Seattle City Council Sustainability & Renters' Rights Committee 6/22/21

Council, today is Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021, and the time is 2.01 PM.

I am the chair of the committee, Council Member Kshama Sawant.

Would the clerk, Ted Verdone from my office, please call the roll.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Juarez.

three present.

Thank you, Ted, and thank you, committee members, for being here.

In this meeting today, we will discuss with community organizers involved in the Stop the Money Pipeline campaign to force financial institutions and insurance companies to stop packing fossil fuel infrastructure like tar sands oil pipelines.

After years of organizing direct action and building the climate movement, the Keystone XL pipeline has finally been defeated, which is a major victory for the climate justice movement that involved tens of thousands.

The fossil fuel corporations abandoned this project because activists and organizers, they were forced to abandon this project because activists and organizers made its completion so difficult from every angle that big business decided to cut their losses.

We want to use this strategy of blocking the corporate profit pipeline to every proposed expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure from Keystone XL to the Dakota Access Pipeline to Line 3. We have to be clear, however, that while the billionaire class will be forced to take some measures, and we will see that in the coming years, both for their own profits and under pressure from mass resistance, it has been and will be a day late and a dollar short.

To have any hope of averting a full-on catastrophe for the planet, if we're paying attention to the data from climate scientists worldwide, we will need the international working class to take the fossil fuel banking and other sectors into democratic public ownership to urgently shift into a global socialist economy powered by clean, renewable energy.

Organizing such as to end the Keystone XL pipeline and the Stop the Money pipeline campaign are crucial first steps being taken by determined activists and my council office is proud to be organizing with them and I'm happy that we're going to be talking to them in this committee today.

This will be needed alongside a militant mobilization of the union workers in the fossil fuel sector with the whole labor movement in solidarity.

to demand just transition and retraining for all the workers in the fossil fuel economy into the clean, renewable energy economy.

Last Friday, community organizers from my office joined activists who are presenting today who organized a protest painting a mural outside of Liberty Mutual in resistance to the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

The beautiful mural said, ensure our future, not tar sands.

This demonstration in Seattle was part of a day of action all around the world in solidarity with land defenders fighting the tar sands pipelines.

With the help of city council central staff, my office is developing legislation to give the Green New Deal Oversight Board the legal authority to raid insurance companies and other financial institutions who bid on city contracts to enable the city of Seattle to join the international movement, pledging not to do business with financial institutions backing the fossil fuel corporations that are endangering all of humanity.

The committee will next discuss with and vote on seven executive, which is mayoral appointments to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

After today, the majority of the board will have been appointed.

We will still have one more mayoral appointment and a couple of council appointments to make at our next committee meeting.

After the Green New Deal Oversight Board appointments, the committee will discuss several renters' rights bills from my office that are focused on rent increases.

As council members know, we have just voted on, the council just voted on bills related to eviction protections, but we also need bills that protect tenants from rent increases.

We need strong rent control in our city without corporate loopholes.

Corporate landlords have raised rent a staggering 13% in just the last five months.

So we will discuss, not discuss in detail, but just have an overview of a frequently asked questions or FAQ that we have prepared from my office, drawing out the successes and the harmful loopholes in rent control provisions from other cities.

Finally, today's committee will have a briefing from Asha Venkatraman from City Council Central Staff about legislation from my office to require landlords to provide six months notice for rent increases and to require landlords to provide relocation assistance when they displace their tenants with outrageous rent increases, a process, of course, which has come to be known as economic eviction.

So in other words, this bill is economic eviction assistance to be paid for by landlords who economically evict their tenants.

So today's discussion of both those bills will be an initial one.

So council members can ask questions to understand what is being proposed.

And it is the intention of my office to then bring those bills for a vote in the committee in the subsequent meetings that we will have in July.

Because this committee's regularly scheduled meeting time is the last Tuesday of each month, it will fall The meeting in August will fall during the city council recess.

And again, in September, it will fall during the budget starting in around mid-September.

So essentially, if we do not schedule special meeting times, the July meeting will be the last committee meeting of the year, which will absolutely not be sufficient to discuss and vote on the legislation this committee needs to address this year.

So as a result, my office will be reaching out to committee members to schedule some special meeting times.

I'm hoping that we can have a second meeting in July and also find a special meeting time in September before the budget process begins.

For today's committee meeting, I've heard from Council Member Juarez that she's unable to stay past 3.30 p.m.

today.

I really appreciate that advance notice.

And I also have my own time constraints because of many other You know, council office obligations.

So I will request presenters and today's meeting to be sort of concise, and we will of course come back to the discussion and the legislation will be discussed all the legislation will be discussed further before being voted on.

Before we begin our agenda items we of course have public comment.

I.

We'll make sure that Ted from my office is ready to start public comment.

And Ted, do you have the list of names for the public comment sign up?

There are four people signed up for public comment, but only one is listed as present right now, which is Corey Brewer.

Please go ahead, Cody Brewer, if you're unmuted, go ahead and speak.

Sorry, getting to the unmute button.

Okay, hit star six and you can begin.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

I'm just here to listen today.

That's all.

Just listen to what you're cooking up next.

Ted, just to confirm, are the other people who are signed up for public comment showing up as present?

No.

There are no other people who are showing up as present who are signed up for public comment.

Thank you, Ted.

So seeing that none of the others people who have signed up are showing up as present, I will close public comment and also note that Council Member Morales has joined the committee.

Thank you so much.

With that being said, our first agenda item, as I mentioned, is a discussion about the movement demanding that insurance companies and other financial institutions end their backing of new fossil fuel infrastructure that is destroying the climate.

and endangering all of humanity.

In 2017, many will remember my office supported climate activists demanding the city stop banking with Wells Fargo because of their investments in fossil fuel infrastructure.

Ultimately, we passed an ordinance called the Socially Responsible Banking Ordinance requiring the city's Department of Finance and Administrative Services, FAS, which is the city department that arranges these contracts with banks and insurance companies.

to consider the record of the banks it does business with.

Unfortunately, at that time we did not have a city body capable of reviewing the fossil fuel investments of financial institutions, but now that the city is forming the Green New Deal Oversight Board, My office is proposing legislation that will empower this oversight board to rate insurance companies and other financial institutions to bid on City of Seattle contracts and require FAS to factor in that ranking.

Our goal is to create a structure where Seattle can join the Stop the Money pipeline movement in a real way, you know, to put pressure on insurance companies like Liberty Mutual to stop insuring pipelines.

The business they will lose from the city of Seattle if they refuse to cut their ties with fossil fuel infrastructure is exactly what, you know, it's part of the pressure that the movement can put.

But if we have a movement building approach, then we can make sure that it's not only the city of Seattle, but also inspire other cities, states, and universities to join the movement like we did after we passed the socially responsible banking ordinance.

For today's presentation, we are joined by Matt Remley and Rachel Heaton from Mazaska Talks and the Green New Deal Oversight Board and Sulakshana from the Rainforest Action Network.

Speakers, I would urge you to please introduce yourselves for the record and then please begin your presentation.

Go ahead.

Hello, everybody.

My name's Matt Remley.

I'm Lakota, co-founder of Mazaska Talks, and I sit on the steering committee of Stop the Money Pipeline.

And I thank the council member for the opportunity to present here today.

Selection or Rachel?

Hi, I'm Rachel Heaton.

I am a member of the Muckleshoot tribe and I'm also a descendant of the Duwamish people.

I'm also a co-founder of Mazaska Talks and also working with the campaign for Stop the Money Pipeline.

And it's an honor to be here with all of you today.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Selectiona.

I'm a campaigner at Rainforest Action Network, an organizer at 350 Seattle, and also sit on the steering committee of Stop the Money Pipeline.

And thank you, council member, for having us.

So, Ted, if you got the slideshow, look at this guy.

So yes, we're very excited to talk and present today on the insurance company angle to fighting the climate crisis.

As we know, we're kind of at all hands on deck in seeking out any angle we can to fight this climate crisis.

We did the introductions, Ted, so you can go ahead and actually skip.

Chris could not be here today.

Oh, if you go one, there we go.

Chris was also part in helping develop some of this proposed legislation, but he has taken some time with his family and could not be here today.

Just wanted to make sure that he gets into the record.

So we're going to go ahead and get started with Rachel.

You can go to the next slide and she'll let you know when to go to next slide.

Thank you.

So our purpose is global leadership is needed to accelerate a just transition from extractive fossil fuel system to a clean energy economy that respects indigenous rights.

You can go to the next one, Ted.

So what is the problem?

The problem is the climate crisis is intensifying and we are not moving quickly enough to prevent the worst impacts.

We've seen unprecedented droughts.

We've seen temperatures rising upwards.

We keep seeing of 120 degrees.

Fahrenheit, we're seeing that's going to be, you know, potentials this year already.

Intensifying super storms, sea level rise, wildfire destruction, ocean acidification, precipitation patterns, and endangered Pacific Northwest salmon and orca.

Go ahead and go to the next one, Ted.

So also too, when we're talking about these issues, we're also not talking about the impacts that are happening to the people that live off of these lands and also utilize these lands, which is why it is so important for us to have indigenous voices in this.

And you'll also hear a little bit from Matt, talk more about free prior informed consent and what that means in the solution of removing ourselves from these companies such as Liberty Mutual.

The problem, the climate crisis is intensifying and we are not moving quickly enough to prevent the worst impacts.

Still business as usual for fossil fuel companies.

Canada and the US are leading exporters of fossil fuels and petrochemicals.

New infrastructure proposed and under construction to expand global oil and gas production.

Indigenous people and frontline communities pay the highest price.

and the losing opportunity to hold climate changes to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Paris Accord.

So one of the other issues too, when we talk about these impacts also is there's other issues that come along this.

So when we talk about the violation of indigenous rights, it's not just the issues from the climate, but it's also the result of these companies that are coming through Um, tribal lands.

And so when we talk about missing and murdered indigenous women and how that's tied to the fossil fuel industry.

And so, um, you know, in the past we were, you know, when we were working with the divestment solution, um, you know, this is kind of the next step because as long as these pipelines are insured, um, we will continue to, um, to suffer these impacts that are ultimately leading to, um, ultimately the destruction of mother earth.

So when we talk about local connections, the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is a major one.

It's larger than the Keystone Pipeline.

It's also tar sands, which is the dirtiest oil on earth.

There's no cleanup technology for marine spills.

700% increase in oil tankers through the Salish Sea and stub pipelines to Puget Sound refineries.

And as a native person from here on these lands on the Salish Seas, you know, that also has a direct impact into our cultural practices.

And so our canoes go out on those waters, and we're already at a place now at this point where we're not able, at certain times of the year, where we're not able to put our canoes in the water.

And that's due to spillage and things that are already going into the Puget Sound.

And so when we talk about the increase, that 700% increase of oil tankers that will potentially go through these waters, that is bigger impact also on our fishing and harvesting that takes place on these waters.

So it's not just a climate impact, it's also an impact to the first two native people of these lands.

As we do live directly, we harvest off these lands.

And so those are additional pieces that fall in with that.

Also another local impact of, of these pipelines is to the climate changes, the destruction of unseated First Nations territories in B.C.

Again, treaty fishing rights are at risk.

Orca and salmon recovery efforts are at question.

Local shellfish industry threatened by ocean acidification and destruction of sea level properties and infrastructure.

And over here we have a quote from Fawn Sharp, who is also on tribal council there for Quinault Nation.

But they've already had to evacuate two blocks of tridible citizens from their homes and from jail and courthouses and community, and the only store in town.

And this is due to rising ocean waters.

So so these issues that we're talking about and that we're discussing are important in the way that they're already impacting communities.

It's not a matter of if we don't do this, this is going to happen.

It's already happening.

So so more than ever, I also think by us coming and presenting to you and here in the city of Seattle, we are a leader and.

This work and people do look to what we're doing and so this is another opportunity for us to to be leaders in that.

And so with that, I'm gonna go ahead and pass it on to to Matt to go ahead to the next part of the presentation.

Thank you, Rachel, and she's absolutely right Seattle is looked to by many communities around the country and some cases around the world for our kind of cutting edge leading.

strategies to addressing issues such as the climate crisis.

And as Council Member Sawant brought up in the opening, we have an exciting new opportunity with the establishment of the Green New Deal Oversight Board, which we can go into later.

But what we're looking for here is a climate leadership opportunity.

We know that just like the banks, the insurance industry is a king linchpin in the fight against fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel projects like pipelines, coal, excuse me, pipelines, coal mines, et cetera, need insurance to build and operate these projects.

And insurance companies, it should be pointed out, both provide direct investment and underwriting of these projects.

So divestment from climate damaging projects is the best way to stop fossil fuel expansion.

We have seen this in numerous examples around the globe.

As it relates to, we, there's a global coalition under the banner of ensure our future.

So it isn't just folks here in Seattle, Northwest or even North America, but folks from literally around the world who are targeting insurance companies for their role in a climate crisis.

So the rough breakdown is there's 26 companies with coal policies, 13 companies with tar sand policies, and major risk to coal and tar sand industries.

We have actually seen some, a handful of local municipalities take leadership, including Paris, San Francisco, Boulder County, Los Angeles, Somerville, and Cambridge, and in a little bit we can dive into what they've accomplished there.

Go ahead, next slide, Ted.

So one of the key demands to insurers, and again, this is coming from a global coalition of tribes, indigenous communities, and grassroots frontline folks, is to ensure free, prior, and informed consent of insured projects.

For those who are unfamiliar with FPIC, as it's mentioned, called, it's a specific right that pertains to indigenous peoples that is recognized in the United Nations Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP.

It allows them to give or withhold consent to a project that may affect them or their territories.

As folks, council members here know, before I like to engage in any project, I'd like to go to local tribes or tribal leadership to see if they have interest and or support particular potential legislation.

And so before coming to city council, I first went down to the Pialep tribe and worked with Council Member Anna Bean down there and drafted up a resolution to bring to the National Congress of American Indians, which is a body comprised of several hundred tribal nation governments advocate for tribal nation interest.

Resolution 2036, which was passed last fall, and I can provide a link to that resolution, but it essentially calls on the U.S. insurance industry to adopt policies to ensure that projects they ensure have attained the free prior and informed consent of impacted tribal nations.

Again, that passed last fall.

That was followed up with a conversation with the Washington State Office of Insurance Commissioner, with the three of us here, and the President of the National Congress of American Indians, Fawn Sharp, and members of the Snoqualmie Tribe, and Quinault, and a few other tribes met with him.

And he came out with a statement to call on insurance companies to develop FPIC policies with tribal nations.

And he supports future state legislation to enforce, to determine what risk an insurer may underwrite as it relates to FPIC.

So not only is a global coalition of kind of grassroots activist folks, but really being led by tribal nations.

Next slide, Ted.

We've even seen all the way up to the United Nation.

They've provided leadership and calling for divestment.

And you all can kind of read the statement from the Secretary General.

Go ahead, Ted, next one.

I believe, at this point, we're handing it over to Selectiona, and we're going to get a little more specifics on that local action and what this proposed legislation would do.

Great.

Thank you, Matt.

Thank you, Rachel.

So, Council Member Sawant spoke to this already, but just to share some photos.

This is an action in downtown Seattle outside the Liberty Mutual office on Friday.

It's part of this Global Week of Action as the Trans Mountain Pipeline attempts to secure insurance coverage for the coming year.

All over the world, Indigenous peoples, communities, and climate activists called on Trans Mountain's remaining insurers.

14 companies have ruled out the project already, but a number of big U.S. insurance companies remain, and there were actions in Vancouver, Seattle, London, New York.

Sierra Leone, Uganda, Berlin, and more.

And here in Seattle, Mazaska Talks, Protectors of the Salish Sea, 350 Seattle, Rainforest Action Network, Sunrise Seattle, and Future Coalition came together to paint this giant mural urging Liberty Mutual to take action.

So this is one strategy that we have been using, you know, getting out in the streets and calling for action and coming together as community members and citizens urging insurers to shift their practices and address the climate crisis.

But another way, and you know why we're here today, is to think about the institutional customers of these insurance companies and look at the leverage that they have.

So cities, as purchasers of insurance, are well-placed to make a difference and add their voice to the growing call for insurers to take action.

Yeah, go ahead, Ted.

That was great.

So opting for insurance companies that have restricted their fossil fuel investments and insurance business is a logical step for the city of Seattle to align its procurement of financial services with its carbon emissions goals across all segments of government.

So this list here is some of the City of Seattle's insurers and particularly those big players that are insuring many fossil fuel projects, Trans Mountain and others.

Lloyd's, Chubb, AIG and Liberty Mutual and Star, these top five here are all big insurers of Trans Mountain and oil and gas more broadly.

So as significant purchasers of commercial insurance, cities and counties can send a powerful message to the insurance industry by demanding that insurers stop propping up these climate-killing, rights-violating fossil fuel projects.

And local governments actually have leverage in making this call, annual insurance contract renewals.

So that's kind of the moment where the city decides who they're going to go with.

It happens once a year for most policies and they present regular opportunities to bring these demands to insurers and provide clear deadlines to them to take action.

There are an increasing number of global insurance companies that have made commitments and adopted policies around fossil fuels and carbon reduction targets, as Matt showed earlier.

And so cities like Seattle have choices that are safer for the climate and choices that are respecting Indigenous rights.

So on the next slide, you can see the policy or legislation that we are here to talk about.

So basically, the goal is for the city to formalize a screening process for insurance providers based on their fossil fuel and Indigenous rights policies that gives preference wherever possible for insurers that have committed to stop insuring and are investing in fossil fuels and have FPIC policies in place.

And passing such a policy like this would send an important signal to the insurance industry and other stakeholders that we need to shift away from fossil fuels to a zero carbon economy.

And the more that insurance companies hear from their customers, and particularly their big customers, like the city of Seattle, which buys all types of insurance, from automobile insurance to general liability to flood insurance, all sorts of things, sends a powerful message to these companies and calls on them to act.

So, as Council Member Sawant said, the legislation is currently being developed, but here's a little bit kind of more to it.

explain it.

And the idea would be to kind of, yeah, put in this kind of screening for insurance companies and have due diligence procedures to be able to evaluate insurers, fossil fuel and Indigenous rights policies.

And that's a place where the Green New Deal Oversight Board could come in around support on this kind of due diligence and accountability and support on implementation.

And also just to say that, you know, it would allow for flexibility when there are not other options, when the city of Seattle has to go with a certain company, but would prioritize contracts with those insurers that are adopting stronger policies on fossil fuels and Indigenous rights.

I think one more slide.

I think others have touched on this already, but just to say again, you know, this is important both because the City of Seattle spends a lot of money each year on insurance policies, And, you know, we can, as it says here, vote with our dollars and, you know, elect to support those companies that are taking stronger action.

But it also builds on the momentum from the policies that we've seen from other cities and would set a model and standard for other cities, towns, counties, businesses and organizations to follow suit on.

and demonstrate that you can have an insurance procurement policy that drives climate action, protects the city's interests, and manages risks in the ways that the city needs to, understand it's very complex, and also stands in solidarity with First Nations, tribal governments, and frontline communities.

So thank you for that.

I think that's all for our presentation, and I will hand it back over to the Councillor.

Thank you Sulakshana and Rachel and Matt for that excellent presentation.

And as you said, Sulakshana, in your closing, this legislation is being developed.

So of course we will have more specifics to share with the committee members once central staff have made that progress.

I just wanted to note very quickly, just from your presentation, And as you all said, that when these insurance companies, when these major financial institutions have large customers, which really puts their whole profit making at stake, I think that's a very important point at which the movement needs to strike.

And I just wanted to draw out the contrast between that and the, which, that and unfortunately, completely different and somewhat misleading idea of lifestyle politics which pervaded the movement, you know, for nearly 15-20 years that, you know, people, especially more well-off people in the West, started to think, and this was a point that was also, of course, exploited by corporations themselves in the fossil fuel sector themselves, instead of, you know, doing the greenwashing, like, well, if you as an individual, just ordinary person, but a well-off person in the West changes your, the way you live your life, you know, compost more, recycle more, all of which is important, of course, I don't want to give the impression that that's not important, but it was a misleading point that if a small fraction of humanity did that, that that was actually going to address climate crisis.

We know that has not happened.

And in fact, this dire statistic that we have seen that just since the Paris Climate Accord was signed in 2015, which itself, as we know, is quite inadequate, but just since then, just since 2015, the world's 60 largest banks have actually expanded their underwriting of fossil fuel infrastructure by nearly $4 trillion.

So we can see clearly that without actually having a strategy to block corporate, you know, the corporate profits in the fossil fuel infrastructure, there is absolutely no real solution to the climate crisis.

And that's why it's really, I just want to draw out how important it is that the Stop the Money pipeline is targeting the question of major contributors to the profits of the financial sector.

So as you said, it's not only cities like Seattle, but also other major institutions like big universities.

And I think maybe if you have a moment, maybe you can highlight also what scale of universities we're talking about.

I would imagine that the University of Washington should be one of those, but also I'm sure there are other big institutions as well.

If you wanted to just quickly address that, and then I have Council Member Morales who's raised her hand, so go ahead.

Sure, I can try and answer that.

This kind of movement around insurance companies and procurement has, we're slowly talking to universities, have not had any commitments from the universities themselves around insurance procurement, but a broader fossil fuel divestment movement has swept across the US and the globe, moving billions of dollars out of fossil fuel investments and into kind of get more sustainable clean energy economy solutions.

And one thing to say here on that point is, you know, going university endowment by endowment is certainly powerful and has built a really strong movement.

And I'm a climate activist that came out of that movement, and there's lots of us out there.

But we also know we need to take on these even bigger corporate pillars, right, like Wall Street banks and insurance companies, which have trillions and trillions of dollars in these industries, kind of beyond the smaller pools of university money.

Absolutely.

It has to be on the scale of trillions of dollars.

So that is extremely important.

Go ahead, Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Thanks very much, everyone, for this presentation.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit.

There's several cities that you highlight as having implemented their own procurement policies.

And I'm sure we can get copies of them that we might try to model our own on.

But can you talk about the impact of those changes and whether it resulted in them finding new insurance companies in their communities or if the ones they were working with actually made some changes to the way they operated?

Or I can take that one on as well.

Matt and Rachel, feel free to jump in.

Yeah, so this is, it's a relatively new movement.

So the Los Angeles resolution I mentioned was just passed, I believe, two months ago.

Boulder counties was last year.

San Francisco, I believe, was maybe, yeah, a bit more than a year ago.

So we're still in the early stages and kind of seeing how these are playing out.

But We know, kind of, particularly from the conversations with the Boulder County and the Risk Management Office there, that they have engaged in some really productive conversations with the insurance companies around, you know, what is this legislation?

Why have we adopted it?

What are we looking for from you?

And my understanding is that there's, you know, started to be some shifting in prioritization that has moved, like they have moved some of their contracts in light of that.

I don't have the details now, but there are definitely folks that we can connect you with or kind of get answers from.

And I'll pass it over to Matt.

Yeah, I was just going to add that.

you know, since some of them are so recent that many of those contracts haven't come up yet for renewal or RFPs gone out.

So beyond those initial conversations that Selection is going to talk about, was talking about, we'll kind of see here in the next few months or so what is going to happen.

Thank you both for responding to that.

Are there any other questions from committee members?

I don't see any – Matt, Rachel, and Sulakshana.

Obviously, we'll have you back to discuss the legislation itself, and we will be – my office will be talking with you much more.

But in closing, did you have any comments?

I just think all of you council members for listening to us, and we look forward to coming back and having additional conversations with you all.

Only thing that I would add is that.

makes Seattle even potentially more exciting in terms of possibilities with where we can go with this legislation is its connection with the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

I believe we would actually be the first to have that sort of power, I guess, you know, like a better word in engaging with the contract.

So look forward to that.

Personally, I just want to throw out a quick thank you to the council members here that on a totally separate piece of legislation back to the budget for the Licton Springs cultural signage is getting installed in a couple weeks.

So thank you all for putting some funds into that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

And I will thank the People's Budget Campaign and all the activists who pushed for demands like the Licton Spring signage and so many other things during the budget discussions last year.

And thank you all, Matt, Rachel, and Sulakshana.

And congratulations on the Liberty Mutual action.

And mural is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

And we'll have you back.

Thank you for being here.

Our next agenda item is the confirmation of the mayor's appointments to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

And this sort of flows, obviously, as our speaker said, very easily from our previous agenda item.

We're joined by the appointees and by Jose Vasquez from the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

Before you all introduce yourselves, I will read all the seven appointments into the record.

Appointment 01957, appointment of Katie Garrow as member of Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30th, 2022. Appointment 01958, appointment of Steve Gelb as member of Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30th, 2022 appointment 01959 appointment of Keith Weir as member Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30, 2022. Appointment 01960, appointment of Maria Batayola as member of Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30, 2023. Appointment 01961, appointment of Dennis Comer as member of Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30, 2023. Appointment 01962, appointment of Thomas Alberto Madrigal as member of Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30, 2023. and appointment 01963 appointment of Tyler Ballantyne as member Green New Deal Oversight Board for a term to April 30, 2023. Jose, would you like to introduce yourself first and walk us through introducing each appointee?

Yes, thank you, Council Member Sawant and to your fellow council members.

It's an honor to be here representing the Office of Sustainability and Environment to be presenting these new board members or appointments to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

It's been an honor hearing from our two existing board members, Matt Rimley and Richard Heaton.

We're really excited to be building on top of the work that has been led by community and has advised us here at the Office of Sustainability and Environment across the city to highlight some key examples of the community organizing work that has led us here to today.

In 2016, the establishment of the Equity and Environment Agenda, which led to establishing the Environmental Justice Fund, Environmental Justice Committee, and the Duwamish Valley Action Plan.

which led us now to where we're at today in building this new body, the Green New Deal Oversight Board and making sure that those communities that have been historically impacted the most and the worst by climate change are at the forefront of helping us make our decisions here at the City of Seattle as we advance the Green New Deal for Seattle to achieve that very ambitious and very strong goal to become climate pollution free by 2030. And along that helping advance an equitable transition to a green and sustainable economy that's both accessible and benefits all our communities together.

So with that, we have seven amazing community representatives and stakeholders here that we want to present here in front of you today.

to recommend them to be appointed to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

And with these new appointments today, we'll finally be able to officially start meeting as a board and start moving forward this collective work that has been led by community for many years.

And we're really excited to be officially building it internally here at the City of Seattle, starting pretty soon here.

First, on the docket, we have Katie Garrow.

She will be one of our labor union representatives.

Katie Garrow is currently the Deputy Executive Director for the MLK Labor Council, where she represents the council publicly at public hearings, press conferences, rallies, and et cetera.

Through her role at MLK Labor, she works with unions in all trades, such as the fossil fuel dependent jobs like oil refineries, low carbon jobs like childcare providers, and clean energy jobs like electricians who work with hydroelectricity.

It is her job to make sure that a transition to a greener economy happens, but does not happen on the back of workers.

I wanted to open up a quick moment to see if Katie wanted to say a few words to share why she's excited to be appointed here to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

Well, you summarized it so well, Jose.

Thank you for that.

Good afternoon, siblings, brothers, sisters.

My name is Katie, and I use she and her pronouns.

And I work at MLK Labor.

We're the umbrella organization for unions here in King County.

And I think Jose's last statement really summed it up, that it is our job as the labor movement to ensure that we transition to a green new economy, but that it doesn't happen at the expense of workers, particularly workers who are the furthest from opportunity.

So excited to get to work together.

I also just want to thank and acknowledge Matt and Rachel and Suluk Shana for your work and congratulate you on your victory and all indigenous people's victory on the Keystone Pipeline recently.

That was a moral victory.

I'm just excited to get to work.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Katie.

Up next, we have Steve Gelb.

He will be our Workforce Training Specialist representative.

Steve is currently the Northwest Regional Manager for Emerald Cities Collaborative, where he promotes decarbonization projects and policies, bringing benefits to underserved communities.

He's responsible for fundraising, program design, and policy development.

Steve helped launch the Clean Energy Opportunity Hub that brings HVAC training and WEMBI contractor development to BIPOC communities.

in our region and implemented the RENEW program, a comprehensive energy and water efficiency program for affordable housing that includes technical guidance, financing, and project development.

Steve, do you want to share a few words about why we're interested in joining here the Green New Deal Oversight Board?

Yes.

Thanks so much, Jose.

I think I would just say two things.

When I think of the Green New Deal, I think of we need a new deal that's green.

I kind of flip it that way.

We need to really help workers, underserved communities and BIPOC communities to solve our housing crises or unequal distribution of wealth and so on.

And we can do that through our climate policies.

So I'm excited to work on that with my colleagues on the Green New Deal Advisory Board.

And I will also just say, also important that the benefits of the work we do with the Green New Deal go to historically disadvantaged communities who have been underrepresented in some of the job creation and business creation in the past.

Thank you very much and thank you, council members.

Thanks, Steve.

Up next, we have Keith Weir.

He will be 1 of our labor union representatives.

Keith is currently the business representative and political director for IBEW Local 46, covering all project labor agreements and community workforce agreements in Seattle and in King County.

He's a past board chair and current board member for ANEW, the longest running and original pre-apprenticeship program in the nation.

Keith is a native satellite raised in White Center and graduated from Rainier Beach High School.

He's passionate about building careers, not just jobs, and wants to ensure that projects coming out of Seattle's Green New Deal be good family wage jobs to ensure a better future for our kids and grandkids.

Keith, a few words that you want to share?

Yeah, thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Keith Weir, electricians.

As I've always stated, we get classified as blue collar workers, but the insides of our collars are green.

Since the inception of electricity, everything's been about efficiency, trying to get the most bang for the buck.

Having been born and bred in Seattle, native Seattleite, I remember when we started calling it the Emerald City.

You know, over the last couple decades, it seems like we haven't been living up to that goal.

So I'm very excited with the current administration that we can push forward with some things that will take us along the right pathway and help me to get folks opportunities at career pathways through pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship training.

And if I may really quick, I'm writing notes in a notebook here.

And here's a quote, happens to be on the page from Lyndon Johnson.

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude, rather than contempt we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning not just after we got through

Thank you, Keith.

Beautiful quote.

Up next, we have Maria Batayola.

She will be joining us as a frontline community representative.

And Maria is a co-founder of the Community Coalition of Environmental Justice, along with 40 plus other community activists.

Together, they introduced the concept to Seattle to recognize environmental harm to BIPOC, immigrant, and refugee communities.

CCAG, EG, sorry, campaigns include stopping veterans' hospitals from burning tissues due to dioxin release, educating Vietnamese nail salon workers regarding toxins in nail supplies, and Duwamish River toxin tours.

Since 2015, Maria has volunteered through El Centro La Raza as the Environmental Justice Coordinator, building on a movement and educating community members on the set effects of and co-development of the Community Action Plan.

Maria is also the chair of the Beacon Hill Council advocating for a welcoming, diverse, and healthy community neighborhood.

She leads two major ongoing campaigns on anti-displacement environmental justice, air and noise pollution from aircraft and road emissions.

Maria, would you like to share a few words?

Sure, first off, thank you so much Councilwoman Sawant for being the person to put in the amendment that set aside Green New Deal dollars so that we can do this work on the ground.

Thank you also Councilwoman Morales and Councilwoman Juarez.

I am very grateful to be working with the rest of the advisory committee to learn comprehensively how we fit together.

The Green New Deal concept is great, but I think it's really on the ground on how we work together to make sure that we make net gains.

At Beacon Hill, we're very, very worried and concerned that not only are we suffering the effects of air pollution and noise pollution from land and aircraft, but it's also the upcoming 40% increase in aircraft operations that a SeaTac airport, which is ruled by port commissioners that has been proposed.

So we are in a very small timeframe.

Our work at El Centro and at Beacon Hill Council started with environmental justice transformed quickly to health justice and now climate justice.

And we appreciate the timeline that has been established to be pollution free by 2030. Thank you so much for this opportunity and we will all serve our communities very, very fully and well.

Indeed.

Thank you, Maria.

Up next, we have Dennis Cover.

He will be our environmental justice representative.

Dennis is a community leader ensuring marginalized communities are not overlooked in the creation of plans and policy.

As a research analyst, he is at the crossroads of science and the ability to translate that science into laypeople terms in ways that are meaningful and impactful.

As a program manager at the Central Area Collaborative, Dennis has steered the organization towards an eco-district model and support an approach to managing cross-community solidarity.

Not only has Dennis helped craft design guidelines language for the central area, but also enabled the formation of a design review board, enabling the community to challenge development that was detrimental to their existence.

He has served as a member of the Environmental Justice Committee and as an advocate for equity and policy.

Dennis, would you like to share a few words?

Thanks, Jose, as Jose stated.

First of all, happy to be here.

For me, this is just a continuation of the.

of my volunteerism in the environment stream, as he stated.

Environmental Justice Committee is where I started.

I cut my teeth.

I'm also the Executive Director of the Central Area Collaborative.

And with the Design Review Guidelines and Design Review Board, we've been able to push back on several development projects, I think, along with the help with Council Member Sawant when it came to the Chateau property.

But what I'm looking to do here is support the neutral third-party transparency piece that bonds the policy and the policymakers with the community itself to let folks know what goes on in paper, how it makes impact or causes issues on the ground with our community members, especially in the central area, and I'm sure other high-risk, high-displacement So with that, I graciously appreciate the opportunity to participate.

Thank you, Dennis.

Up next, we have Tomas Alberto Madrigal.

He will be joining us as a frontline community representative.

Thomas has settled within the Duwamish Valley and currently serves as a board member of the Duwamish River Community Coalition.

He is a child of a migrant farm worker family that settled in Washington, directly impacted by racial, economic, and environmental injustices.

His worldview is informed by having grown up in a rural community of Spanish-speaking Mexican farm workers and seeing firsthand a peasant economy based on mutual aid and cooperation.

Though they were exposed to pesticides and fungicides used to grow conventional crops, he recalls his parents had elaborate rituals for decontamination before they entered the home.

Tomas has served on two governor-appointed task forces working on food systems and environmental justice, as well as completed a research documented for front and center on pollution and recovery in the Puget Sound that has helped the organization set long-term goals.

Among them was advocating for the establishment of the Seattle's Green New Deal.

Welcome, Tomas.

Would you like to share a few words?

Hello, everybody.

My name is Tomas Madrigal.

And I guess as a frontline community member, it's with my affiliation as a food systems researcher for community to community development.

I am happy to serve here.

I think the context in which I see my service in this particular effort is that the Green New Deal represents what we would like to see in the future and the present.

And the work for that is to defend it and to nurture it by any means possible.

And so I'm looking forward to working with you.

Thank you, Tomas.

And last but not least, we have Tyler, also known as Cyrus Valentine.

He will be joining us as a youth community representative.

Cyrus Valentine is currently the Eco Innovation and Real Estate Project Manager for Africatown Community Land Trust.

There, he oversees the development of the Africatown Eco District and the Associated Sustainable Development Plan for the Eco District.

He supports the development of community-oriented affordable housing and mixed-use projects that directly benefit the Black community of Seattle.

He is responsible for the development of ecologically sustainable programming that decreases carbon emissions and increases resiliency in communities that ACLT serves.

Through his work with the William Grow Center for Innovation in the old fire station number six, he is working to bring together the community to understand how an innovation oriented community center can meet the needs of the community across generations.

He's also involved in the development of the Youth Achievement Center, working in a coalition with other community organizations to develop a real estate project aimed at providing housing to black and brown youth with with co-located supportive services and resources.

Cyrus, would you like to share a few words?

Yeah, absolutely.

So thank you so much, everyone, council members in particular, for allowing me this opportunity to serve on this Green New Deal Oversight Board.

When Keith was sharing his quote from Lyndon B. Johnson, it inspired me to find a quote that I wanted to share.

I believe I put this actually in my application for the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

This is a quote from Frantz Fanon in Wretched of the Earth, which says, each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it in relative obscurity.

And that particular quote I wanted to share because as a youth representative, I think for the first time for my generation, for our generation, it's quite clear what our mission is right now in this present moment, which is to address the climate crisis, to decarbonize our society, and to really try to advance the goals as quickly as we can.

And I think it was really brought up quite clearly in the presentation earlier today how simultaneously the Paris Accord is insufficient to address the needs that we have to address today around decarbonization.

But not only is it insufficient, we are failing to meet its goals set out there in 2015. And so things like this Green New Deal Oversight Board and the work that myself and Dennis Comer are doing and things like the Eco District is really important to sort of galvanize the community and take the community energy and power that we have to advance these various goals.

And I'm really excited to think about how we use the Green New Deal Oversight Board at the city level to not necessarily invent new programs, but to provide extra impetus behind the community projects and programs that are already happening to advance these goals.

Thank you.

Thank you, Cyrus.

And with that, it is an honor to present this slate of candidates to be appointed to the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

We here at the Office of Sustainable Environment are really excited to be officially starting this work internally, but also build on top of the community organizing work that has happened throughout the years.

So with that, I don't know if we have an opportunity to ask questions from the council or if there's any other comments any of the new members would like to make.

Do the, I had some comments to make, but I wanted to first give you the opportunity to the perspective appointees.

Would you all like to add anything to what Jose or you yourselves have said already?

Thank you all for agreeing to serve on this board as Cyrus said, you know, said sort of in towards the end, the, The question of climate crisis obviously looms large and the fact that your appointments or potential appointments are following from the very important presentation we just had related to how actually fighting to address the climate crisis, which could become a full-blown catastrophe if serious, serious efforts are not undertaken, all of that highlights the crucial role that the oversight board will be playing.

Obviously, this will not be done by a few people in one city, in one nation.

Obviously, this has to be, you know, just an all-out international effort.

And as I was saying before, it will not, the climate catastrophe will not be averted unless the The, you know, the union movement the battalions of the working class really start getting organized around this issue and that's why it's really important.

The profile of the oversight board as we are seeing from various aspects of our society, including.

labor and communities of color, I think so much of this is important because we have to build that kind of solidarity.

And so given the tremendous, what's at stake, you know, so much is at stake, given the tremendous importance of all of that, especially, I'm grateful that you all have agreed to serve on the board.

And I have no question in my mind that you will absolutely take your role seriously and I just want also wanted to thank you all.

I know many of you personally as well in terms of, you know, having worked alongside you all on various efforts at activism in our city.

Maria, thank you for all the work you've done with the marginalized communities.

Brother Keith, I really welcome you into this oversight board.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate IBEW 46 members for the contract that you just won against Nikon and also wanted to say that it was a pleasure and honor to be able to sign the letter that some of us council members sent in solidarity with you all and really appreciate the courage your members have shown in standing up for your rights, because I think that is very much part and parcel of the fight for working class rights as a whole, as we know, and that goes hand in hand with climate justice.

We can't win one without the other.

There are not going to be any jobs on a dead planet.

And we need union jobs for everybody.

We need a really good standard of living in a sustainable manner.

And I think your presence here will also help ensure that.

So thank you so much for being here.

And Dennis, I really appreciate you mentioning the shuttle struggle and renters rights.

go a long way in the fight for climate justice as well because affordable housing, the affordability crisis is so acute right now.

People are being pushed to the farther reaches of the city and also outside the city.

In fact, so many of the trades workers have told me they don't, they can't afford, you know, they build the buildings in the city They electrify them, they make all of this profit possible for the bosses, but many of them cannot afford to live here.

And housing affordability is obviously a part of climate justice as well.

So thank you for mentioning the question of renters.

The Chateau struggle was an inspiring example of how working class renters can get organized and push back.

And as we know, many of the Chateau Tenants who fought that battle were actually, you know, tenants of color, many of them immigrant community, they all came together.

So I wanted to acknowledge all of that and then open this up for all the committee members.

If you wanted to ask questions or make comments, and also if the appointees wanted to make any further comments, of course, you're most welcome to.

Council Member Peterson, go ahead.

I just wanted to thank Chair Swan and her office and also Jose for assembling such a great group of appointees for this.

It's very impressive.

And so thank you, everybody, for your willingness to serve on this.

And you're bringing such important expertise to the table from different angles and perspectives.

And it's going to be really helpful for us to implement the Green New Deal.

So thank you for your willingness to serve, and thanks, everybody, for bringing together this group.

I appreciate it.

It makes it easy to vote yes for everybody.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Any other questions or comments?

I don't see any other questions or comments.

So given that, I will, unless there are any objections, I will move the appointments for a vote.

And unless there are any objections, I will move all seven appointments at once as a single vote.

Seeing no objections, I move the confirmation of appointments 01957, 01958, 01959, 01960, 01961, 01962, and 01963. Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

Ted, will you please call the roll on the vote?

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Four in favor.

Thank you, Ted, and thank you committee members for engaging on this item and thank you all appointees.

The appointments will move to the city council for the final vote and I have no doubt that it will go through and Keith, be sure to tell all your fellow members congratulations from my office on your new contract.

And thank you all so much.

Looking forward to the work of the Green New Deal Oversight Board.

I know this is going to be of tremendous consequence.

Appreciate it.

Our next agenda item is just a very short point that I wanted to use to give committee members and members of the public access to, as I said, frequently asked questions or FAQ about rent control that my office has developed, which hopefully will be of use in order to clarify a lot of the, you know, frequently asked questions about rent control.

And, You know, obviously we won't have time to fully go over this.

We are going to obviously bring this up in upcoming committee meetings, but I just wanted to give a quick overview.

Ted, are you, sorry, but before that, I'm sorry, I wanted to go over the renter's bill of rights, which actually gives a good overview of where we are and where we are hoping to go.

I know that text is a little hard to read, but I just wanted to make sure committee members and the members of the public were able to see what we have done so far and what is coming up in terms of our renter's Bill of Rights.

As the Bill of Rights shows, and again, this is something that my office had prepared and shared at a press conference that we did in May when we unveiled our rent control bill.

And as you can see, rent control is obviously and just based on statistical analysis, we know it's going to be a flagship demand that renters need to win in order to actually bring about some sort of given that skyrocketing rents is the major problem that we face in addressing the lack of housing affordability.

And as the Bill of Rights states, we have both residential rent control, obviously, and again, without corporate loopholes, that's very important to emphasize, and I'll come to that in a second, but also commercial rent control without corporate loopholes to help struggling small businesses.

I think this is very, very important.

to highlight not only in general, it was always a necessity, but now we can see just the unprecedented battering that small businesses have taken in the wake of the pandemic and the recession, this recessionary period that we saw in the preceding year.

I think making sure that we pass commercial rent control for small businesses is going to be crucial as well.

And of course an overarching question is the question of debt.

We know enormous amounts of debt has been accumulated by renters.

They've been forced to accumulate this debt because of the pre-existing, and really this is business as usual under capitalism, where the vast majority of working people who create the profits, who generate the profits for The billionaires and the multimillionaires actually don't end up having even a small financial cushion that was brought to the fore even more dramatically because of the COVID crisis.

And there is no real solution for the debt that has been accumulated unless statewide and nationwide we build a mass movement to cancel the debt because we want to make sure that the big banks, the real estate corporations, all those who have made enormous profits even despite the pandemic, we know billionaires became over a trillion dollars richer during the pandemic, we know they can afford to pay for this crisis, so they should be paying for this crisis, not working people or which includes both renters and homeowners, but also small businesses who are struggling to survive.

And as this bill indicates, the next two things, the six month notice for rent increases and requiring landlords to pay economic emissions assistance is something we are going to discuss today very briefly, but we will come back to it, of course, in the next committee meeting.

And then the next two that you see the banning school year evictions and just cause closing the loophole in just cause protections, the city council just passed both these bills, and they're both really strong bills without the loopholes that could have gone through.

And this is thanks to the renters themselves, rank and file renters who got organized and pushed for this.

So it's important that we have been able to do that.

And thank you council member Morales for working with my office on the just cause bill.

And thank you council member Lewis for also helping to co-sponsor that.

And thanks to the city council as a whole for passing that.

And then when we won the right to council, you know, right for all renters to have the right to a lawyer when they face eviction.

When we talked about that, we also talked about how half of the evictions that happen in the city are default evictions.

So we also need legislation to stop default evictions.

And the last three items that are there are items that have also been highlighted by the city of Seattle renters commission in terms of making sure that the way renters are able to interact with landlords also should make it easier the process easier so banning the use of credit checks which as the renters commission has called it the new form of or modern form of redlining that needs to be ended we need to make sure rental histories are transferable and that we have standardized lease terms because often landlords will set up, especially corporate landlords and some lords will set up lease terms that are inhospitable to working class renters.

So I just wanted to give everybody an overview of that.

And then very quickly go over the rent control FAQ, Ted, if you can share that screen with all of us on the Zoom.

Thank you, Ted.

So this FAQ actually is available online.

So I wanted to make sure members of the public access it.

I would also welcome council members, committee members looking at it and letting me know if you would like to propose any edits to it, if there are any updates.

In fact, we are updating as we go and that's why it's useful to keep it online.

In fact, just today, my staff have updated it to make sure we have new statistics from April and May that we have for the situation that's faced by renters, the profits that corporate landlords have made.

And then I just wanted to draw your attention to some of the aspects.

We won't have time to go over all of it, but I wanted to talk about the question that we often encounter, because this is what corporate media and corporate landlords keep raising, which is isn't it all about supply and demand won't rents come down just by building more units.

And I think we have to, we have a real obligation political and moral obligation to To clarify, and I speak as an economist myself, there is absolutely zero data to show that simply increasing supply without paying any attention to whether those units are actually affordable to the people or not is no solution for the affordability crisis.

There is no magical amount of supply that is going to solve the problem.

In fact, what we've seen in the last 10 years is that Seattle has been, in fact, the construction crane capital for three years running in a very recent period.

And so during that time, there was a construction boom, and yet housing became less affordable, not more affordable.

And that's why explicitly fighting for renters' rights is going to be crucial, and rent control, of course, is going to be the standard bearer of renters rights.

We know we need to push back on it.

And this FAQ also talks about how, why the landlord lobby and big business oppose it.

It is precisely because it works.

The rent control bill that we are bringing forward from my office says that rents can increase.

Of course, rents are not going to be frozen, contrary to all the fear-mongering, but they will be allowed to increase as per the inflation rate, not exorbitant rent increases like most renters are experiencing.

In fact, there are so many renters who have informed our office that their rents have gone up by 50%, 80%.

More than 100%.

It is just just incredible.

It is eye popping to see how much rents are increasing.

Obviously, wages are not going up by that amount.

So rent should be tied to the inflation rate.

That's only fair.

And what we are talking about in terms of actually working for renters, then we know that the corporate landlords will oppose that because it eats into their endless greed for profits.

We should make a point here, which is that for small landlords, mom and pop landlords who don't price gouge their renters, they have nothing to fear from Rent control, you know, many small landlords have told my office how they don't increase their rents by 10%, 15%, let alone 50 or 100%.

So as long as landlords are not exploiting their renters, not gouging their renters, the rent control would not actually matter to them.

In fact, some small landlords have told me that their rent control policy won't even have an impact on how they carry out their work with tenants because they charge less than inflation rate in terms of rent increases anyway.

So I think this is really important.

This quote from Sightline It's really crucial site line is a very, you know, well reputed website which talks about the housing question, and they talk about how the rule is simple the rent pays for everything.

As far as landlords are concerned, and it follows that landlords are going to be extremely You know, they're going to be fighting us tooth and nail and that's why if we are to win rent control, and then all of history shows that renters will need to get organized and fight back.

Just one last thing that I wanted to go over before we go on to our to legislation that our show will be going over, which is. the, sorry, actually two points.

One is rent control is banned by Washington state legislature.

Yes.

So this, what we are discussing is a legislation that will go into effect as soon as the ban is lifted.

So there is nothing illegal about the bill that we have in front that the committee will have in front of it very soon.

It's being reviewed by the city attorney's office.

And we should, we should also note that the rent control ban was itself put in place, now this is now 40 years ago, was put in place because it was a response, it was a vicious response to a rent control movement at that time.

So the rent control ban was not an act of God, it was a retaliation for a movement itself and so it will take a movement to overturn the ban.

And passing a rent control bill in Seattle will be a major component of that because winning this bill itself will take a major fight back.

And this is the last point I wanted to highlight, Ted, if you can go over that is, hasn't rent control caused rents to skyrocket in cities like San Francisco?

We also see similar claims being made about rent control in New York.

There's a lot more to discuss here, but firstly, I think we should understand what the data are showing.

This, again, everything that I'm sharing here is backed up by statistical analysis by economists at various universities, including in California, who show that even with the corporate loopholes, and we want to avoid those corporate loopholes, but even with those corporate loopholes, rent control has been a lifeline for working class renters wherever it has been passed.

And in fact, it can be made stronger without those loopholes, but those loopholes were not put in place by renters or people who just didn't know what they were doing.

It was put in place, those loopholes were put in place by politicians who were doing the bidding of corporate landlords who wanted those loopholes to make rent control weaker.

And one of those loopholes is what's called vacancy decontrol, which is something that allows landlords to raise rents in units, rental units, once it has been vacated by the previous tenant.

This is deeply Problematic, it undermines rent control overall.

So we want to make sure that the rent control that we pass in this city does not have loopholes like that.

Obviously, I won't go over all of the rest of the loopholes, but there are many that we need to avoid.

I appreciate the committee's indulgence on this, but now in the interest of time, we should move to our legislative discussion on the two bills that are coming up sooner than rent control, which is the economic evictions assistance and the six month notice for rent control.

rent increases.

So next, we're going to hear from Arsha Venkatraman from City Council Central staff about the legislation to pay relocation assistance when landlords displace their tenants with outrageous rent increases.

Similar legislation has been passed in other cities and states, such as in the state of Oregon.

In Seattle, landlords need to pay relocation assistance through the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance, or TRAO, when they evict their tenants in order to demolish or redevelop the property.

However, there are no programs to help renters with their relocation costs when they are forced to move because of rent increases, which is a far, far more common phenomenon.

From the perspective of a renter, it doesn't matter what your former landlord intends to do with the property after you leave.

If you're forced to relocate, then your relocation costs are the same regardless of whether the landlord was thinking of demolishing the building or is just planning to rent it out at a higher rate to another tenant.

That's why this bill makes sense and that's why other jurisdictions have also passed.

The draft bill that we're proposing today is not simply an expansion of TREO.

TREO is pretty rigidly defined under state law and could be improved in many ways.

For example, TREO requires people to make less than 50% of the area median income.

and calculates the area median income of everyone living in the apartment together.

That's problematic because if you're low income, but if you have a roommate who has a better salary, then suddenly you or yourself become ineligible.

This is important for us to make sure we don't have this problem because so many increasingly young people especially are forced to rent in group houses.

And so it's important we make sure to address that.

This legislation addressing what we call economic evictions, the displacement of people by rent increases.

In this bill, we have taken the opportunity to write a far better legislation.

Asha is going to be walking us through the details of the bill.

And there will be, you know, like how relocation assistance is divided up between roommates, all of that is important.

But before she begins, I wanted to highlight the general point of what this relocation does.

Renters are eligible for relocation assistance if they are economically evicted, meaning if their landlord increases the rent by at least 10% in a year, which forces them to move.

If the landlord does not raise the rent so dramatically, then obviously this law does not apply to them.

If the renter can afford the new rent, and does not move, this law does not apply again.

It only applies when the landlord raises the rent by 10% or more and the renter has been forced to move because of that rent increase.

When the renter is economically evicted, the landlord must pay them through the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections the equivalent of three months rent that will help the renter with moving costs.

time off work, potentially the need for an apartment search, first, last, month's rent and security deposit, all of that.

Arsha will walk through those details.

And Edward Doan from my office, who staffs this legislation, is also available to answer questions.

So I will turn it over to Arsha now.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

I'm Asha Venkatraman with Council Central staff.

I'm just going to share my screen to a presentation that is on the agenda.

Just give me just a moment.

Okay, so, as Chair Sumlin mentioned, we are talking about a draft of the Economic Displacement Relocation Assistance Bill.

What I'm going to do is go through and just talk generally about the intent of the bill, what the projected timeline is for actual introduction, and then I'll dive into the details of the bill and the potential fiscal and staffing impacts.

And so, as Chair Sellins mentioned, the intent of this bill is to help a tenant who can't afford a rent increase of 10% or more relocate.

So if they can't pay the rent and they have to move out, giving them some monetary assistance to support things like first and last month's rent, security deposit, all the costs that come with trying to find a new tenant.

place to live.

In terms of timeline, I'm working with the city attorney's office and other stakeholders at the moment to get to a draft ready for introduction, hopefully in July.

So the intent is to be able to talk about an introduced bill at the committee's next meeting at the end of July.

There are, because we've been working on this bill for several years in draft form, there are a variety of things that need to be updated or corrected.

And so the introduced draft will take care of those things.

And I'll mention them as they come up substantively as I go through the details of the bill.

So diving into the details, as I mentioned, this is for tenants that have to relocate because they can't afford to pay the rent increase of over 10% or more.

In the bill itself, there are several definitions of who it is that, excuse me, not definitions, but who it is that is eligible for receiving relocation assistance.

And so there are two major elements here.

The first is that they have to have received a 60-day notice of rent increase, and that rent increase is for 10% or more, and they either plan to vacate the property or have already vacated the property.

So, tenants have to provide notice to the owner if they're not going to continue their tenancy and they plan on moving and so if they do issue that notice that does make them eligible for this relocation assistance.

mention, um, is that the of the bill.

Um, in the d there's a definition of th notice.

Um, because we'v for several years that do the change in law that ha So back in 2019, it was very specific that the notice period for a rent increase at the state level was 30 days, and then at the city level was 60 days for a rent increase of 10% or more.

The laws changed since that time, and so now the required notice for any rent increase is 60 days.

So the correction to that definition will need to be made, and I plan to incorporate that into the draft as introduced.

As part of the ability to apply for relocation assistance, one of the challenges in putting this draft together was trying to figure out who it is that is eligible to receive the assistance in the household, since the household can be relatively large.

And I'll get into the details of what the different types of households are.

And so the proposal is to designate one person.

So a household representative that would be responsible for doing the application, that would be legally entitled to receiving the assistance, and then the household could go from there in their interactions with the household representative in terms of who gets how much funding.

To make sure there's no conflict of interest issues, the household representative can only represent one household at a time.

Moving into the definitions piece, a household, we've proposed to define it as any family household or non-family household that's occupying a housing unit.

This is to account for some of the dynamics of combinations of people that live together.

So in some circumstances, in one housing unit, you could have a family.

Family household, as you'll see in this next slide, is defined as all occupants who are members of the same family unit.

And that family unit is described as I've laid out here on the slide, parents, spouses, parents, grandparents, all variety of relationships.

But there's also circumstances in which it's not just a family that's living in that unit.

So they're living with another roommate or another couple who don't qualify for the definition of family household.

Those those persons are defined as non family households.

So it's an occupant that isn't part of that.

the first family household.

So when you get into a situation where a family household is moving out, but a non-family household decides to stay after receiving a rent increase, it allows for a little easier splitting of who is entitled to relocation assistance and who is not, and makes it a little more easy to calculate what the amount of the relocation assistance will actually be.

In terms of timing, the applicant must apply to SDCI, the Department of Construction and Inspections, within 180 days of receiving a rent increase notice.

Before I get to the extension piece, I just wanted to note one other thing.

I had mentioned previously that now the notice for receiving a rent increase is 60 days.

With the proposal that we'll be discussing in the next agenda item to increase the notice period to 180 days, That would parallel what this bill proposes in terms of an application period.

That does change the dynamics a little bit, and it's a policy choice that you all will have to make in terms of what you want that impact to be.

As it currently stands, because there's 60 days of rent increase notice, that means that a tenant could apply any time after that 60-day notice is issued.

And then the rent increase would go into effect.

And then there's 60 days after that.

And so the tenant would have the opportunity to apply both before the rent increase went into effect as well as after it went into effect.

The outcome there is that if it turns out for whatever reason that the tenant thinks that they can afford a rent increase, but after that first month realizes that they can't, they could still tell the owner of the unit they were planning on vacating, and then they would be able to apply for relocation assistance.

If it's Council Bill 119-585 that would increase the notice period from 60 to 180 days, that would limit the period during which the tenant could apply for relocation assistance to fully before the rent increase goes into effect.

And so if that is the case, then the policy decision is around whether we want to limit the period in which that application can occur to before when the rent increase goes into effect, change the period of time in which the tenant can apply so that in the circumstance that they just think that they can afford the increase in rent and can't, they might be able to apply after the rent increase goes into effect.

So if there's no questions on that particular piece, I can get into the surrounding extension.

I very quickly add for this timing issue, another consideration that we discussed was that the oftentimes people just don't know what their rights are.

They might not know that they have the opportunity to apply for this relocation assistance, and we don't want to be in a situation where people are vulnerable.

They have this right there, and you know, the time limits expired and then suddenly they don't have access to the relocation money that they really needed.

Maybe they went into debt in order to move and suddenly they realized that actually they're eligible for relocation assistance, they should still be able to get it.

Great, thanks Ted.

So assuming that there is this 180 day window in which a tenant can apply, it's possible that during that time the household needs time to gather information, to gather some of the things that are required for the application.

They might require an additional time to to submit a completed application.

And so a household representative can apply, or can, excuse me, can ask SDCI for an application extension as long as they do so before the end of that 180-day window.

And SDCI can grant that.

It's a 60-day extension upon finding that there was good cause for the need for the extension.

If the application is incomplete, SDCI can ask for more information, and if they do so, the household representative needs to provide that information within 30 days.

As with the original application submission, the household can request an extension, and as it's currently drafted, the bill does allow SDCI to be able to grant that extension upon finding a good cause.

It does not state how long that the extension should be.

And so that again is a question of whether that should be within the SDCI director's discretion or it is something that we want to legislate for a very specific period of time.

At that point, the last piece around timing, if the tenant does end up rescinding a notice of vacation, so they do intend to leave the unit, they must also withdraw the application and pay back any funds that have been received.

I'll get into the piece around refunds a little bit later in the presentation.

This is in the circumstance the tenant has submitted the application for relocation assistance, plans to move out, has issued that notice, but decides for whatever reason that they are going to stay in the unit, that they're not going to move out.

They don't need relocation assistance.

That's when they are required to rescind the application.

And if it turns out that for whatever reason they decide not to move out after they've received the relocation assistance, they are required to refund that money back to SDCI.

In terms of notice, SDCI does have to provide, as drafted, a couple different notices to several parties.

The first is if upon receiving the application from the household representative, the SDCI must notify the owner within five days of receiving it that this application has been received.

And then as you see, I supposed to make a decision about the application within 10 days of receiving the notice.

And so they will also have to provide notice to the owner, as well as the household representative.

As to whether the household is going to receive relocation assistance or not.

So that's supposed to happen within 10 days of receiving the completed application.

Application itself should contain a couple things.

So the actual notice of intent to vacate or the actual proof that the household has vacated the unit already.

So an affidavit that states as much.

A copy of the current rental agreement, or if it's a verbal or oral rental agreement, a proof of housing costs so that there's a basis upon which, as you see, I can do the calculations about how much relocation assistance the household is entitled to.

A copy of the rent increase notice so that the notice that has to be issued 60 days before and then the names of everyone in the household and the number of households in the unit.

So all that most of that information is so as you see, I can appropriately calculate what it is that each household to the extent that those households are vacating the unit are entitled to receive In terms of the payment, I'll note one difference here between this and the TREO, the Tenant Relocation Assistance, which is a, as Chair Sumlick mentioned, a different regulatory scheme.

In TREO, the owner pays half of the relocation assistance and the city pays the other half of relocation assistance.

For purposes of this bill, the owner would be paying 100% of that relocation assistance.

While there's, it could have been possible to leave the city out of it altogether in terms of, you know, having the landlord and the tenant negotiate how much relocation assistance would they would be eligible for or having the landlord give that get those funds directly to the tenant.

And then if the tenant didn't get those funds, they would have to pursue some private right of action or a violation.

The way the bill is structured is for the owner to give the relocation assistance to SDCI and then for SDCI to give those funds to the tenant.

And my understanding of the reasoning for that is to correct for the power imbalance that exists between a landlord and a tenant.

So by getting the city involved in the transaction, it means that the tenant doesn't have to rely on something like a private right of action or the burden itself is not on the tenant to go forward in terms of getting the money that they're owed from the landlord.

If the landlord, for whatever reason, thinks that the tenant owes them for something, they could theoretically take that out of the relocation assistance the tenant is owed.

None of those are practical options if SDCI is involved.

And so within seven days of receiving the notice that a household is eligible for assistance, the owner has to pay the designated amount to SDCI.

And very specifically, the legislation states that they can't hold back anything that they think they're owed outside of relocation assistance from that amount.

Within five days of when that payment is due, the SDCI must forward the payment to the tenant.

And again, you'll see the way the bill is structured is not contingent on whether the owner themselves actually has paid.

It is because the intent is to get the assistance to the tenant as quickly as possible.

It means that SDCI must make that payment regardless of whether the owner has paid or not.

SCCI does have the opportunity to pursue the owner if they haven't paid in the appropriate amount of time.

If there are objections to payment, they can go after the owner to get the relocation assistance that is owed.

But it does mean that SCCI will have to have some money on hand to be able to give the relocation assistance to the tenant within that five-day period.

I'll get into that a little bit more as we get into the refund piece as well.

So the amount of relocation assistance is based on a couple of calculations.

So as I mentioned, the application requires that there is proof of housing costs from the past 12 months.

And so it's, as you see, I will calculate essentially what the average monthly housing costs are for the housing unit.

So if in the past 12 months, the rental amount has gone up and down, they'll come to an average amount.

And at that point, again, with the information in the application that tells you how many households are occupying the housing unit, you end up taking the amount of average monthly rent and dividing it by the number of households.

And that gives you the, it gives STCI the average monthly housing costs for each household.

And then at that point, you take that number and multiply it by three, and that is the amount that the owner owes to the tenant that is relocating.

It's a little hard to understand abstractly.

So I will go through just a quick example to demonstrate how that might work.

So if you're in a housing unit that has two households, and the rent for the entire unit is $3,600, you would divide that $3,600 by So the average monthly housing costs for each household is $1,800.

At that point, you'd multiply it by three.

And so the amount owed to each household who is vacating or has issued that notice to vacate would be $5,400.

And so if both households were leaving, each household would be entitled to that $5,400 amount.

And so that's a total of $10,600 for the landlord.

This is a pretty straightforward example.

As we've been discussing developing this legislation, this can get complicated depending on the number of households, depending on if all households or no households are vacating.

And so the idea is for the calculation to be as straightforward as possible when calculating housing costs and calculating who is made up of which households.

or excuse me, which households are made up of which members.

So there also isn't too much opportunity for things to get very confusing.

But this is how it would work in a relatively straightforward situation.

I'll pause real quick for questions.

Otherwise, I can go into the next piece on refunds.

Thank you so much, Asha, for your thorough presentation so far.

I don't see, I've been scanning the, the Zoom to see if there are any Zoom raised hands.

I don't see any.

So they can go.

Okay, I'll move into the refund piece.

So this is essentially what happens if the household does not end up actually vacating the unit on the day that they say that they are planning to leave.

If that happens, as I mentioned before, the household representative must return any relocation assistance payment to the city within 10 days of that date on the notice of intent to vacate.

In turn, SDCI has to refund the payment to the owner within 10 days of receiving the household representative's refund.

So the piece around SDCI having to refund the refund or pay the relocation assistance, as I mentioned, isn't dependent on when the refund comes in.

And so if the household representative doesn't pay the refund, SDCI still has to refund the amount to the owner within 10 days.

And this is where we get into the department's ability to pursue somebody for a refund.

Next piece is around appeals and enforcement.

And so the legislation would give either the owner or the household representative the ability to appeal to the hearing examiner within 10 days of SDCI's decision of either the approval or denial of the application for assistance or the amount that SDCI has calculated.

And so the appeals process is intended to go through the hearing examiner's office and all of the attendant rules and regulations that go with.

going through the hearing examiner.

But it is SDCI that will enforce any violations of the ordinance.

So if an owner doesn't actually end up paying, if a household representative doesn't issue a refund, if there's intentional misrepresentation, any of those kinds of things that would qualify as a violation of this legislation, SDCI will be responsible for enforcing.

Last piece I'll get to here is fiscal and staffing impacts.

As I mentioned, because we've been developing this legislation for a while, we engaged with SDCI and the hearing examiner a while back, but we'll need to continue to engage them to figure out what exactly is going to be necessary to support the infrastructure that we'll need to support this ordinance.

At a basic level, anytime there's new landlord-tenant legislation, SDCI ends up with an increase in call volume from both landlords and tenants trying to figure out what their rights are and how to assert them.

So at a minimum, there will be that increase in call volume.

And we'll have to, again, talk to SDCI about what that might look like, where they are right now in terms of call volume with all of the landlord-tenant legislation that has passed recently.

They'll also be in a new function because they're receiving the applications and making determinations about who is eligible and who is not.

There will need to be staff to do that entire process.

Very likely they'll have to be some level of involvement from IT to figure out how to receive payments, how to refund payments, and how to track the timing on those.

And as I mentioned earlier, in terms of the responsibility of SDCI to give refunds or pay relocation assistance, regardless of whether there's been payment, that means that they have to have enough funding on hand to be able to make those payments, knowing that it may take a while before they are able to pursue somebody to get the payments that the city is owed.

And so that difference in timing would mean that they may have to be funded And we have to front load funding that is designated as temporary relocation assistance until, so that they can cover the number of applications that come in before they can recover any funding.

And for purposes of the hearing examiner, it's a whole new caseload for appeals.

And so we'll have to engage with them to determine how many cases are going to be expected, how long a case like this might take, what the resources that they'll need to be able to staff any kind of appeals coming in will be.

And so those conversations we can start to have before this bill gets introduced and as the committee continues to discuss it.

So with that, if there are, I will stop sharing my screen unless somebody wants me to go back to a particular slide and I can answer questions as they come up.

Thank you, Asha.

This is an important conversation to be having, but my understanding is that we are pretty hamstrung by the state level.

In terms of being able to provide relocation assistance, do you have any sense of what action would need to happen at the state level before something like this could take effect?

So there at some point may be a legal analysis on that, but I don't currently have.

But my sense is that because this is not intended to be TRIO or tenant relocation assistance that is very specific to substantial rehabilitation or demolition, change of use, It's instead about a entirely different type of reasoning behind why we would provide relocation assistance.

My sense is that there there is a distinction between those two things.

The other distinction is that it's not because it's not the city giving out money.

It's the owner.

that is responsible for 100% of the relocation assistance.

There may not be issues with the city having to provide its own funding to tenants that are eligible for relocation assistance.

But if and when there is any legal analysis about issues with the state, I will be happy to provide that to all committee members.

Thank you.

Thank you, Asha, for that explanation.

Ted, did you have anything to add on that?

Yeah.

add that without cut.

It's my understanding that nothing needs to change at the state level.

And we do actually have an analysis to that effect, although from somebody in the city attorney's office, who's now retired, but can definitely share that with you.

But it's their analysis that no changes at the state level are needed in order to make this happen for the reason that Asha said that this is, that this is not, if this bill was going to be changing TRAO, then changes would need to be made at the state level, but because this is addressing a whole new area, it's not.

Thank you, Ted, and thank you, Asha, for a very thorough presentation.

I don't see any other questions, and since we're almost at 3.50, I will, if there are no objections, go to our final agenda item for today, which is a briefing on the legislation that my office has developed in response to a request from the Seattle Renters Commission to give renters six months notice for rent increases.

We developed and introduced this legislation before the COVID emergency made other issues a bigger priority.

So we have a substitute amendment prepared to update the bill to align with the current Seattle Municipal Code that it modifies.

If you look at the substitute amendment, it looks like a lot of changes, but in reality, all that it's changing is the substitute adds recitals and does these technical corrections that need to be made.

The substitute makes no substantive change from the bill as has been introduced.

The bill itself does only one thing, which is it increases the notice landlords are required to give their tenants of rent increases from two months as the law currently requires to six months.

Asha will, of course, be walking us through this bill, and then we will see if there are questions that need to be answered.

And as I said, this is the initial discussion.

We're not voting, but given that the technical aspects of this legislation are not difficult to understand, I certainly would urge and welcome council members to voice any policy support that they may have for this one or concerns that they may have that we can help address.

Asha, I'll turn it over to you.

As Chair Solenth mentioned, this bill is relatively straightforward, even though there is a lot of redlining in the amendment language.

The state law requires a minimum of 60 days, so the landlord-tenant regulations require a landlord to provide a notice of any rent increase at least 60 days before that rent increase goes into effect.

And our current city law does the same.

It basically just says you have to adhere to that 60 day, minimum 60 day notice period.

So what this bill does is double that amount of time.

So instead of 60 days notice before a rental increase can go into effect, it would require landlords to give tenants 180 days notice before any kind of rent increase can go into effect.

Um, as, as you mentioned, the original bill has a variety of other edits, um, in various sections of the municipal code.

Um, has this, this legislation was introduced in 2019. Since that time, um, there's been a raft of, of landlord tenant legislation, as well as just regular cleanup legislation that has taken care of all of the, um, technical changes that were proposed in the original bill.

And so.

the amendment amendment one adds recitals to the bill and then it does two other things as as technical amendments it removes any of the language that was intended to correct the original text because those things have already been corrected and it updates the base language upon which the amendments were proposed since that those amendments excuse me that language has changed since 2019 as well and so all it does is it for in terms of substantive purposes is leave that change from 60 to 180 days as the substantive amendment.

So if this amendment does pass, the only change that you'll see at full council will be that change from 60 to 180 days.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Arsha, that was great.

I, of course, open it to questions from council members, but I don't see any so far.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

But as Arsha explained, the intent of the legislation is very straightforward.

And as I mentioned before, it is certainly a recommendation from the Renters Commission of the city of Seattle.

Arsha or Ted, did you, did either of you have anything to add?

Nothing for me.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you both.

And, uh, in the absence of any comments or questions from, um, Council Member Morales, do you want to say something?

I don't see any comments or questions, so I will go ahead and, well, I was going to adjourn the meeting, but I was just going to say thank you, council members, committee members for participating in the discussion today.

And I certainly appreciate council members' patience because I know we've had some somewhat long committee meetings recently because we've been trying to catch up on a lot of things that were Um...

that were put aside because we had to, the city had to deal with the COVID emergency.

So now we're trying to catch up on all of that.

So I appreciate all of your patience and engagement.

And having said that, and having finished all our agenda items for today, I will adjourn the meeting and I will make sure that all committee council member offices are contacted by my staff in terms of scheduling the special meetings for July and September.

So thank you and meeting adjourned.