Seattle City Council 121322

We are recording.

Thank you, son.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Tuesday, December 13th, and this is the meeting of the Seattle City Council.

I'm asking that it come to order.

The time is 2.01.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbal.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council President Juarez.

I'm here.

Good, and everybody's here.

That's great.

For our last public, our last city council meeting of the year.

Moving on to presentations, I'm not aware of any presentations today.

Moving on to the agenda, we will be going to public comment.

Madam Clerk, just for our knowledge, can you tell me how many remote speakers we have and how many we have in chambers?

We have 10 remote speakers and one speaker in chamber.

Okay.

We will give each person in our hybrid model two minutes.

Why don't we do the in-person person first, And then we can start on the remote caller so I'm going to hand it over to you, madam clerk to go ahead and do our recording to.

Welcome people to public comments to speak to the matters on the agenda.

Hello, Seattle.

We are the Emerald City, the City of Flowers and the City of Goodwill, built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Seattle City Council welcomes remote public comment and is eager to hear from residents of our city.

If you would like to be a speaker and provide a verbal public comment, you may register two hours prior to the meeting via the Seattle City Council website.

Here's some information about the public comment proceedings.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered on the Council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when they registered online and used the meeting ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

A reminder, the speaker meeting ID is different from the general listen line meeting ID provided on the agenda.

Once a speaker's name is called, the speaker's microphone will be unmuted and an automatic prompt will say, the host would like you to unmute your microphone.

That is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

At that time, you must press star six.

You will then hear a prompt of, you are unmuted.

Be sure your phone is unmuted on your end so that you will be heard.

As a speaker, you should begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

A chime will sound when 10 seconds are left in your allotted time as a gentle reminder to wrap up your public comments.

At the end of the allotted time, your microphone will be muted, and the next speaker registered will be called.

Once speakers have completed providing public comment, please disconnect from the public comment line and join us by following the meeting via Seattle Channel Broadcast or through the listening line option listed on the agenda.

The council reserves the right to eliminate public comment if the system is being abused.

or if the process impedes the council's ability to conduct its business on behalf of residents of the city.

Any offensive language that is disruptive to these proceedings or that is not focused on an appropriate topic as specified in council rules may lead to the speaker being muted by the presiding officer.

Our hope is to provide an opportunity for productive discussions that will assist our orderly consideration of issues before the council.

The public comment period is now open, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of, you have been unmuted.

Thank you, Seattle.

Our first in-person speaker is James Clark, and it looks like we will possibly have two in-person speakers, but James Clark is first.

Okay.

My wife would probably wish to mute me, so I'll be quick.

Can you hear me okay?

Closer?

Okay.

I'm a resident at Lake Washington Boulevard, a longtime Seattleite.

I rode for the Huskies 100 years ago.

I taught at the university for 20 years.

I spent a lot of time in the Arboretum as a kid with a canoe and other things.

As a resident now, we're dealing with an issue that is pertinent to you, and it's an issue of convenience versus health, safety, and accessibility.

I've tried to be a good neighbor, I think, diligently with the 520 folks, and noticed that when I would have iced tea in my backyard, as you might do, that I would get dust on my glasses, and I worried I would get dust in my cup.

And since that time, 350 truck hauls a day past our street, I realized that nobody's doing research, nobody, on the health and safety of potential dust, silica dust issues that affect us.

And now they have 520 people saying, we're gonna go ahead and use the Peninsula, not give anybody access for up to 10 more years.

And my thought is, I thought it was always supposed to be a park.

That's what I remember as a kid.

And so it really comes down to convenience.

versus health, safety, and accessibility, what troubles me the most.

And the reason why it came today is that no measurement, no mitigation is being done of what we regard as a significant health issue.

And it's not going away.

And so from my standpoint, rather than being a gadfly or you know, calling excessive attention to something isn't a problem.

I think it needs to be investigated before the city gives any approval to a purchase of a property.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the time.

Thank you.

And our last in-person speaker signed up is Marguerite Richard.

Yes, my name is Marguerite Richard.

Who's that?

Sorry, I was trying to get his attention.

Oh, OK.

Well, it's OK anyway.

Yeah, I'm going to say a little bit about some equitable advisory board or something.

And I said to myself, I think equity needs to be redefined because we're not getting it.

And something is real sinister about the whole process because this is 2022. people are still causing us ill will as indigenous black people.

I just left from over there and the woman mentioned Rosa Parks, Iranian, because they were acknowledging the Iranian women, how they are abused too.

I said, we go through that all the time.

So isn't equity supposed to be so that we're not traumatized anymore?

And I was traumatized right down there on the first floor of city hall.

And Rosa Parks wouldn't have been happy about it if she was still living and I told her what happened to me.

Because a friend of mine interviewed her when she came to Seattle.

All the mother bigwigs were in the room.

But she pointed to my friend.

She said, I want her to interview me.

So I'm going to say it again.

Cease and desist.

As a matter of law, you killed my friend.

Honorable Michael B. Fuller, he would come down here and he would quote those 42 USCs, those 25 CFRs, and he would quote the RCWs.

Even with him knowing that much about the law, you still killed him.

I'm going on the record with this.

And where's the equity?

in it and let the record reflect what happened to us downstairs on the first floor.

Does that fit your bill and your agenda on today, sitting up here making?

Thank you, Ms. Rashard.

We'll now move into the remote speakers.

And our first remote public commenter is Brady Nordstrom.

And Brady, you'll need to hit star six.

Hi there.

Can you hear me.

Yes, yes, we can.

Great.

Great.

Awesome.

My name is pretty Nordstrom, and I'm speaking today on behalf of Seattle for everyone.

We're a broad portal having coalition with members who interact directly and indirectly with the interview program.

I'm here again to thank city council and the mayor's office for the attention on design review which we believe has an impact on housing affordability creation and access.

We believe that to have a design review as it currently functions is broken and that now is the time to fix it.

It's probably not a surprise, but Seattle Fairgrounds strongly supports Council Bill 120464. And we know from the pandemic that when this is an exemption, a design review exemption for affordable housing.

And we know from the pandemic that this can reduce costs and expedite urgently needed affordable housing during this ongoing housing crisis.

which is another acknowledgement that this program can be a barrier to housing.

So we now have a chance to build on what we've learned during the pandemic as we work towards permanent and more comprehensive reforms in 2023. So to comment on that second piece, that of course Seattle for Everyone supports this bill.

We think this is an exciting and positive early step to fix design review, but we don't think it addresses deeper program-wide issues with the program around efficiency, consistency, and inclusion.

So we believe that more will be needed, and we thank the Land Use Committee, Strauss, and the Mayor's Office for concurrently considering a work plan for permanent legislation, and we ask and encourage you to expedite the timeline wherever possible for this.

So, in conclusion, thank you all for your support of Council Bill 120464. We urge you to pass this.

And thank you for your continued support for broader and bolder reforms in 2023 to fix design review more broadly.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Steve Hooper.

Hello, Council Members.

Thank you for your time this afternoon.

My name is Steve Hooper.

I'm the president of Eat & Store Restaurants and the president of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance.

And on behalf of the 2,700 members of the Seattle Restaurant Alliance, I want to express our full support for Council Bill 120429 to make this day's start program permanent.

I really want to thank Council Member Strauss for his leadership on this, and then the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee for their votes last week.

These street permits have been a critical component in helping many diverse restaurants in Seattle offer alternative dining options both during the pandemic and on an ongoing basis.

It turns out we Seattleites like eating outside.

Making this program permanent with the proposed permit fees will ensure the program is equitable and accessible for all that would like to participate.

This program has been wildly popular both with residents, with operators, and neighborhood coalitions.

And so thank you very much for your support.

And thank you to SDOT and their team for all of their hard work and deep levels of engagement with the public throughout their process.

Thank you for your time today and I'll see the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Megan Cruz and Megan will be followed by Howard Gale, Megan.

Hi, I'm Megan Cruz speaking on CB 12462. It contains amendments to the transportation element of the comp plan.

Earlier versions of this bill included a recommendation to develop urban freight delivery strategies.

That has been dropped from this final version.

And the question is why?

Urban freight is a global issue that's been on Seattle's radar since 2018, when it approved a statement of legislative intent.

At that time, a city commission UW study reported that without population increase, Seattle's urban truck deliveries would double by now.

But nothing's been done.

Now a new study shows trucks in the city center circle up to 18 extra minutes just searching for places to unload.

Another study ranks Seattle 15th in annual truck delays and 13th in excess CO2 from truck congestion.

The problem isn't going away, and it's not benign.

It undermines Seattle's pledge to address climate change, mobility, and Vision Zero safety.

The trucks and vans serving our homes and businesses needlessly screw city blocks and neighborhoods.

They steal emissions, cause gridlock, and increase interactions with pedestrians and cyclists.

Yes, there are ways to mitigate these impacts, but they won't happen with the document being approved today.

After five years of kicking the can down the road, we're turning our backs once again.

If there's a good reason for this, the council should tell us.

If not, then please answer two questions.

Who decided to drop urban freight planning and why?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Howard Gale, and Howard Gale will be followed by Nick Jackal.

Howard?

Good afternoon, Howard Dale with seattlestop.org commenting on our lack of police accountability.

At this final council meeting for 2022, you should be congratulated for creating this year the beginnings of a program to serve the needs of those who have been harmed by Seattle police violence.

The only potential advance in police accountability since 2020. However, it would be better if such a program were not needed at all.

And if this council did not turn a blind eye through a culture of Seattle policing that has killed 18 people suffering a mental health crisis in the last 18 years.

All of these people with an edged weapon or no weapon at all.

Like the still unnamed person killed by the SPD on Beacon Hill in January of this year.

Like Derek Hayden killed by the SPD the year before.

Like Terry Kaver killed just six days before George Floyd.

like Ryan Smith and Danny Rodriguez both killed the year before that.

So thank you for providing the possibility for some future aid in the face of these gross and avoidable injustices.

Hopefully this will create the kind of empathy and understanding that will push Seattle to build a police accountability system that prevents us from continuing to kill people in crisis, that provides full civilian community control over police policy, police misconduct investigations, and police discipline as the people in Newark, Nashville, Portland, Oregon, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Jose, Phoenix, and so many other cities have done.

And next month, when the Seattle Human Rights Commission once more takes up the cause to speak for all these victims of police violence, who are without voice and without representation, hopefully council members in 2023 will not stand by in silence or worse, actually attempt to prevent the commission from taking up this cause as they did this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nick Jackal and Nick will be followed by Kate Smith.

Go ahead, Nick.

Hello, Council.

My name is Nick Jackal and I live in the Meadowbrook neighborhood with my wife and two young kids.

I'm calling in to voice my support for the comprehensive plan amendment that supports splitting I-5 as a strategy to connect divided neighborhoods I love the emphasis and investment in the South Park project and voice my support for the ongoing consideration of that portion of the project.

Moreover, letting I-5 as much as possible will go a long way to bridging historic injustices, providing much-needed green space, and building a more welcoming, inclusive community that will add tremendous value to our great city.

Thank you for the time and consideration to support this important ordinance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kate Smith and Kate will be followed by Deb Barker.

Go ahead, Kate.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm Kate Smith.

I'm a principal at SMR Architects and I serve on the Board of Directors for the Housing Development Consortium.

I'd like to thank the entire Land Use Committee for passing City Council Bill 120464 last week so it could be on the agenda here today.

and specifically Council Member Strauss and Council Member Mosqueda.

Seattle needs more affordable housing now.

This is an immediate and urgent step in the right direction for Seattle City Council to take.

Permanently exempting affordable housing from design review.

It has been proven the design review process adds time and cost to all projects, but impacts affordable housing projects most significantly.

Affordable housing should not be delayed by a system that is clearly hindering its production by delaying the permitting process and adding significant costs.

By the time affordable housing projects go to the permitting process, the development and lease-up schedule and funding have already been committed.

There's little room for delays and cost increases through the permitting process.

The last challenge these housing projects should face is a costly, inequitable, and uncoordinated city permitting and review process.

Housing is a human right.

Please pass council bill 120464. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Deb Barker and Deb will be followed by Alicia Ruiz.

Go ahead, Deb.

Hi, thank you.

This is Deb Barker.

I'm a West Seattle resident and community activist.

I support council bill number 120464, the exemption of affordable housing projects from design review requirements.

I trust the affordable housing developers and the agencies that they must answer to, along with their many partners to do the right thing in providing affordable housing with authentic design that's reflective of the project.

I personally was a member of the Southwest Design Review Board from 2004 to 2009. I have commented quite frequently on design review projects throughout the city, and I was pleased to work recent design review fix in the 20-teens.

However, I object to the removal of the design review program from the city's role until such time as developers stop submitting 65% designed plans for preliminary review.

Design review is not the problem that developers make it out to be.

It is not the problem, take a look at themselves.

Again, I do support CB12046 for exempting affordable housing requirements from design review.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alicia Ruiz.

Following Alicia, we have Will Johns signed up, but not present remotely.

So following Alicia, if he's not signed in, we'll go to Laura Lowe.

Okay.

Alicia.

Good afternoon, President Waters and members of the council.

My name is Alicia Ruiz.

I am the Government Affairs Manager for Seattle for the Master Builders Association of King and Sonomish Counties, and I'm testifying today on behalf of our nearly 3,000 local members in strong support of Council Bill 120464. We are all well aware that our region is in a dire housing crisis, and we need to do all that we can to quickly increase housing production.

There are several ways to do this, but today let's focus on the low-hanging, yet prodding fruit.

called design review.

The program is ripe in efficiency and has proved to add years to projects costing millions of dollars.

These unintended consequences are making our goals for housing harder to reach.

Extending the COVID era design review exemption for affordable housing just makes sense and it's a first step.

It's important to support the momentum that the exemption has created for affordable development.

We applaud city council and the mayor's office for committing to make this exemption permanent in future legislation.

In the meantime, we need to continue to examine the design review program as a whole and its negative impact on both affordable and market rate development.

The city must identify what is broken and commit to make sweeping changes that will support the production of desperately needed housing.

In closing, please vote yes on Council Bill 120464. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Laura Lowe.

Hello.

Hi, Laura.

Hello, everybody.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm Laura Renter in Interbay.

I'm calling to speak on three things, CB120464 in support, and then I have some comments related to CB120429 in resolution 32076. For 120464, I think that it's common sense, like Strauss has said the other day, that exempting affordable housing is a bright spot.

It's a win for advocates.

We need deep bottom to top reforms for design review.

I want everyone here listening to be really curious, why don't we want to make all housing less affordable?

Market rate housing, which is the majority of the housing gets built because we haven't taxed the rich yet, doesn't deserve punishment of capricious design review processes either.

In terms of DB 120429, I really want some sort of analysis geographically, racial, social justice, economic justice analysis of the streetery plan.

Seems like there's big geographic disparities.

Up in Ballard, most of the businesses are so expensive that many low-wage Seattleites can never afford to frequent those businesses.

Other parts of the city that have streeteries are on loud, fast roads that are dangerous.

We really need to make sure that we implement this fairly.

not just in fancy parts of the city.

And then last for resolution 32076 in terms of the way we lobby at the state level, I want us to prioritize the deaths of unhoused people in King County, which are at historic high levels.

Any plan related to lobbying the state legislature should be responsive to this crisis.

We have to get people without housing into housing immediately.

That doesn't mean a shelter bed, it means actual housing, hotels, tiny house, something with a door that locks, real housing, that people want.

Sweeps are a failed strategy.

This morning, a stranger documented terrible behavior by the Seattle Police Department.

I've attended half a dozen sweeps, and the behavior by parks and police, where they laugh and mock people while they're crying and getting their homes destroyed, is just heartbreaking.

All of you should witness that.

Thank you.

Council President, we have one late arrival for in-person public comment.

Yes, I got.

Thank you.

I understand that Mr. Zimmerman came late, so you want to go ahead and start the clock for Mr. Zimmerman?

Yes.

Yes, you go.

You're welcome.

democratic fascism, mafia, and psychopath.

My name is Alex Zimmerman, and I will speak about what is on the agenda right now.

You always choose people in the Commission, you know what I mean, who don't do anything.

For many years, I've come to them and come here and talk a thousand times to you.

We need to appoint people who have a voice.

They don't have a voice.

They're all slaves.

They exactly never doing something against you or have different opinion.

Why reason?

We have a dozen commission and everybody absolutely identical.

When this freaking idiot will have different opinion and where you choice people who have different opinion.

Look what has happened with city.

750,000 slaves support you totally for everything.

It's a nightmare what has happened right now.

For eight months you don't show us picture and no one in Seattle from 700,000 crook and idiot and slave come and talk to you.

Only Alex Zimmerman.

Why?

Why the 750,000 slaves acting like this?

85% vote for Democrat?

What is this?

How is this possible?

Nobody in America have this statistic.

Only Seattle, one city, totally fascist city, have this statistic.

I call Seattle epicenter of fascism.

That's exactly what has happened when you control everybody.

Stand up America, this exactly what is we need doing right now.

And I speak right now to the 750,000 slaves in India.

Wake up and talk to this council.

So show us faces like before I come here for 20 years.

Stand up America.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman.

Thank you.

That concludes our public commenters today.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, thank you for doing the remote and the in-person.

I know we've had a long year, so I want to thank you for your patience and your kindness to people that come in and actually speak to the agenda and provide public comment that we listen to.

So that is the end of public comment and we will move along on the agenda.

First, we'll go to adoption of the introduction and referral calendar.

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

Not seeing or hearing an objection, the.

Calendar, I'm sorry, The the IRC is adopted moving on to adoption of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Not seen or hearing an objection.

The agenda today's agenda is adopted.

Moving on into the.

Calendar today, we have the consent calendar and let me share with you what is on the consent calendar.

We have the minutes of December 6th.

We have payroll bill, council bill 120482. We have two appointments, I'm sorry, three appointments.

One to the Land Use Committee, two appointments to the Public Asset and Homeless Committee.

Are there any items that my colleagues would like to have removed to address later from the consent calendar?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Councilmember Herboldt.

It has been moved and seconded to adopt a consent calendar.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herboldt?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The consent calendar is adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and the legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

Moving along to our agenda under committee reports.

We have 14 items for agenda items.

It looks like Council Member Peterson is going to be very busy this afternoon.

So with that, Madam Clerk, can you please read item number 1 into the record?

Item 1, resolution 32076, setting forth the city of Seattle's 2023 state legislative agenda.

Thank you, this is my item, and as you know, yesterday we discussed office of intergovernmental relations, the 2023 state legislative agenda.

Where we discussed all the topics that were presented to us in a 17 page resolution.

A lot of issues are in there, but the four main topics that are included and which I'd like to share with my colleagues and I shared yesterday does not preclude any other issues that may come up because we certainly don't know what bills are going to be introduced down in Olympia.

There are four agenda items.

One is called a safe city, one that ensures all residents can live safely and securely.

Second priority is a vibrant city, one that supports innovation, education, economic opportunity and a healthy environment.

A third priority is an affordable city, one where housing and services remain affordable and accessible to everyone.

And last, an interconnected city, one supported by a cohesive and multimodal transportation network.

So those are the four topics that are in our resolution that we discussed yesterday.

Now that I've kind of given an overview and the resolution itself was posted online yesterday, and I believe my colleagues all have a copy of the resolution as well.

We want to thank Director Tarlington and our staff who presented yesterday as we went over the resolution and the plan of what we hope to support, or at least see what's happening down in Olympia.

With that being said, I believe before I open it for discussion, which is a little bit more, I believe Council Member Strauss has something for me.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, as I mentioned yesterday during Council briefing, I do have- Wait, I'm sorry.

Hold on.

Council Member- You know what?

I made a mistake.

First, I have to move to adopt and then go to your amendment.

I'm sorry.

That sounds good.

Sorry, I didn't mean I got ahead of myself.

With that, I move to adopt resolution 32076. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution and as sponsor of this item, I've already addressed it.

At this point, Council Member Strauss, I understand that you have an amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, as I described yesterday during...

Oh, I have to move it.

So I move to amend Resolution 32076, Exhibit 1 with quote in the interconnected city section by adding the following language at the end of the paragraph.

The language being, we are committed to expanding the use of freeway lids across the city, including on Interstate 5 and State Route 520 to reconnect neighborhoods and provide public land with amenities such as affordable housing, open space, and pedestrian and bike connections to transit stations.

Okay, so you have moved it.

So it's, do we have a, it's been moved.

Do we had a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the resolution as presented on Amendment A. Councilor Strauss, do you want to add any more to your comments before we open it up to the floor and then allow you to have closing comments on the amendment?

I'm going to pass it over to councilmember peralez.

I think it's a great idea.

I'm excited to support it here and I hope to earn your support as well.

Thank you.

Okay, not seeing any, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment A as proposed by Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two abstain.

Thank you.

The resolution is adopted.

The chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the amended resolution.

our legislation.

Thank you.

So let's go on to item number two.

And that's going to be we're going to hear from customer her world on that.

But Madam Clerk, you please read item number two into the record.

Agenda item two, Council Bill 120469 relating to the Department of Finance and Administrative Services, authorizing the director of the Department of Finance and Administrative Services or the director's designee to negotiate and execute a real property lease with the 2724 Sixth Avenue South Limited Partnership on behalf of the Seattle Police Department and ratifying confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you.

I move to pass Council Bill 120469. Is there a second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded.

Councilor Herbold, the floor is yours.

Thank you so much.

So this legislation implements the intent of the council in an appropriation of $500,000 made during the mid-2021 supplemental budget process to implement a recommendation of the Inspector General to increase the amount of space available for evidence storage.

You may remember yesterday I mentioned in council briefings that this particular investment and others were made possible through a previous year's council budget proviso on SPD salary savings together with investments in community service officers, crime prevention coordinators in the north end, technology needs, PDR positions and the city's investment in the regional peacekeepers collaborative.

So again, showing the power and usefulness to the council of a proviso on salary savings so that we have the opportunity to work with the department and work with the executive to identify shared priorities that the council is trying to elevate.

In this case, The bill has been expedited directly to full council to allow the mayor to sign it by the end of the year.

This is time sensitive.

On Wednesday of last week, Lisa Kay of council central staff sent council members a memo about this legislation.

The bill includes a five year lease with a two year five, I'm sorry, with two five year renewal options beginning January 2023. And the fiscal note states that SPD does not lease additional space for storage of vehicular evidence.

The department will be forced to divert vehicle evidence for viable criminal cases to alternate less secure vehicle storage locations.

The current vehicle processing room is regularly at capacity and cannot accommodate additional vehicles.

Again, as mentioned at the beginning, this is a recommendation of the Inspector General to increase the amount of space available for evidence storage.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any comments or questions from my colleagues?

All right.

I do not see any.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it.

Madam Clerk, will you please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

going down our agenda.

We are now going to look at some land use committee action here from Councilmember Strauss.

So, Madam Clerk, can you read item 3 into the record?

I report to the Land Use Committee, agenda item 3, Council Bill 120462, relating to land use and zoning, amending the Seattle Comprehensive Plan to incorporate changes proposed as part of the 2022 Comprehensive Plan annual amendment process.

The committee recommends it will pass as amended.

Thank you.

Councilmember Strauss, as chair of the committee, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

We've spoken about this a number of times.

This is for the annual comprehensive plan, not the major update that is coming next year.

Colleagues, thank you for your patience.

As I know, the majority of the requests for this annual comp plan were, we asked for your amendments to be held for the major update.

That's about it.

These are the annual updates to the comprehensive plan.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, Council President Juarez.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Are there any questions or any other comments or even closing remarks from you?

Council Member Sawant, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Thank you, President Juarez.

I will be voting no on the comprehensive plan amendments this year because yet again, the The democratic party council members have chosen to leave out developer impact fees despite years and years of repeated promises.

Developer impact fees are the fees the city could charge corporate for-profit developers to raise tens of millions of dollars in progressive revenue to fund roads, parks and public transit.

and in fact, other cities in Washington state charged developer impact fees.

As an illustration, developer impact fees could have funded $40 million worth of public transit expansion or reverse the austerity that was just passed by the City Council Democratic Party majority for the next year's budget.

Developer impact fees can only be passed into law after they are put into the city's comprehensive plan, and the comprehensive plan is amended only once each year So the fact that developer impact fees are not included in this bill means that we will need to wait another year to make big developers pay for the impacts they have on our city infrastructure and for the profits they make without paying even this minimum of compensation for the city's working people.

This is another example of how the Democratic Party establishment chooses again and again to put the burden of recessions onto the backs of working people rather than big corporations.

We saw that during the budget votes when the majority of the council voted no on increasing the progressive big business Amazon tax, but voted yes on a series of regressive taxes and fees that disproportionately affect, adversely affect poor and working class people.

So I will be voting no on this year's comprehensive plan amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawant.

Councilmember Strauss, do you want to wrap us up here, some closing comments before we go to a vote?

No, I think everything's been covered and we have another opportunity for the major update to the comprehensive plan coming next year.

All right.

And that's in your committee, correct?

That is.

All right.

Exciting.

All right.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

No.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Eight in favor, one opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

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

So moving on to item number four, it looks like Mr. Strauss is up again.

Will the clerk please read item number four to the record?

Agenda item four, Council Bill 120464, relating to design review for affordable housing, adopting temporary regulations to exempt affordable housing projects from design review.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

This bill streamlines the process to help ensure that affordable housing projects will move through the design review process expediently.

These changes were first passed by Council on a one-year basis in April 2020 as a COVID-era emergency legislation, and these emergency regulations were set to expire just in a few days, December 30, 2022, after the emergency proclamation for COVID ended.

During the last few years, we have found this policy before us reduce costs and reduce time required for building affordable housing in our city.

The bill before us today is temporary legislation for one year, giving us the time to craft the permanent legislation needed.

We know that Seattle's housing affordability and homelessness crises are interlinked.

In my experience addressing homelessness in District Six, the speed of our ability to address places like Ballard and Commons and Woodland Park have relied on shelter availability.

Unless we expand shelter, our shelter capacity is pretty much at full and we are able to better use our shelter resources by graduating people out of shelter into permanent supportive and affordable housing.

There are many people who are experiencing homelessness that do need permanent supportive housing.

Some others can simply rely on affordable housing.

Greg Colburn and Clayton Aldrin from the University of Washington recently released a study, and Council President, if I may quote from them, They say, we know there are individual factors that increase the risk of homelessness for individuals, maybe poverty or health issue or substance use, but those factors alone don't explain the huge problem we have in Seattle.

If we continue to blame individuals for particular outcomes, we're going to miss the fundamental driver of this crisis, which is the housing market.

We have a gross undersupply of housing at all levels, and certainly of affordable housing.

Failure to address that gap will guarantee we will continue to struggle with the crisis in perpetuity.

There are big eight cities for homelessness in the United States, including Seattle.

Each of these cities have really high rents and very low vacancies.

While there are people with vulnerabilities in every community around the country, the consequences of the vulnerabilities are far more severe in a place where housing costs are very expensive and vacancies are low.

For example, the margin for error in Seattle is thin.

If you get kicked out of your apartment or get into a fight with your roommate or lose your job, there are no places to move to and it might cost $2,000 a month.

Now the margin for error in Detroit, one of the most impoverished cities in the country is far greater you can lose your job, and you can have an unfortunate event but you might be able to find an apartment for $500 in Detroit compared to 2000 Seattle.

Also in Detroit vacancy rates are at 10%.

We have fewer.

people who are struggling in Seattle than Detroit does on a per capita basis, but we have far greater homelessness because of the consequences of being poor in Seattle are so much more significant.

I share that quote from Dr. Colburn with you because when we address the housing affordability, we are making our homelessness crisis more manageable.

In their study, they said, you know, does housing affordability end homelessness?

No.

Does it reduce it five-fold as compared Seattle to Chicago?

The answer is yes.

When we are able to address this housing crisis, we're able to reduce homelessness by five-fold and make it much more manageable.

As I started the COVID-19 emergency legislation, that we relied on, again, sped affordable housing production and reduced costs.

And that is the bill before us today.

This legislation does extend that ordinance on the basis of the civil emergency on homelessness under and declaring a SEPA emergency as a threat to public health and safety.

As I just described, when we're able to create more affordable housing, we're able to graduate people out of shelter, which means that we can get more people off the streets and into shelter.

Separately, we will continue reforming the design review program to improve the program to give it the needed teeth, the teeth it needs, and we must streamline the bureaucratic functions that slow our ability to bring affordable market rate and all types of housing online quickly.

Specifically, this bill will allow for developments with at least 40% of units affordable to households with income no greater than 60% of the area median income to opt out of design review should they desire to.

And authorize the director of Seattle Department of Construction Inspections to waive or modify certain development standards for projects opting out of design review.

such as type one, which means not appealable decisions if the waiver does not impact the high poker scale of the development or result and results in more affordable housing units.

We will also approve the work program for consideration of permanent changes to the design review program.

I really want to thank Mayor Harrell for your work on this, and Councilmember Mosqueda for your work on this.

We've had some really great partners, Aaron House, Dan Eder, Dan Nolte, Naomi Lewis, and I'm just very excited to have this legislation passed today.

Thank you, Council President.

Before I open up the floor, I understand that this came out of your Committee 5-0, and Councilmember Mosqueda was a co-sponsor.

someone allow ask the co-sponsor should like to is that that's correct and so OK.

I'm going to hand it off to cancer mosquito is co-sponsor service can thank you very much.

Thanks madam president and thank you very much chair Strauss.

I've been very pleased to be able to work with you as a co-sponsor on this legislation.

And I want to thank the mayor's office as well for initiating the process to send down this legislation that we've been long wanting to put into statute.

I think this is a really great opportunity to continue that partnership between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

And with this legislation, we are creating a path and a plan to make design review exemption for affordable housing permanent.

And I'm looking forward to helping to expand on this in the upcoming year.

With the ongoing housing crisis and the declared state of emergency on homelessness I think this legislation is prudent.

We need to remove every barrier possible to bring affordable housing online as quickly as possible, especially when those barriers exist within our own city code.

We have seen during the course of this pandemic that we can create high-quality affordable housing that meets the diverse needs of our community without the burdensome review process causing delays and causing uncertainty and driving up costs that is created by the design review process.

I look forward to continuing to build affordable housing, build housing across our city that our community residents need so desperately, And I'm excited that this is being paired with the investments that we've made in the budget.

Thanks in large part to Jumpstart, we are making a historic investment into affordable housing in the next two years with over half a billion dollars over the upcoming biennium into affordable housing.

And I'm excited that we have the momentum that we have built within the budget and in legislative policy actions in the past that this legislation today is building upon to rework our city code, expedite the permitting process, and truly prioritize affordable housing for our community needs.

Thanks again to all the advocates who've been working to bring this issue to light over the last several years.

I also want to thank, in addition to the team within Council Member Strauss's office and the Mayor's office, Erin House from our office who has been really prioritizing this legislation and our lead on everything housing.

I look forward to continuing to work with all of you as we continue this effort here in the upcoming years to build upon this approach and make sure that we're creating opportunities for creating housing across our cities, our city and other modifications necessary to ensure that we are bringing new homes online as fast as we possibly can.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you, Councilor Muscat.

Are there any other comments that any of our other colleagues would like to make before we go to a vote?

I'm sorry, before I hand it off to see if Council Member Strauss has any closing remarks.

Councilor Strauss, do you have anything?

Oh, go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

No further remarks.

We urge a yes vote.

Great, let's hope we have all yes votes.

All right, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it.

Madam Clerk, will you please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

Moving on to item number five.

This is going to come out of the Public Assets and Homeless Committee with Council Member Lewis.

Madam Clerk, can you please read item number five into the record?

Agenda item five.

Council Bill 120467 relating to the Department of Parks and Recreation approving the execution of a settlement agreement with the Washington State Department of Transportation.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much Council President.

I will be brief and giving the overview of this legislation and I do appreciate again Council Member Musqueda filling in and presiding over the hearing and passage on this in committee last week.

Anything for Vivian.

Anything for Vivian.

There you go.

This legislation transfers Seattle Parks property to so that the state can complete the final improvements to the SR 520 corridor.

It approves the settlement agreement with WSDOT and authorizes the city to complete the real property transactions.

As compensation for the land we're giving up to finish SR 520, this legislation accepts mitigation in both a future grant of land nearby as well as money Toward the City of Seattle and the Arboretum North Entry Project specifically.

This negotiated settlement provides certainty that WSDOT will acquire the property rights and it finalizes this final mitigation payment of $22 million to the City of Seattle.

WSDOT must acquire the real property interest by December 15, 2022. So it is very important as we gather here on December 13, 2022 that we pass this legislation.

And with that, Council President, I will turn it back over to you, unless it'd be appropriate at this time for me to move the legislation, or I don't know if you- No, you don't need to move it.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

You're good.

Are there any, all of us, and thank you, and again, congratulations, Council Member Lewis, being a new dad, and thank you, Councilor Muscata, for chairing the meeting while Council Member Lewis was busy.

Are there any comments from any of our colleagues?

It did pass out of committee unanimously before we move on to a vote.

And if Council Member Lewis has any closing comments before we go to a vote.

I don't see any and Council Member Lewis, do you want to say anything else before we go to a vote?

No, I am ready.

Thank you.

Great.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbal?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yep.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Let's see, moving on to item number six, it looks like we have item six to 14, nine items coming out of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee, which is all Council Member Peterson.

So with that, Madam Clerk, can you please read item six into the record, the short title?

item 6.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.

This is the first of nine items from the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee from last week.

The committee unanimously approved the final versions of all these bills.

This bill, Council Bill 120429 is SDOT related legislation actually sponsored by Council Member Strauss that would make permanent the Safe Start Street Eateries Program that help restaurants open up safely during COVID using portions of public streets and sidewalks.

Council President, the sponsor, may want to speak to this or we can just vote on it.

Let me share what I have in front of me.

I have that sponsors are Strauss and Morales, and pretty soon Council Member Strauss is going to have an amendment for us.

So you've addressed it.

So at this point, I will open up the floor.

Which means Council Member Strauss, are you ready?

Yes.

All right.

It's yours and then we'll to what you need to do, and then I'll help you out.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues.

I would like to amend this legislation.

I can speak to it in just a moment, but let me first move it.

So I move to amend Council Bill 120492 as presented on Amendment A on the agenda.

Second.

Oh, great.

We got a second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment A. And now Council Member Strauss, you're recognized to address the amendment for the rest of us.

Thank you.

So within historic districts that have outdoor dining, we are developing additional standards for them to be able to meet both historic district standards and the structural and aesthetic integrity required by SDOT.

This planning is taking a few more months and is currently underway with the Ballard historic district right now.

When we were at the Ballard Historic District meeting this last time, we discussed a number of different options and ways for outdoor dining, businesses who have outdoor dining in the historic district, how to have their permit renewed because these standards aren't quite ready yet.

a couple of different options were presented.

One where the permit holder could reapply for the permit and then the Historic District would approve it conditionally to reapprove it permanently at a date in the future.

Or we could amend this legislation to simply give six months more time for businesses in Historic Districts.

And so rather than trying to communicate individually with all of these permit holders, I made the request of SDOT for myself to bring forward this amendment, and it was welcomed.

We also discussed this amendment at the Ballard Historic District meeting.

And so this amendment does push back the deadlines for permits within historic districts by six months, meaning permits would be due by December 31st, 2023, and rebuild must be complete by June 30th of 2024. That is the report.

Okay, so what we're going to do now, though, are there any comments on Amendment A before we go forward?

Okay.

Do not see any comments on Amendment A. Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment A. Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries and now the amended bill is before council.

Are there any further comments on the amended bill?

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President Juarez.

I am very excited for this bill.

This is the final step in the pathway to permanency for outdoor dining.

As colleagues, many of us know there was a program before the pandemic started to allow for sidewalk cafes.

It was quite expensive and it was a very small amount of space.

There were other programs that allowed for parklets, but those parklets didn't necessarily have an owner, and so there wasn't somebody to take care of them.

What we have before us now are the regulations that allow for outdoor dining to be a permanent feature of the fabric of Seattle.

And this allows, it updates structural integrity.

There are some aesthetic aspects to it as well.

It really focuses on four issues, equity, safety, access, and sustainability.

There have been conversations about, does this privatize public space?

And for me, the answer is no, because we're relying on small businesses and their entrepreneurial skills to make our neighborhoods more vibrant.

When we do, you know, the other option for some of these streets, outdoor dining spaces is a place for cars to park.

What we found in Ballard is that we're able to have places for cars to park and these outdoor dining opportunities.

We have found it to make our city more vibrant.

We've relied on small businesses and their expertise.

This is a program that really talks, it really helps us make our economy stronger in so many different places in our city.

We took the time to get these regulations right-sized while we saw other jurisdictions nearby rush to judgment on whether to put them up in the first place or to take them down.

I really want to thank Elyse Nelson, Didi, and Joel, and Bill, and everyone else in the public space management team for your work to get permits out the door during the pandemic to help businesses survive.

And then once we were able to stabilize that inflow of permit requests to get these regulations right sized for our city.

I'm really excited for the future of this program.

And for many of these types of permits, we reduced the cost from about $3,000 down to a $650 annual fee.

Granted in committee, there was some conversations about the additional fees, which not excited about, and I'm looking forward to more opportunities to fine-tune them.

With that, Council President, colleagues, I'm very excited to, with final passage of this legislation, be able to say that outdoor dining is here to stay in the City of Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson, is there anything, closing remarks that you want to make?

I know this came out of your committee.

Is there anything else that you want to share before we...

No, thank you.

Oh.

Okay, well, I'm glad to hear that Ballard will be just like France.

We will all have outside eateries.

Bergen, Council President.

All right, with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Yes.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

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

So we will move on to item number seven.

Will the clerk please read item number seven into the record?

Agenda item seven, Council Bill 120471 relating to Seattle Public Utilities accepting easements granted to the City of Seattle.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, while we will vote on each bill individually, Council Bills 120470 through 120474 are five pieces of legislation on easements from Seattle Public Utilities.

Two bills accept land easements and three bills relinquish land easements.

While we open the public hearings at committee for the three relinquishments, there are no public commenters.

These items are shown as item 7 through 10 on today's agenda as well as item 12. This first bill, Council Bill 120471 authorizes SPU to accept several drainage and wastewater easements throughout the city.

This bill and the others were recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

So Councilor Peterson, did you want us to, so you addressed items 7, 8, 9?

Well, I, yes, although I'll speak, you know, one or two sentences to each of those, but just wanted to let everybody know that they're not imagining things.

There are five bills related to easements from SPU.

OK, good.

All right.

I see him now.

All right.

I apologize.

I thought you were trying to.

Got it.

All right.

So with item number seven, are there any comments before we hand it back over to council member Peterson to see if he has any closing remarks before we go to a vote?

Okay, I do not see any, and Council Member Peterson, is there anything else you want to add?

No, thank you.

All right, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Let's move on to item number eight.

Will the clerk please read Item number 8 into the record.

Agenda item 8, Council Bill 120472 relating to Seattle public utilities declaring certain real property rights relating to sewer storm drain easements within Seattle as being surplus to city utility needs.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President and colleagues.

This is Council Bill 120472. It authorizes proposed relinquishments of easements from Seattle Public Utilities.

These easements are related to drainage and wastewater and are located throughout Seattle.

The bill was recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any comments from my colleagues?

Not seeing any, and I'm guessing Council Member Peterson, you have nothing else to add?

Correct.

Okay.

With that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

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

And we will move on to item number nine.

And will you please read item number nine into the record?

Agenda nine, Council Bill 120473 relating to Seattle Public Utilities accepting easements granted to the City of Seattle.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Bill 120473 authorizes SPU to accept several water-related utility easements throughout the city.

This bill was recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

Any other comments from my colleagues?

Not seeing any, and I'm guessing you're good on closing comments, Council Member Peterson?

Correct.

Great.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Councilmember Nielsen?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk, the bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature on my behalf.

Moving on to item number 10. Will you, Clerk, please read item number 10 into the record.

Agenda item 10, Council Bill 120474, relating to established public utilities, declaring the real property rights relating to a water utility easement as being surplus to city utility needs.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Bill 120474 authorizes the relinquishment of an easement by Seattle Public Utilities.

The water easement is located in the city of Burien.

This bill was recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other remarks from our colleagues?

You good, Council Member Peterson?

Thank you.

Okay.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes, and the chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to the legislation.

And we will move on to item number 11, which is also Council Member Peterson, who seems to be on a roll today.

Will you please read item number 11 into the record, Madam Clerk?

Item 11, Council Bill 120477, relating to compost procurement, establishing a compost procurement policy for the City of Seattle.

The committee recommends the bill pass as amended.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Councilor Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues.

Pretty controversial, but go ahead.

We'll take a little break from easements here.

Council 120477 is about a city compost purchasing agreement, and this legislation is required by state law and encourages the purchase of locally sourced compost and requires the city to conduct educational outreach.

This bill was recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Peterson.

Any comments from our colleagues?

Not seeing any.

And with that, I'm guessing the sponsor's okay to go to a vote?

Yes.

All right.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, again, please fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Moving on to item number 12. Madam Clerk, will you please read item 12 into the record?

Cllr Rachel Gilliland?

s iPhone 2?

Thank you, Council President.

As mentioned earlier, Council Bill 120470 is part of the easement legislative package from Seattle Public Utilities.

This Council Bill 120470 authorizes the relinquishment of an easement by SPU.

This drainage and wastewater easement legislation covers actually a couple of locations in Seattle.

As with the other easement bills, CB120470 was recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Pierson, is there a reason we got all these SPU things at the end of the year?

Uh, no.

Oh, okay.

Okay, with that...

Would you like more?

Would you like more of them?

No, I... Well, it's as riveting and as exciting as it is.

Are there any other comments, and would you like to say any closing comments before we go to a vote?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Hubbell.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, again, please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

And let's move on to item number 14. Again, Mr. Peterson.

Madam Clerk, will you please read item 14 into the record?

I understand it's Councilor Peterson and Councilor Herbold, but go ahead.

Council President, just confirming we're on item number 13.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Did I jump ahead?

Yes, but I can read item 13 to the record.

Agenda item 13, Council Bill 120475, Billing to Seattle Public Utilities, authorizing the General Manager, CEO of Seattle Public Utilities to execute an interagency agreement with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to operate the Cedar River Hatchery.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, Council Bill 120475 is for the Cedar River Sockeye Hatchery Intergovernmental Agreement.

This authorizes execution of operations of the hatchery with Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.

And this bill is recommended unanimously by our committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any comments from our colleagues?

Not seeing any.

And Councilor Peterson doesn't have his hand up, so I think we're OK.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herpold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Bill passes.

The chair will sign it.

And Madam Clerk, again, please fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf.

Sorry for jumping the gun on that one.

So now we move on to item number 14, where I see Council Member Herbold's name in here and Council Member Peterson.

Can you please read item 14 into the record?

Agenda item 14, Council Bill 120476, related to Seattle Public Utilities, authorizing General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of Seattle Public Utilities or designee to execute an interlocal agreement with King County, the City of Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle to cost share a Duwamish Basin Steward staff position that will be provided, that will provide basin stewardship services in the Duwamish service area.

So committee recommends it will pass.

Councilor Peterson, you are the chair of the committee.

I'll defer to you first and then you can hand it off to Council Member Herbold.

Thank you, Council President.

Yes, Councilor Herbold is the sponsor and I'm handing it off to her.

Thank you so much.

I want to first start off with my thanks to Council Member Peterson for moving this forward when I was out sick last week.

I am sponsor of the bill.

You not only made time in your committee on your agenda, but you shepherded it through your committee discussions.

I really appreciate it.

This is an interlocal agreement with King County, the city of Tukwila, and the Port of Seattle to cost share a new position for a watershed steward for the lower Duwamish River.

The position itself will be housed at King County.

A Duwamish management team that includes Seattle Public Utilities, will be formed to develop the work plan for the steward and manage the budget for the position.

The Duwamish Basin Steward would develop and implement Chinook Salmon Habitat Restoration Projects in the lower 11 miles of the cities of Seattle and Tukwila, the Port of Seattle, Boeing, Central, Puget Sound Watershed, WIRA 9, and other nonprofit partners.

Under this agreement, Seattle covers 38% of the base cost share for the position, which works out to $79,000 in 2022. If external revenues are available, that base share can be reduced.

And I just wanna thank all of the members of the community that helped fight for this position, folks including Paulina Lopez, James Rasmussen, BJ Bullert, and Sharon Fleishman.

And with that, I urge my colleagues' support of this legislation.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Believe it or not, yours truly, so not only a big supporter of interlocal agreements, but worked on all this WIRA legislation over 25 years ago in another life.

And it's so nice to see municipalities and cities come together for interlocal agreements to protect water basins and watersheds in the habitat, because before WIRA, people didn't do that.

But as my Uncle Billy used to say, if a river is polluted, we all get sick.

It doesn't matter what city, what municipality, or what county you live in.

So thank you very much for bringing this forward.

I really appreciate it.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson, for allowing it to be in your committee.

Council Member Morales, I see you popped up.

Did you have something?

No?

Okay.

Okay, well, does anybody else have anything else before we move to a vote?

Not seeing any.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes, the chair will sign it, and Madam Clerk, please affix my signature to this legislation on my behalf.

Moving along on the agenda, no items were removed from the consent calendar, so we can move on from there.

But we do have a special item on the adoption of other resolutions.

Will the clerk please read item 15 into the record?

Agenda Item 15, Resolution 32077, Endorsing the 2023-2024 Legislative Department Racial Equity Work Plan Developed by the Legislative Department's Race and Social Justice Initiative Change Team to Improve Racial Equity in the Legislative Department and the City of Seattle.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, you're the sponsor of this.

Can you please share your comments and thank you for your hard work.

Yes, thank you, Council President.

Well, I want to thank the change team of the legislative department.

As you said, they have been working really hard for the last year or so to develop this work plan.

And the goal really is to assess how the department is working and how they can improve racial equity outcomes.

You may remember that the change team members did present at council briefing in November of 2021. to sort of kick off the process.

And they have since been working with employees and department leadership throughout the year to develop this plan, to make sure that it was actually implementable, and to really try to be responsive to the needs of department employees.

Can I stop you?

I'm sorry.

I did it again.

I apologize.

I have to move to adopt it.

Okay, that's my fault.

I should have done.

I apologize.

Let me go ahead and just get this out of the way.

I moved to adopt resolution 32077. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

Now you can, I'm sorry, I really am sorry, Council Member Morales, go ahead.

That's okay.

The floor is yours.

So I just wanted to explain quickly, colleagues, you all have the work plan itself, should have received that, it's part of the agenda here, but it really is about endorsing the department's initial two-year racial equity work plan.

The goal is to demonstrate how the department will commit itself to doing the work of gradually undoing any institutionalized racism that we have in the in the department and the goal really is to achieve an equitable, inclusive workplace environment where our employees can thrive, particularly black and brown employees in the department.

The work plan identifies action in three major areas, the experience of working in the legislative department, implementing work using a racial equity lens, and the professional life cycle of department employees.

So over the next two years, the change team will collaborate with our department leadership to implement their work plan to assess course correct where needed.

And the goal is at the end of that two year process to to try to implement all of the all of the pieces here, recognizing that Some things will be relatively straightforward, and some things may be a little more complicated.

But this is their inaugural work plan, and I'm looking forward to my colleagues endorsing this effort, which has really committed all of our change team.

We each have staff members who are part of this group, and so I'm excited for this work to finally be before us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor Morales, how long you want to kind of, just for the public, who you are working with and where the report was posted, right?

Or we didn't do that?

It should be part of the agenda.

Part of the agenda.

OK.

I didn't have a second screen up.

Yeah, I don't either.

But I just printed it out and I'm pretty sure I got that from our agenda.

It's like pages.

Yes.

Yes.

And so there's there is a lot of work that is intended to help really help us figure out how we make sure that our employees are in a safe environment, that they are doing the work that we as a city have identified as a priority in terms of racial equity and how their individual work supports the goal of achieving that, not just in terms of our city policies, but in terms of our internal operations as well.

And so that is the work that they've laid out.

And they started this work under Council President Gonzalez, correct?

Isn't that when we first started this?

Yeah.

The work really began in 2021, and they sort of kicked off that process then.

Okay.

Thank you.

Is there anything from my colleagues who want to add anything else about the plan and what's before us?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just want to echo Council Member Morales' appreciation for the members of our personal staff as well as Council Central staff and the other division staff of the Legislative Department that are participants in the change team.

The work of the change team is requires a commitment and in order for that commitment to be fulfilled, we as managers and the other division managers need to allow for our staff to have time in their days to do this work.

It's been a high priority for me and I really appreciate knowing that that prioritization is shared by my colleagues on the council as well as the division directors.

So that it's been possible for us to get here today.

Under the three subject areas, there are action items.

I think collectively there are about a dozen action items and so this work will continue to need the commitment of precious time to do the work moving forward.

Thank you.

I have a question.

I'm guessing you're going to be able to answer it Councilor Herbold, but I know that the change team has been around since I've been here, since 16, correct?

The change team has been around for a long time.

I can't tell you what year.

I know that I am so grateful that I have had a staff member assigned to the change team, not because I've assigned them, but because I've always been lucky enough to have somebody willing to do this work.

That's the first time, let it be known, that I asked Council Member Herbold a question she did not know the absolute answer.

So thank you, Councilor Morales.

Thank you, Councilor Herbold.

I know that this has been a project near and dear to your heart and you've been keeping us up to date as well as the central staff folks.

I think it's Asha who was sending out who we were getting emails from regularly.

In any event, thank you very much.

So if there are any other comments, then I'm gonna go to a vote.

Are there any other comments?

All right, not seeing any.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Councilmember Nielsen?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, nine opposed.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

The resolution is adopted.

The chair will sign it and the clerk.

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

Before we close out, let's go on to other business.

Is there any other business to come before council before I move to an adjournment?

Not seeing any, let me go to the adjournment piece that I'm supposed to say.

This does conclude the items of business on today's agenda.

This is also our last city council meeting of 2022. The city council recess begins Monday, December 19th, through December 30th.

The next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be held on January 3rd, 2023. I want to end with thanking all of you for a great year.

Happy holidays.

Enjoy your families.

I look forward to seeing you all in 2023. And to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of my passing have been greatly exaggerated.

So with that, we are adjourned.

Thank you, President recording stopped.