a registration request or requirement.

Please visit public health, Seattle King County's website, or call 206-477-3977 for more information.

Coming up on today's full council agenda is a bill that I sponsored with Councilmember Lewis.

I think it was mentioned earlier regarding some technical amendments to the gig worker premium pay.

and I'm sorry, I guess it was mentioned by Council Member Mosqueda, and there are, these are technical amendments requested, and there's a similar amendment for the gig worker premium pay legislation.

Because of budget committee, I have had to cancel my virtual office hours scheduled for this coming Friday.

My next virtual office hours will be on August 28th.

And then lastly, just want to mention as far as events coming up this week, I have a West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting at noon on Wednesday.

And that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold for that report.

Next up, we will hear from Councilmember Juarez, and then we will hear from Councilmember Lewis.

Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you, Council President.

You don't have to tell me twice to be fast and short and to the point.

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

The originally scheduled committee meeting for tomorrow, August 4th, has been canceled.

Briefly, regarding parks, as usual this morning, my office will email you the weekly parks COVID-19 programmatic update.

Briefly, four lifeguarded beaches are now open.

The mayor's office this week approved opening lifeguarded beaches with social distancing at Magnuson, Madison, West Green Lake, and Pritchard.

However, Mount Baker is closed temporarily due to bacterial contamination.

and should be open up in a week or two depending on bacteria levels.

The other four beaches opened Sunday, Sunday, August 2nd.

Let's see.

And after that, I believe I will defer to Chair Mosqueda about the budget issues and what memo you all be receiving that our office will be co-sponsoring based on our discussions Friday, July 31st.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez for that report.

You're close to winning the race here on who's as close as possible.

Council Member Peterson has the shortest report, so.

Next up is Council Member Luis and then we will hear from Council Member Morales.

All right, well, let's see if I can win the contest here, Madam President.

OK, so I will be very, very brief this morning, knowing that we're going to have some big discussions in short order.

So just really briefly, there's nothing on the introduction and referral from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I did just want to flag that Councilmember Herbold and I are putting forward some proposed changes to the premium pay for gig economy workers ordinance that we passed in the spring.

and that is Council Bill 119841, which is on introduction referral today.

This makes some technical changes that we have been advised by law to make that will help with the pending litigation of this ordinance and clarify a couple of terms.

It should not materially impact how this ordinance provides relief to workers, but it should assist in our strategy to preserve and protect that ordinance.

and we are looking forward to getting that before everybody.

As I stated earlier, I want to thank councilmembers for putting forward the ordinance that we discussed earlier during briefing, the CB 119840. As I said earlier, happy to affix as a co-sponsor to that important ordinance and look forward to discussing it more later this month.

Thank you so much Councilmember Lewis for that report.

And we are going to go ahead and now hear from Councilmember Morales and then I will wrap us up.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you, Council President.

There are two items on the introduction and referral calendar today.

Council Bill 119839 lifts the proviso for $170,000.

This is intended to support community engagement and racial equity analysis around our criminal legal system and is in support of some of the intercept work.

being done with OCR.

We will talk about that when it's time.

Additionally, the My Chance to Look Kittens bill that we just heard about.

I do want to thank again, Anita and Sean and Katie Hurley from Public Defenders who have been working countless hours with my staff, Darzell Touch, and Council Member Herbold's staff.

I want to thank the community advocates who asked us to do this, and who have provided really important feedback and accountability as we turned their idea into legislation, Choose 180, Community Passageways, many others.

I also do want to thank King County Council Member Girmay Zahalai, who is leading this effort at the county level.

He and I have overlapping districts, and as two new elected officials, we are working hard to try to make sure that we're kind of walking together to serve our district well.

And I do want to thank, again, my legislative aide, Darzel Touch, who's spent countless hours on this and is helping keep me accountable to the young people in our community.

Finally, as it relates to young people, I do want to say that the work that they've done on behalf of this legislation is one example of the advocacy young black and brown people are engaged again, as council member stress said, there is a new generation of folks coming up.

and they're coming to us, their elected officials, to ask for better community safety, better job opportunities, more investment in black-owned businesses and neighborhoods, more support for black home ownership.

And while this council has condemned some of the language and the tactics that were being used early on, and our council members have been born the brunt of that, a couple of them, We still have an obligation to understand where they're coming from.

And I say this because the everyday march protesters are young people from my district.

Many of them are recent high school graduates.

And for the most part, they are engaging in peaceful protests and fairly well-informed conversations with council members about what they're interested in, um, you know, despite, uh, maybe not being quite up to speed on the actual implementation.

Nevertheless, um, they, I have to say that I take exception to the response by our police chief who celebrated that her neighbors met these young people with guns when they were exercising their first amendment right to peacefully protest on a city street.

So I know that this is a hard time for all of us.

There are lots of protests, lots of people making demands on council and on elected officials in general.

We won't agree with everyone, but I think we need to make sure that these young people are not met with armed neighbors when they are exercising their First Amendment rights.

to ask of their elected officials, ask for things from their elected officials.

Council President, I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales for that report.

I am going to just quickly do my report and then offer folks one last opportunity to respond to anything they might have heard in this morning's briefing.

I am endeavoring to end at 10.35 a.m.

It's 10.27 a.m.

now.

Okay, so I have nothing on this afternoon's agenda, and we don't anticipate having a Governance and Education meeting for the month of August.

We do have an important reconfirmation to consider later this month that'll be of the Director of the Department of Education.

and early learning.

So more to come on that.

But for now, I'll just leave it there.

I am going to go ahead and keep it super brief because I know we have a select budget committee meeting to get.

I understand that we might want to take a little bit of a break for transition.

So Council Member Mosqueda, do you want five or 10 minutes to transition?

Okay so once we adjourn at 10 35 a.m.

assuming we go until 10 35 a.m.

we will reconvene at 10 40 a.m.

Colleagues we are using the same zoom number all day today so I don't think you need to leave the meeting.

You can just stop your video if you are on video and mute yourself, and that'll sort of help expedite us getting the next meeting started.

So I'm going to close out my report.

Are there any additional comments that any of my colleagues would like to make?

All right, hearing none, looks like we might be ready to go.

So we're gonna adjourn council briefing this morning.

It is 10, about, I'm gonna say it's 10.30 a.m.

So let's plan on reconvening at 10.35 a.m.

where we will reconvene as the select budget committee meeting.

So until then, we are adjourned.