Good afternoon, everybody.
Thank you for being here for our November 18th meeting.
The November 18, 2019 City Council meeting of the full City Council will come to order.
It's 2-0-9 p.m.
I'm Bruce Harrell, President of the Council.
Would the clerk please call the roll.
O'Brien.
Pacheco.
Here.
Sawant.
Bankshaw.
Here.
Gonzalez.
Herbold.
Here.
Juarez.
Here.
President Harrell.
Here.
Five present.
Thank you very much.
Council members Gonzalez and Sawant will not be in attendance today.
And before I move to excuse them from the meeting, I have to, I'm required to suspend the council rules to allow more than two council members to be excused from today's meeting.
So if there's no objection, council rule 2B5, relating to the number of excused absences at a city council meeting in November will be suspended to allow three excused absences from today's meeting.
So if there's no objection, that rule is suspended, and therefore I will move to excuse Council Members Gonzalez and Sawant from today's meeting.
Actually, I won't do it through a motion.
I'll do it administratively.
So if hearing no objection, I will excuse them administratively.
So Council Members Gonzalez and Sawant are excused.
If there's no objection, today's Introduction and Referral Calendar will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, today's introduction and referral calendar is adopted.
And similarly, if there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.
The minutes of the November 12th, 2019 City Council meeting have been reviewed.
And if there's no objection, the minutes will be signed.
Hearing no objection, those minutes are signed.
Thank you, Amelia.
Presentations, I don't believe we have any presentations this afternoon.
So at this time, we'll take public comment on items that appear on today's agenda, our introduction and referral calendar and the city's, or the city's 2019 work program.
Let me say a few, make a few comments about public comment.
There are some procedural items that we need to disclose.
So on today's city council agenda, the council will consider and may vote on two pieces of legislation related to the Waterfront Local Improvement District.
The first one is Council Bill 119697, which amends sections of the Municipal Code that govern procedures for conducting the final assessment roll hearing, the assessments.
And Resolution 31915, which provides official notice of the public hearing on the final assessment roll for the Central Waterfront LID.
So that is a notice of the public hearing.
So to comply with the appearance of Fairness Doctrine.
We've been joined by Council Member Michael Bryan.
To comply with the appearance of Fairness Doctrine, email correspondence addressed to all Council Members that reference the Waterfront and Local Improvement District and related email correspondence has been disclosed and is included on the agenda.
So council members who wish to make a statement on the record on this matter will be invited to do so later on.
And so prior to taking action on the LID, Central Waterfront Local Improvement District legislation.
So we'll have that opportunity later.
So if a member of the public is here to provide public comment on the Central Waterfront LID legislation, please avoid any comments related to the individual final assessments.
Council decision on an appeal of a final assessment is what we call quasi judicial and We cannot hear public comment about the merits of a specific final assessments.
Okay, so I hope that was clear and so having said that we will now open it up for Public comment and we'll keep it open for 20 minutes and give each speaker two minutes.
So our first speaker will be Jean Burris followed by lacrisse green
Thank you very much.
Thanks for the clarification from last week.
I know that we had some confusion about that.
So three points I'd like to make on the waterfront lid based on the presentations we heard last week.
First, I think the votes today may be premature in that we understand that a number of aspects of the design for the waterfront lid projects have not been completed yet, nor has an environmental assessment under the State Environmental Protection Act been completed yet.
All of those could lead to significant changes in the design.
And so it's probably premature actually to go forward with the final assessments.
Second point, and I don't want to trouble everyone with what their calendar next year might look like, but I agree with Councilwoman Bagshaw's assessment that there may be hundreds of individual challenges made to this.
It looked like we had one day scheduled for a hearing officer to hear all of those.
If there really are hundreds, it's likely actually to take months, not a day, in order to take evidence and hear arguments on each of those challenges.
And then months again after that for the hearing officer to actually make findings and draft reports on each of the perhaps hundreds of individual challenges.
And so I think the calendar probably is a bit off.
And then unfortunately, that's also going to be followed by your calendars being burdened with perhaps hundreds of appeals from those findings by the hearing officer, which would literally mean months of your full-time attention to review each of those files and to hear arguments on each of those appeals.
And so the schedule ought to reflect that distinct possibility.
I agree with Councilwoman Bagshaw on that.
And then third, I'd like to make a point I've made in these chambers before.
of the fiscal irresponsibility I think that this entails in committing the city to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional spending for which it does not currently have a source that could lead to the diversion of funds from other bigger priorities in the city as a matter of law.
So I think it's a dangerous thing to move forward with partial funding of the LID, partial funding of these projects through a LID mechanism.
So thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Following Lucrece Green will be Jonathan Coomer.
Good afternoon.
I am coming.
The Bible says the righteous are taken away and nobody lays it to heart.
Mr. Harrell, I am truly sorry that you have chosen not to rerun again.
My prayer is that God be with you and that he heals the wounds that has been inflicted upon you since for the last four years.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Green.
Following Jonathan, I think Jonathan may be the last one.
I see three names with their crossed out, so I don't know if they still want to speak or not.
You're up there, Jonathan.
Good afternoon.
This is a statement from Pike Market Community Center and Salvation Army about some of the thoughtful questions you raised last Wednesday, Council Member Harbold.
This is their words.
We choose who gets the Samaritan beacon.
Samaritan doesn't.
We never give someone a beacon to someone that we can't already meet with on a consistent basis.
We use the beacon as a resource for people we either want to meet with or people we are already meeting with.
This is not creating new activities.
This is strengthening existing activities.
The goal here is to give financial and community capital to the individual themselves so that they say yes to opportunities much greater than the beacon itself.
By doing this, we unlock capacity to serve the next person faster and report more outcomes.
We've seen it happen during the 500 participant pilot with more beacons plus thousands of Seattle housed residents able to reinforce our efforts.
The city will see higher numbers of engagement, retention and housing placements from us.
During the summer of 2016, I met with Jason Johnson about Samaritan and the pilot.
Understandably so, he thought it was too risky to put public dollars behind it, and he told me to go out and get some data and a proof of concept going.
Vulcan stepped up with $100,000 to give 500 people access to a beacon, and that money is spent, and the data and the outcomes are in front of you.
This is an opportunity to give more people a chance to invest in someone experiencing homelessness.
And yeah, people need relationships.
You've heard that from public comment.
Samaritan is a transformative way to bring that about for people without a home.
The proposed SLI simply gathers feedback from 2019 and 2017, 2018. Why not give this resource to more people who will actually experience homelessness in 2020?
Thank you, Jonathan.
Thanks for your testimony.
So, I see three names crossed out, Tim, Dorinda, and Dory, and Pat.
So, I'm going to assume you don't want to speak.
So, we're okay?
I just take that.
So, I'm sorry?
I do.
Okay.
So, your name was crossed out.
So, okay.
See?
Hold it up for the cameras.
Sorry.
I didn't cross it out, I promise.
I apologize.
I did not cross out my name.
Okay.
Hello, council members.
I'm not here in front of you for any items on this specific agenda.
I do want to speak to you about one of the items on the budget.
um uh committee agenda for tomorrow uh item number 152 SDHR 101 A1 is a bill that said it's a it's an item that says it's creating a uh employee giving program it says establishing an employee giving program in the legislation Um, actually, um, when I, I, so the city has had an employee giving program with a payroll deduction since 1988. Um, in, when I worked for the city, earlier in my time with the city, I served on the employee combined charities committee.
The committee used to be run completely by employees and we used to organize all of the events and market the charity, uh, campaign to city employees.
Over the years, the city's employees have given millions of dollars to charity through their payroll deductions.
This item, item 152, would eliminate the employee giving program through payroll deduction.
Ostensibly, the paper says that donations have gone down.
because of online giving, making it easier for people to give that way.
I give, not trying to toot my own horn, I give donations to 17 different charities through my payroll deduction and occasionally regular payroll deductions.
Most charities say that's the easiest way to give.
and the best way for people to give, safe way to give money.
I'm concerned that this is actually a mistake for a city that is trying to get people to do more and be Samaritans, as the earlier speaker said.
And so I would like to urge you to look into that and think about continuing that program one more year.
I only found out about it this weekend.
I did not realize that this was on the agenda or I would have brought it up earlier.
I'm sorry that it's as you're making your final decisions.
Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony.
Let me make sure that Tim and Pat names are appropriately crossed out.
Is there a Tim and Pat that want to speak?
If not, we're going to close public comment.
And we're going to move to the next agenda item, which will be payment of the bills.
So I'd ask the clerk to read the title.
Council Bill 119702, appropriating money to pay as item claims for the week of November 4th, 2018 through November 8th, 2018, and ordering the payment thereof.
Okay, I'll move to pass Council Bill 119702. It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.
Any comments?
Now, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.
O'Brien.
Aye.
Pacheco.
Yeah.
Bigshaw.
Aye.
Bigshaw.
Aye.
Herbold.
Aye.
Juarez.
Aye.
President Harrell.
Aye.
Six in favor, none opposed.
The bill passed and the chair will sign it.
Please read the first agenda item.
You can read one and two.
The report of the City Council Agenda Items 1 and 2, Clerk File 314326, Full Unit Lot Subdivision Application, Michael and Venny Van Lai, to Subdivide 1 parcel into 26 unit lots at 4809 South Willow Street, Council Bill 119695, approving and confirming the plan of Seattle Modern Living on Willow in portions of the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 27 Township 24 North, Range 4 East, WM, and King County, Washington.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Pacheco.
Colleagues, this clerk files an application for a subdivision of one parcel at 4912 South Willow Street into 26 lots.
The hearing examiner held a public hearing and issued preliminary approval in January 2017. Council Bill 2, the second action item is the associated council bill that approves the subdivision application of 4912 South Willow Street.
Thank you very much.
That's it?
and Councilman Pacheco, I understand these are related.
Did you describe both the clerk file and the council bill in your short description?
Yes.
Okay, so both managers are ready to vote.
Are there any questions on either the clerk file or the bill?
Because we're going to vote on them separately.
Okay, so I'll move to file clerk file 314326, their second.
Okay, those in favor of placing the clerk file on file, please vote aye.
Aye.
Those opposed vote no.
The motion carries and the clerk file is placed on file.
At this point I'll move to pass Council Bill 119695. It's been moved and seconded.
Any further comments?
Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill.
O'Brien.
Aye.
Pacheco.
Aye.
Bankshaw.
Aye.
Herbold.
Aye.
Juarez.
Aye.
President Harrell.
Aye.
Six in favor, none opposed.
Bill passes and the chair will sign it.
Will the clerk please read items three and four into the record.
Agenda items three and four.
Council Bill 119697 relating to public works and improvements amending sections 20.04.090 and .270 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
Resolution 31915 fixing the date for hearing the final assessment role for local improvement district number 671 to design and construct the Central Waterfront Improvement Program and directing that notice of the hearing be given in the manner required by law.
Thank you very much.
So before we consider as a council the Central Waterfront Local Improvement District legislation, both pieces of the council bill and the resolution, council members who wish to disclose communications or communication dealing with the Central Waterfront Local Improvement District on the record may do so now.
And so if there's any council members who would like to speak on that matter, Please use so at this particular time customer back show.
Yes.
Thank you very much in this excellent memo from Eric McConaughey dated November 15 2019 there is attached an email exchange between Darby do come and me and I just wanted to confirm that this is accurate and complete and there was no conversation between us about final assessments
Thank you, Council Member Bagshaw.
Are there any other council members that would like to disclose whether or not they've had any email disclosures at this point that they'd like to disclose as well?
Council Member Herbold?
I received the same email that Council Member Bagshaw mentioned, but I did not respond to it.
Okay, very good.
I did read Council Member Bagshaw's response to it, though.
And Council Member O'Brien?
For the record, it was screened out before I saw either the response or the email, so Okay, and Council Member Juarez?
It's the same for me as well, President.
We are, I read the material that was provided to Seattle City Council with the attached email from Council Member Bagshaw.
Very good, and I knew better.
No, I'm just kidding.
I didn't read it, but my, three of my staff did, so I think, and Council Member Pacheco?
I did read the email and the response as well.
Very good, okay.
And so I think we've made in the disclosure.
So at this point, like I said, my staff had sort of screened it, and so I didn't read it in particular.
So is there anyone in the audience who wishes to rebut the disclosures or give public testimony on the disclosures that were made relative to the quasi-judicial nature of this proceeding?
If so, we'll provide you two minutes to talk about that, if anyone here would like to talk about that.
Okay so if not we will proceed to consider items agenda items three and four so I'll talk about these a little bit.
So we have two pieces of legislation as we've described last week.
Council Bill 119 697, the code revisions, it basically provides more flexibility to the city clerk and the hearing examiner to fulfill the responsibilities dealing with the final assessment role for a local improvement district.
It updates the municipal code to better align with the RCW and the process to confirm with the LID assessments.
We realize this is a lot more work than generally our older system entails, and so we're trying to revise that and have it better aligned.
It will provide the hearing exam with more time to prepare the findings and recommendations from the hearings and modernizes the city clerk's process of notifying the property owners and hearing the results following the conclusions of the hearing.
And it removes a section of the code that specified outdated costs for property descriptions.
So that's what the council bill does.
And again, the resolution, the final assessment role resolution simply sets the date for the public hearing on the proposed final assessment role and directs the hearing be held before the public hearing examiner.
The current public hearing date is Tuesday, February 4th, 2020. And at that assessment role, hearing property owners are given the opportunity to object to their individual assessments and all objections must be filed in writing before that hearing date.
This resolution also authorizes the city clerk to notify property owners of their proposed final assessment amounts and of the public hearing on assessments.
And just a description of the procedure.
In December of 2019, January of 2020, around that time frame, hearing notice and proposed final assessments will be posted and mailed.
In February of next year, the public hearing will occur before the hearing examiner.
A month later, in March of 2020, the hearing examiner's report will be filed, and property owners who filed an objection are notified of the hearing examiner's recommendations.
Spring of 2020, two things should occur.
Property owners can file appeals of the hearing examiner's recommendations, and the city council or a council committee could hear the appeals.
I'm gonna anticipate that there will be some flexibility if needed to address the number of appeals.
It's hard to determine at this time.
That's why some of these dates will be determined to TBD.
And then as things go as planned in the summer of 2020, the city council will consider final assessment roll ordinance to confirm the final assessment amounts.
So that's what the resolution sets out.
Okay, any questions or comments that any of my colleagues would like to make on these two pieces of legislation?
We'll vote on them individually.
Okay.
Okay.
So on the first council bill, I'll move to pass council bill 119697. Any further comments?
It's been moved and seconded.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?
Bless you.
O'Brien.
Aye.
Pachinko.
Aye.
Bankshaw.
Aye.
Herbold.
Aye.
Juarez.
Aye.
President Harrell.
Aye.
Six in favor, none opposed.
The bill passes and the chair will sign it.
And I will move to adopt resolution 31915. It's been moved and seconded.
Any further comments?
Those in favor of adopting the resolution, please vote aye.
Aye.
Those opposed vote no.
The motion carries and the chair will sign it.
Before I say is there any further business coming for the council, we will slide right into the Parks District meeting.
We'll stay in our seats.
Seattle Channel needs a two to three minutes, but Councilmember Juarez and I will switch seats, move right into that.
So we're trying to do it in a seamless way.
So nobody leaves.
You're tethered to your seat.
And having said that, is there any further business come for the council?
If not, We'll stand adjourned and just stay in our seats.
We'll move into our district's meeting.
We stand adjourned.