Seattle City Council 7/8/19

watching them.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you for being here for our July 8th meeting the July 8th 2019 City Council meeting of the full Seattle City Council come to orders 2 o'clock p.m.

I'm Bruce Harrell president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Gonzales?

Here.

Herbold?

Here.

Juarez?

Here.

O'Brien?

Here.

Pacheco?

Here.

Sawant?

Here.

Begshaw?

Here.

President Harrell?

Here.

Ape present?

Thank you very much.

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

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

And similarly, if there's no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

There are no minutes for approval today.

And I do not believe there are any presentations this afternoon.

So at this time, we'll move into public comment.

Thank you for being here for public comment.

So at this time, we'll take public comment on items that appear on our agenda, or the introduction and referral calendar, or the 2019 work program.

And we'll extend it for 20 minutes.

I'll call you out in the order with which I see the signatures.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

So we'll start off with Mr. Schwartz, Richard Schwartz will be our first speaker.

And then as you says, B-A-I?

Bailey?

Bailey would be our second speaker.

Good afternoon.

Is it on?

Yes, please.

Yeah, back in March, I found myself involved in an incident that generated concern.

I'm sorry, Mr. Schwartz, can we start over?

I don't think your microphone is on.

I want to make sure we can hear you.

I did not.

OK, we start the time over, please.

Thank you.

Back in March, I found myself involved in an incident that generated considerable public comment about the city's lack of responsiveness to citizen concerns.

For the past two years, my community has been frustrated by the city's consistent reluctance to respond to its pedestrian safety concerns related to the Westlake Cycle Track.

Given the heightened public discussion on the issue of responsiveness, we thought it might be a good time to try again.

On April 11th, we emailed our district representative, Sally Bagshaw, On March 24th and April 11th, we emailed Transportation Committee Chairperson O'Brien.

On March 25th, April 16th, and June 24th, we emailed Council President Harrell.

On June 19th, we emailed SDOT Director Zimbabwe.

We have not received a response to any of these contacts.

In early April, we spoke to Council Member Juarez on the phone.

She said she would have her staff contact us the next day to set up a time to meet with her at her office.

We never heard back from them.

In early April, Council Member Herbold suggested we contact the Pedestrian Advisory Board.

We did so, asking if we could get some time on their meeting agenda to discuss our concerns.

They said no.

We asked them for an explanation for that decision.

They never responded.

On June 24th, we contacted Stephanie Formas at the Mayor's office.

She said she would have the Mayor's Transportation Advisor get back to us in the next few days.

We have not heard from him.

On June 19th, we raised the issue at the Transportation Committee meeting in which the Master Bike Plan was being discussed.

We received no response.

All we have asked of the city is that it responsibly manage the facility it built to the heart of our community.

That's an eminently reasonable request.

We've gone by the book in raising our concerns.

We've been polite and we've pursued them through appropriate channels.

Despite this, as I have recounted today, we have been consistently ignored.

We need to know why.

I'm here trying to as you can see we've tried we've tried contacting people and got no response So I'm here today hoping to get some response.

Okay.

I don't know the substance of thank you Mr. Schwartz for your comment And I'll call in on the next speaker in a second.

I don't know what response you're calling for specifically in your emails Are you sending the same email to all of these parties?

They're all different emails and so asking for them to engage with us on this problem of pedestrian safety and by us you're referring to to you and others and

Myself and previously, I left a petition of 350 people from the community who had expressed their concerns.

I left another copy of it today for you.

Generally, it's the entire community.

In a nutshell, it's a transportation issue is what I'm surmising?

To me, it seems like mainly an enforcement issue because...

Would you say, Mr. Schwartz, it's more of a transportation issue to some extent?

That's why I spoke to the Transportation Committee, but that didn't get us any response either.

So do we think we can get Mr. Schwartz a response to a transportation issue?

We're aware of the concerns and I forwarded them to the SDOT but there are lots of transportation concerns throughout the city and I just think this is not elevated to a hot priority.

This is a process that we've spent years working on and I think Mr. Schwartz disagrees with the policy that we've taken.

Yeah.

No, there is no policy.

That's the problem.

But this is not the forum for back and forth.

I've heard your opinions multiple times.

Where do we get a back and forth?

So what I'll try to do is I'll ask my staff to do a sort of a search of your email to see what kind of response we could pull together.

So I appreciate your comments.

Thank you, sir.

Is it Bailey?

Bailey, I'm sorry to mispronounce that.

And if there's another sign-up sheet and we have other speakers, will one of the clerks be so kind as to hand me if there's another sheet of speakers if there is?

This would be our last speaker otherwise.

Please proceed.

Yeah, I don't believe there's anyone else signed up.

Okay, we're good?

Okay.

Okay.

Good to go?

Yep, good to go.

Good afternoon, council members.

Thank you for being here.

My name is Bailey and I'm here today on behalf of Unified Seattle.

As a college student living in Seattle, I'm disappointed with the way the homeless crisis is being treated, especially within the low barrier shock encampments in South Lake Union.

I care deeply about the homeless individuals here in our city and I'm tired of seeing this treatment being falsely interested, represented by only city officials to get them reelected versus their actual care and needs.

The increase in homelessness is discouraging to say the least, yet the way homeless people are being given aid is more upsetting.

The city's solution to put these people into small garden shed-like encampments surrounded by like-minded drug addicts and allow for the free use of their substance, there is no rehabilitation, no medical aid, no mental health counseling or job training, only drugs and despair.

Seattle needs to address the elephant in the room.

That is the overwhelming uptake in drug addiction plaguing our citizens, leading them away from jobs and community and instead towards poverty and addiction.

Placing sick people into shacks and encouraging them to live a slave to their addiction while providing them with little to no future and hope is not helping them in any way.

Unified Seattle, on the other hand, wants to see real change, to create a strong plan to help these homeless individuals in our city.

Unified Seattle wants to help the homeless become active members of our society, not just people hidden in shacks far from the public eye.

We need real solutions, not shacks, and I'd love to see your participation in that effort.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for your comments.

Okay, at this point, I'll close public comment if there are no speakers that wanted to speak.

Did you want to speak up?

That's what I was asking.

I didn't see your name speak up on the sign-up sheet.

Sorry about that.

Just give us one sec.

We'll start over.

Go ahead and have her sign the sheet, and we'll...

Yeah, I was listening to Eat the Airwaves yesterday.

Can I sign after I speak?

Yes, you can.

And they said that there was a homeless encampment that was self-governed and was doing pretty well.

I think it was up by Beacon Hill or one of those light rails.

Anyways, last week, I think it was you, Bruce Harrell, that spoke up.

to take action to help the people in the homeless encampments because it was actually doing really well on self-governing itself.

There was no complaints of drugs or anything that I know of.

It's kind of mythologized to make a political issue about helping homeless people and separate people, make them fight with each other about you know, how to treat homeless people.

So like $100,000 was spent for surveillance on these camps that were already running themselves just fine, you know.

And these people don't have anywhere to go and they're waiting to get into somewhere safe.

but they're doing a good job on their own.

I haven't had a chance to go visit them, but these new groups are popping up around Seattle to like hate mongering, like to channel anger towards homeless people.

And it's actually really sad because there just isn't enough affordable housing.

And I just hope that as a community, we can help them self-govern themselves.

I also heard on Eat the Airwaves that a lot of, the pollution was from people remodeling their houses, they would dump the garbage by the homeless encampments and then blame the homeless people for it to get anger so that way they didn't have to pay the fee when they took it to the dump.

And I just think it's really sad to politicize people who are physically, emotionally, spiritually suffering and use that as a political tool for people with enough money for housing I mean people that maybe they don't have enough money for a house that big and so their anger has to go towards somebody because they're encouraged everybody who's normal owns a house so um anyways I'm just glad to be here thanks.

Thank you very much for your comments and at that point I think I'll close public comment and we'll move on to the payment of the bill section, so please read the title.

Council Bill 119-565, appropriate in mind to pay certain claims and ordering the payment thereof.

I'll move to pass Council Bill 119-565.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Jaco.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Begshaw.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passed and the Chair will sign it.

Please read the report of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

The report of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee, agenda item 1, Council Bill 119560, Accepting the Gift of Funds for Design and Purchase of Planting at Four Business Nodes along Delridge Way Southwest as part of the Delridge Way Southwest Rapid Ride H Line Project.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

Colleagues, this is a modest gift we'd accept from the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association.

It's a little over $6,000, and it's essentially donations that have been gathered to upgrade the planting along that corridor.

The community, or the typical types of plantings a city would do, the community decided they would like to see something a little better and raised money to do that, and so we're accepting this money so that SDOT can continue with that.

Very good.

Council Member Herbold.

Thanks for looking my way.

I want to give a big thanks to DNDA and their work specifically focused on improving and enhancing the business districts in the North Delridge neighborhoods and working really closely with the Office of Economic Development to do so.

This is a high priority action in the North Delridge Action Plan that this council recognized a couple weeks ago now, and the four specific neighborhood areas identified in the North Delridge Action Plan are Andover Junction, Delridge Community Campus, the Brandon Junction, and the Sylvan Junction.

So I'm pleased that not only is DNDA doing this focus, but that SDOT is doing some good work keeping the neighborhood plan in mind and working in collaboration with the Office of Economic Development.

Very good, excellent.

Any other comments before we accept this gift?

All right, good to go.

Please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Pacheco.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Bagshaw.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passed in chair of senate.

Please call the, please read the next agenda item.

Agenda item two, Council Bill 119563 relating to grant funds from non-city sources authorizing the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation to accept a specified grant.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you.

This is, I mentioned this at Council briefing a bit, it's about a little over $600,000 grant acceptance.

It's for work on the Cowan Park Bridge, I think.

This is a bridge that we could be getting some seismic upgrades.

As I mentioned earlier, this was on the contingency list of projects the city had submitted to the Puget Sound Regional Council for the grant approval process.

because a couple other projects ahead of that were not able likely to be able to complete the projects by the end of the year for the funding requirement.

The city thankfully was able to accelerate this project to use some of those grant funds so we wouldn't have to the region would not have to forfeit those grant funds to go back to the federal government and this allows the other projects that were behind elsewhere in the region to slide in for the next the next grant process.

Thank you, Council Member Bryan.

Any questions or comments on this bill?

If not, please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Gonzales.

Aye.

Herpel.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

O'Brien.

Aye.

Jaco.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Begshaw.

Aye.

President Harrell.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

The bill passed and chair was signed.

Please read agenda item number three.

Agenda Item 3, Appointment 1372, Appointment of Tanika Thomas-Byrd as Member of the Sweden Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board for term to August 31, 2023. The Committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Thank you.

Tanika Thompson's a great community leader.

I've had a chance to work with her for a number of years.

Probably first interaction was her work with Got Green on the priority hire.

She's been in chambers recently a lot because she's been very active on the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board work because Got Green played a pivotal role in that.

give her a formal role on the CAB.

Her history is working as an organizer with SEIU 775 and has been just a great community leader.

She'll be an excellent addition to the Sweetened Beverage Tax CAB.

Thank you, Councilmember O'Brien.

Any other questions or comments on the appointment?

Okay, those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed vote no.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Please read the fourth agenda item.

Agenda Item 4, Appointment 1378, Appointment of Stephen Fry's Member, Urban Forestry Commission, for a term to March 31, 2022. The committee recommends the appointment be confirmed.

Council Member O'Brien.

So, Stephen's the Program Director for the Seattle District, Seattle 2030 District.

Works with developers and facility managers to oversee programs based on reducing energy use.

Had a great conversation at committee about his interest in an update to Seattle's tree ordinance.

He seemed to be fairly well versed with the direction that's going and is excited to join this committee and hopefully work with this council in the coming months to get an update to that.

Very good.

Any comments or questions?

If not, those in favor of confirming the appointment, please vote aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, vote no.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

That concludes our agenda for the day.

Are there any further business to come before the council?

Okay, if not, we stand adjourned and everyone have a great rest of the day.