Seattle City Council Briefing 52322

We are recall.

Thank you, son.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Today is Monday, May 23rd.

This is the council briefing.

Will the meeting please come to order?

The time is 2 o'clock.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

And Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

I'm here.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

Nine present.

Glad you could join us, Council Member Mosqueda.

You are welcome.

So moving on to the on the agenda matters, let's go to approval of the minutes.

If there's no objection, the minutes of May 16th will be adopted.

Hearing and seeing no objections, the minutes of May 16th are indeed adopted.

Let's go to the president's report.

I have a kind of a lengthy one, guys, because we've got a huge calendar tomorrow.

So let me just dig right in.

I'd like to begin by reminding everyone there will be a there will not be a council briefing on May 30th due to the Memorial Day holiday.

Our next council briefing will be Monday, June 6. On today's agenda, we have five proclamations for signature.

We also will have one 30-minute executive session.

It was originally 20, but it looks like it's going to be 30 minutes executive session.

at the end of this meeting, so please stay on the line.

On tomorrow's full council agenda, we will have two presentations of proclamations.

Council Member Herbold will be presenting a Mental Health Awareness Month proclamation, and Council Member Morales will be presenting a Pride Asia proclamation.

Thank you, both.

Tomorrow's consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as three appointments which were reviewed and recommended by the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee, and three appointments which were reviewed and recommended by the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee.

Council Member Morales, thank you.

You always have all these appointments, so I always appreciate that you get all these things done.

We will take one vote on all items on the consent calendar unless any council member requests that an item be removed for consideration separately.

Following the consent calendar, we'll be voting on an ordinance relating to compensation of city personnel that was referred directly to council.

If you have any questions about this bill, please feel free to contact Karina Bull on central staff.

Next, there will be three ordinances also referred directly to council to remove the interest charges on delinquent utility bills to assist vulnerable people and businesses affected by the pandemic.

Please contact Eric McConaughey or Brian Goodnight with questions at central staff.

Finally, there will be three bills recommended by the Finance Housing Committee, two bills recommended by the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, and four bills recommended by the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee, and one bill recommended by the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

So obviously we've been very busy in our committee work.

Moving on, today I provided you with a memo regarding the plan for returning to chambers given the change in the governor's order effective Wednesday, June 1st.

As you know, the governor issued a proclamation that now rescinds the restrictions on public meetings.

We have successfully and safely created expanded access to meetings during the pandemic, which brings greater equity to the public participation.

This is something I think we can all be proud of.

I wanna add this though.

So I really wanna thank Monica and the clerks.

I wanna thank all of our friends at HR and also wanna thank Dana and Allie.

We've been working on this for about three weeks in the spirit of public health and public safety, but also honoring the principles of the Open Public Meetings Act, accessibility and people's opportunity to come to city hall or to come to chambers and provide public comment.

So we are going to have like a hybrid system, and I'll share a little bit more on that later.

And I just want to add some personal notes, because this is kind of where the starting point of where we came from.

And this is more of on a personal note of what we've all observed, those of us that were here when this all started in March.

Well, I think we were all here in March 2020. I think that the pandemic has taught us all not just city government, to be more flexible and more creative, to be more accommodating to parents, to parents that have small children, to the elderly, to disabled, to people that don't have a car or transportation or rely solely on public transportation.

I think the pandemic has taught us to open up government more for access, and that includes citywide and, of course, across this country.

access to education, healthcare, government, court, mental health, all those issues that we now do through telehealth or through the court system and even selecting juries.

And I think the pandemic, as we all know, overnight threw us into a experiment in which we were not prepared.

And I think it's safe to say that we got prepared and we learned some lessons that we can move government forward and do good things, some of it virtually.

And so hopefully we'll have a hybrid method where we can have people in person, in chambers, because that's really important.

And I think the pandemic made us live up to basic principles that as a society, we were either unwilling or couldn't do.

And that is being more accommodating to people that are not as able-bodied, that don't have a car, that don't have a parking space.

And for me, what I've watched from my particular perspective is I've seen more access and more people calling in to tell us what they think.

which I appreciate.

I think it's also made us more committed to understanding how important flex time is for families.

Also less driving, spending more time with family, maybe getting to know your neighbors.

I think I wanna perfect on those lessons.

When I chaired parks, one of the things that pandemic taught us and we did, which we wanted to do, but I think again, the pandemic made us, and that is closing down streets to have safe streets, having more bike lanes, having more safe streets, be more committed to community centers and what we can do for those that are living on shelter.

So, I want all of us to just kind of bear with the plan that we're putting forward the hybrid plan, and I welcome, I've been on the phone with a couple council members, your questions and concerns and working with the court staff, I'm sorry, the the city council staff and our clerks who really sit down or in the front line of sitting down in the front row, Jody and team.

Thank you, Elizabeth, Monica, all of you, Amelia.

You guys are down there in the front line of working with the public, making sure there's public comment, making sure people sign up.

And so some of us are going to be in chambers for committee.

And I certainly will be one of them.

But if there are some council members that have a hybrid plan, I'm open to all those options because the most important thing is public health and public safety.

I don't think anyone here is trying to shirk their responsibilities by not coming into council chambers.

That's just not what I've seen in the last two years and people can either believe me or not believe me.

I think there's a lot of good things that have happened that we've learned from the pandemic that is driving less, walking more, being more accommodating to people that physically can't get here, being more accommodating to moms and disabled and elderly folks.

And some of us are taking care of little ones and some of us are taking care of our elders and not exposing them to this pandemic.

And we're not out of it.

I know that we're going to look at a summer and a fall surge, and I'm a little bit worried about that.

So I'm really asking everybody if we could all model some patience and some understanding that not everyone can physically be here.

But the clerks are going to be here.

Monica had put a great plan forward.

We're going to be here.

Those that can be here, great.

And those that can't, I wouldn't be too quick to judge people that don't physically show up here, because not everybody can do that.

So going forward, we will continue public access through the virtual technology while adding back the opportunity for the public to attend the meetings in person.

And that's what's required of us with the rescinding of the governor's proclamation.

It is of critical importance to me that we proceed with health and safety as a top priority.

We need to wear masks and support distancing to keep staff and the public safe.

So that's how I would like to go forward.

And as you all know, I have an open door.

Call me anytime and come in anytime and tell me what your plan is or what some issues that you may have.

I'm certainly open to all of that.

So with that being said, now I'm done with my long president's report.

I think that's what it's called.

Let me go to the signing of letters and proclamations.

So as I shared today, we have five proclamations for consideration and we will hear from each sponsor of the proclamation.

And that asks for one roll call after hearing from all the sponsors.

If you do not wish to add your signature to a proclamation, please state so at the end of the sponsor's presentation.

And a separate roll call will be taken on that proclamation.

So basically, the lineup is, let's see here.

Quickly, I'll go through it again.

But first up will be Council Member Herboldt.

Council Member Peterson, Council Member Morales has two, and then Council Member Strauss.

So when each Council Member finishes their proclamation, that would be the time to say, hey, can you not put that with the major vote?

Because I want to pull that out and maybe vote separately on that.

So with that, I hope I didn't confuse everybody.

We have Council Member Herboldt.

regarding the month of May 2022 as Mental Health Awareness Month.

We really need that.

Thank you, Council Member Bolte.

So can you go ahead and please leave the discussion on the proclamation and for any additional feedback.

Thank you.

Happy to do so, and thank you for managing so many proclamations this month, Madam President.

I appreciate the opportunity to bring this proclamation forward for your signature, recognizing May as Mental Health Awareness Month.

And thank you to Councilmember Strauss for suggesting some additional language to be included in the proclamation, which was added.

We've all heard about the emerging impact of the shadow pandemic and many of you may be sick of me talking about it, but really the last two years of fear, anxiety, economic instability and isolation are affecting us all and occasionally erupting more than we would like to see into aggression, self-harm and violence in our communities.

Both our state and federal leaders have founded the alarm for mental health impact, the mental health crisis's impact on children and teens, but everyone has felt the effects.

And although behavioral health is primarily a state and county responsibility, we at the City of Seattle and the Seattle City Council have been stepping up to meet the need with increased advocacy and more funding so Seattle residents can access behavioral health supports that are desperately needed.

I thank you and my council colleagues for this important work.

And tomorrow at full council will be joined by representatives from the Washington State chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness to approximation.

And I hope you'll add your signature today, May Mental Health Awareness Month.

And if there are no questions, I'll pass it on to Council Member Peterson who has a ride transit month proclamation.

Thank you very much, Council Member Herbold.

Colleagues, as Transportation Chair, my office worked with the Mayor's Office on this proclamation for June to be proclaimed Ride Transit Month.

June is traditionally Ride Transit Month, but it was not widely celebrated during the pandemic.

As we emerge from the pandemic, we're eager to have mass public transit once again serve as a cornerstone of getting around Seattle and the region in a way that is safe, affordable, and good for our planet.

For events during Ride Transit Month, people can visit the website of transportationchoices.org.

To provide the public with highlights of this proclamation, I'll read just the last three recitals.

Whereas public transportation is critical to expanding equitable and affordable access to greater opportunities, including better paying jobs, educational opportunities, health care treatment social and cultural opportunities, and whereas a just and sustainable recovery from the coven 19 pandemic requires transit, and we're proud that Seattle residents workers and students are leading the way and returning to transit.

as the pandemic restrictions are gradually lifted.

And whereas Commute Seattle, Disability Rights Washington, Transportation Choices Coalition, City of Seattle employees and departments and local schools, hospitals, companies and civic groups throughout Seattle will be promoting transit ridership as a cleaner, healthier, more equitable, affordable and sustainable means of travel through the month of June 2022. Now, therefore, the mayor and the city council proclaim the month of June 2022, Ride Transit Month.

So any questions from colleagues?

Otherwise, I'll pass it on to Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

OK, good afternoon, colleagues.

I have two proclamations.

The first is for Pride Asia.

Pride Asia embraces the Asian Pacific Islander lens to celebrate, empower, and nurture the LGBTQ communities.

They host an annual event that is meant to create a safe space for the LGBTQ Asian Pacific Islanders to celebrate their identities.

I'm excited to be able to join with the mayor and hopefully all of my colleagues in proclaiming Sunday, this Sunday, May 29th, to be Pride Asia Day.

Tomorrow at full council, we will present the proclamation to Alaska Manila, and I will tell you more about Alaska if you don't know her already, introduce her a little bit tomorrow.

So we will present the proclamation to her and other organizers tomorrow during full council.

The second proclamation is for Pride Month, which is in June.

We celebrate that every year here in Seattle.

And for me, this is especially important this year.

With the recent leak about the Supreme Court's abortion ruling, it's clear that the right to privacy is at stake in this country.

And now more than ever, it's imperative that cities declare their intent to protect the rights of all of our neighbors, regardless of who they love or how they express their identity.

Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Riots in New York City, which was a series of demonstrations led by Black and Brown trans women in 1969, June of 1969, and generally is recognized as a catalyst for the LGBTQ civil rights movement.

So this year, as we celebrate the progress that's been made since then, I think it's important that we also remain vigilant in our fight to eradicate discrimination and to ensure justice and legal protections for our LGBTQ community.

On Wednesday, June 1, the Council and Mayor Harrell will present the Pride Month proclamation to representatives from our LGBTQ commission at the Pride flag raising ceremony that we will be having right out here at City Hall at 1030 in the morning on June 1. So please join us for that if you're interested.

If there are no questions, I will pass it to Council Member Strauss.

Seeing no questions, thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Speaking about National Gun Violence Awareness Day, this was brought to me by Moms Demand Action and the Alliance for Gun Responsibility here in Washington.

Thank you to Councilmember Herbold for adding some language to this proclamation.

We're here with this proclamation to discuss the fact that gun violence prevention is more important now than ever, as the public health emergency that is gun violence continues to exacerbate and after more than two years of increased gun sales.

increased calls to suicide and domestic violence hotlines and an increase in gun violence here in our city that we need to and are going to with this proclamation we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the wrong hands.

and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our children safe and to join in this citywide and national event.

On June 3, you can wear orange to demonstrate your commitment and support to addressing gun violence.

We know that gun violence is preventable.

With that, Council President, I believe we have gone through all of the proclamations.

Well, thank you, Council Member Strauss for being the assistant president today.

I appreciate that.

So we went through five and not seeing that anyone has asked for any of them to pull any of them aside or not vote on them.

Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signatures affixed to the five proclamations that we just heard?

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council President Juarez.

Yes.

Nine signatures will be affixed to the five proclamations.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

So let's move in our agenda to the preview of city council actions are around Robin that we do every Monday.

And this week, we're going to start the order is starting with Councilmember Strauss customer herbal Lewis Morales mosquito Nelson Peterson customer so want and then myself customer Strauss.

Thank you, Council President, colleagues.

Happy Monday to you all.

Last week in District 6, the mayor and I held a press event at Woodland Park, which highlighted the process and the accomplishments of over four months of intensive outreach that occurred at the park.

This was not a victory lap.

Homelessness is not solved in our city.

We have more work to do.

This event was situated to highlight how we accomplished this work.

And I really want to thank Mayor Harrell for the collaborative effort.

His team and I convened to bring a balanced approach to addressing homelessness at Woodland Park.

Our phased human-centered approach model paired with shelter and housing resources that matched people's individual needs successfully brought the largest number of people inside during an encampment removal in city history.

I'm confident that the phased approach is why so many people accepted shelter and housing and why so few people refused.

The update today since last week when I reported on this is that we now have an accurate number of referrals, which is 89 people came inside since January and 49 people in the last week.

we would not have been able to move 49 people inside in one week without the time that we spent building relationships to understand their needs, and that we had the shelter capacity that matched their needs.

So I just want to again thank Mayor Harrell, Deputy Mayor Washington, King County Regional Homelessness Authority, Evergreen Treatments' REACH, David, Aslan, and Josh, the Finney Neighborhood Association, community members who helped frontline workers and outreach staff.

Your work is incredible and I want to take this moment to publicly recognize you.

Last week I also hosted my weekly district six office hours with residents from Thursday from 2pm to 6.30pm.

I met with D6 residents, three from Ballard, one from Fremont, one from Finney, and one snuck in from South Lake Union.

Council Member Lewis, we had one of your residents call me up.

We discussed homelessness public safety mobile crisis response graffiti abatement and adding a four way stop to an intersection and D six.

If you want to meet with me you can sign up on my website, I meet with district six residents every week.

This coming Sunday marks the hundred and 15th year since Ballard was annexed by that darn city of Seattle.

And in this month, we will be highlighting factoids about Ballard.

I want to thank Julie Curson from the city's archives for collecting all this information.

Just as reference, Ballard was the seventh largest city in Washington and the second largest in King County.

And I think that's probably why our street grid in Ballard makes sense as compared to other parts of the city.

It was also the home to the First Peoples since time immemorial.

The First People, the Duwamish people, who then became part of the Tulalip tribes.

as this area was settled.

As I kayaked past Chief Seattle's grave this weekend, I realized how close it is to Ballard.

If you want to put it in Google Maps, it'll take you an hour and a half, but in paddling time, it'll take you an hour to get there.

And it takes that moment to understand that these areas were more connected than they are today.

I digress, but here are some of the great updates from Ballard in the last week.

I attended the sit-in to my lunch at the Nordic Heritage Museum.

The Norwegian ambassador to the United States, so that is the top ambassador to the United States, was present and she chose Ballard as the Constitution Day celebration to attend out of all celebrations across the United States.

I was able to walk in the Sydenham Eye Parade with the Ballard Elks Lodge 827 with Lois Morganson, our matriarch, in her throne atop a car and it was really amazing to watch all the streets lighting up and cheering her name.

She is 98 years young and is loved by so many in our community.

I then attended the Nordic Innovation Summit on Thursday at the National Nordic Museum We had the Icelandic president, John, I'm going to mispronounce his name.

So I'm just going to say it was an honor to meet him.

It really was.

And Mayor Harrell was there as well.

And we announced the funding for the Nordic Museum that, colleagues, you helped me secure this last year and last year's budget.

Because the Nordic Museum did not have fixed seating, it could not apply for federal funds.

And I want to call attention to the fact that the Nordic Museum is more than a museum.

It is a cultural center and consulate to the Northwest.

In the past two months, we've had the Prince of Sweden, as I said, the President of Iceland, the Norwegian Ambassador to the United States.

The first time I met the King of Norway, I met him there at the Nordic Museum.

This was when I was in third grade so many years ago.

I just call attention to this because the National Nordic Museum takes the time to reflect on our past, to understand our present, and really bring people together to find our future together.

Thank you to Eric Nelson and everyone at the Nordic Museum for making this happen.

Last Saturday attended Ballard FC is inaugural game of their inaugural season with Councilmember Lewis, the sold out match against Lane United was a was great we won five Um, uh, we had an amazing crowd that was very excited.

I took the, the D line, the Metro bus D line down to the game and was joined by a Ballard youth soccer team of, I think you 10 girls with, uh, their coach from Ballard high school.

It was a fantastic community event, uh, that really brought a lot of community members together to, and we were able to actually talk about a lot of things that we talk about here at work.

Uh, and most importantly.

Even though Ballard was annexed 115 years ago this week, I'm glad to see that Ballard is expanding our boundaries across the ship canal to interbay Councilmember Lewis, we can talk more about that later on Friday morning I joined the parents of Adams elementary students for a bike train.

to as their way of bike to work their biking to school, having written, it was fun to talk to the kids, because as an elementary school student at Adams Elementary, I rode my bike to school so it was nice to be able to make that connection our next generation.

This ride to school demonstrated to me the benefit of greenways, a safe place for kids and families to roll.

The need for more greenways because we are able to set up these streets for the people who live on them, allow for cars and create that safe place to run and roll.

This bike to work or school day also demonstrated to me that there are needed improvements for greenways in downtown Ballard.

My staff and I attended the one Seattle Day of Service.

This last Saturday cleaning interior classrooms at the Ballard Boys and Girls Club.

It was amazing to get to spend time with Chief Emery and Rolanda from the city of Seattle, and it was also great to see pictures of friends on the walls.

Chris Kamer's picture from 2005 being the Youth of the Year and Jacob Meyer from being the Youth of the Year in 2004. So great.

Congratulations, Chris and Jake.

Your pictures are still up there.

Lastly, I also held my weekly public safety conferencing meetings with King County prosecutors, city attorneys, and SPD to address public safety in District 6. I'm here to report SPD's retail theft program is and has been active in District 6. Last week they made 12 arrests at the Fremont Fred Meyer for burglary and shoplifting.

This coming week in District six.

I'll be attending the North Seattle Industrial Association monthly meeting at this meeting will have the Seattle Department of Transportation discussing the new transportation comprehensive plan.

And my staff will be attending the Green Lake Chamber of Commerce this week and again I will continue to hold my weekly public safety case conferencing meetings with prosecutors attorney and SPD Councilmember Lewis is that my is that a hand for me right now or do I'm going to get to get the end.

I'm almost done.

I'm just getting in the in the queue for the end of your presentation.

Okay, you want to debate whether interviews and Ballard.

Oh, we'll get to that I'm happy to have that conversation.

Last week here at City Hall and Council President I'll wrap up that attended Washington Association.

I attended, I attended the Association of Washington City's legislative priorities meeting, I met with Marshall Foster to discuss sound transit three and West Seattle link extension.

and I also met with SDOT staff to discuss the short-term safety improvements to Ballard Avenue.

I'm excited to share more later this week.

This coming week in City Hall, I'll be meeting with SPD Chief Diaz for a regular monthly meeting.

On Wednesday, I'll be kicking off SDCI's design review workshop meeting.

I sponsored a budget item that stood up this committee last year.

I've heard from so many that design review is flawed and that we need to make sure it has the teeth it needs and it doesn't take an overbearing amount of time to get things across the finish line.

And so with the May 25th meeting of the Land Use Committee being canceled, our next meeting will be on June 8th.

And with that, Council President, that is my report.

I see Council Member Lewis has a question or maybe a statement about the boundaries of Ballard.

No, it's a question.

Councilmember Strauss, thank you for providing an update on the situation at Woodland Park and for your work in coordination with the city's efforts.

I wonder, of the 89 referrals for shelter, or I should say the 89 placements for shelter, the number of those placements that were tiny house villages?

I believe the number was about 60, but I'll have to get back to you with the specifics.

Right, but the overwhelming majority, right?

And yes, and you know one of the things that we noticed is that people want single occupancy placements and right now tiny home villages are what we have, we need to have a place that an individual has four walls and a door that they can walk in the past we've had single occupancy.

What was that comes from Nelson.

I was trying to help you out there, but I heard 25 folks took advantage.

Yeah, before we start putting numbers across the screen that are unverified Councilmember Lewis, I'm going to circle back with you.

Because, you know, and one of the things that's important to recognize is that it takes a little bit of time to get the correct data.

That's why this week I had a different number than last week, because we put people first and we put our outreach workers out there trying to get folks inside rather than pulling out paperwork.

So just before we start throwing numbers around on the record, let me follow up with you afterwards.

But just to finish my thought there, it's that in downtown Ballard, we used to have two hotels that were single occupancy residence hotels.

Neither one of them burned down and one of them is now a luxury hotel.

And so to your point that I think you're making, Council Member Lewis, yes, absolutely.

People choose single occupancy offers at a much higher rate.

than our 24 seven enhanced shelter, which is better than basic congregate, but still a communal living situation.

Yeah, and to be clear, I mean, the point that I was just trying to make is that whenever we have one of these significant outreach operations for large encampment, as you illustrated in the press conference last week, the asset in our enhanced shelter system that is in very high demand and that people want to utilize, and then in turn, allows them to move out of a park, time after time is the tiny house village.

And it's the same thing that we saw with Ballard Commons.

We saw it with Bitter Lake.

We've seen it now with Woodland Park and other encampments throughout the city that when we have available capacity and we have tiny houses, we are able to have communities where people have an alternative to living in an encampment.

And I just wanted to illustrate that, that the overwhelming majority of the people who did move on from Woodland Park did so because there were available tiny houses.

And just to continue as a city to support that model and support having that capacity in the system allows us to help people live somewhere that doesn't have encampment.

And I just wanted to take the opportunity to, I wasn't trying to like blindside you with knowing exactly how many there were.

I know it was the overwhelming number.

It was something in the mid to high 60s.

And it just really illustrates our ability to do those kinds of operations to a certain extent is contingent on having tiny house capacity.

And I just think it's an important thing to hold up and to lift up as we have these discussions.

So thank you.

I appreciate that.

You know, having gone down to build a tiny home with sound foundations Northwest that is now placed at the south end tiny home village.

It was an honor to get to help put those walls together.

It's also very clear in my mind and knowledge that it is the fact that it is a single occupancy dwelling that is most important to folks.

Council Member Herbold.

Just hold up.

Thank you very much.

I don't want to turn this into a committee meeting.

So Council Member Herbold, can you make your comments and we'll move on.

Just a quick question.

Council Member Strauss, really appreciate learning from your experiences.

I know that this is an area that, you know, there are things to try and there's, again, things to learn from.

I'm wondering whether or not in this particular engagement, Folks were given an opportunity to visit a tiny house village before making that decision.

And if you have anything to share about that, if that's the case, or is the reputation of a tiny house village one that people were able to commit to it sight unseen?

I'm asking because we're preparing for a similar engagement, but with a different population of folks in my district.

And these are largely folks who are living in RVs.

And as I will report in my remarks later, we did a site visit today and just from my individual conversations with people, it just seems like people might be more open to the idea if they were able to, just like we do when we rent an apartment or buy a house, visit it first.

And I'm wondering, did the city make any accommodation to help people visit a tiny house village as part of this long process that you've been engaged in?

Not to my knowledge, but it definitely could have happened there.

What I can tell you is that, you know, there were a couple of folks that went to a tiny home village and it wasn't the right fit for them.

And they came back and we had to figure something else out for them.

It's also an understanding.

And this is to Councilmember Lewis's point as well.

This was the shelter.

And this is what Mark Jones of the King County Regional Homeless Authority said at the press conference last week.

This was the resource that was available to us at the time of the ending of phase three.

And so- Thank you, Councilor Strauss.

That's not, we're gonna cut this off.

Councilor Nelson, please be brief, and we gotta move on.

Thank you very much, Council Member Strauss.

I am D6 adjacent living there, but I just wanted to say that I recognize that took a lot of work, so thank you.

Good, let's move on.

Thank you, Council President.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Let's see here.

So we do have two items from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee on today's full council agenda.

One is the resolution on officer staffing and recruitment and retention incentives.

The first is proposed by Councilmember Nelson.

the department's budget to fund this for new police hires.

It's $650,000 to fund this for the new police hires.

And then to add for an additional police recruiter.

And then amendments in committee added funding for a national campaign to market officer and for the national search for a permanent police chief.

In addition, I want to note, though not on the full council agenda for our vote, on the introduction and referral calendar, we have legislation that approves an agreement between the city and the Seattle Police Management Association, otherwise known as SPMA, is one of the two police unions.

The other is the Seattle Police Officers Guild, otherwise known as SPOG.

Greg Doss of Council Central Staff will be available to brief council members starting next week after Memorial Day from Tuesday, May 31st through Friday, June 3rd.

Please contact him if you'd like to schedule a briefing on the contents of this agreement.

I'm hoping to, as well as that, find time on an upcoming agenda to get a public-facing briefing to ensure that the public understands the content of this very important agreement before the vote as well.

Also, that's on the full Council agenda today.

Tomorrow, the Public Safety and Human Services Committee will be meeting at 9.30 a.m.

at its regular meeting.

Includes three items on the agenda.

The first an ordinance to establish a process for investigating complaints to the office of police accountability that named chief of police.

This isn't in relation to any pending complaints against the current chief of police, but it is something that we've discovered was not addressed in the 2027 police accountability ordinance.

and is what I see to be a technical but very important fix to a gap in that historic legislation.

Secondly, we'll be hearing a presentation by members of Neighborhood Business District BIA directors.

about public safety investments that they are proposing, together with representatives from the mayor's office, and lead about an approach that they have been piloting in neighborhood business districts.

Thirdly, we'll be discussing and voting on amendments to Council Bill 120294, also known as the Pay Up Ordinance, and there are 14 amendments for our consideration in tomorrow's meeting.

their items to share about the work of my office over the last week and upcoming week.

Last week, I held my regular meetings with each the police chief, the Community Police Commission, the Office of Police Accountability, and the Seattle Fire Chief.

I also participated in meetings of the OK Director Election Committee.

And I want to highlight that you all have received from.

SPD COO Brian Maxey.

Our quarter one report on police staffing, overtime, and finances.

Central staff will be presenting their analysis of SPD's data at our upcoming Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting, the first meeting that we have in June.

The report from the Seattle Police Department was delayed at request because of our need to gather some information to make it a complete report for us.

Other items coming up, I just want to flag as far as regional committees that I serve on on Thursday.

regional Law and Safety and Justice Committee meeting is occurring.

Also on Thursday, the Blank Steering Committee is occurring.

And then on Friday, we're having a special County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee meeting to review and vote on the proposed 2023 budget.

I'm sure Council Member Lewis will have more to say about that.

And then I will be having office hours this Friday between 2 and 6 p.m.

Other events just want to highlight, mentioned it last week, but did want to highlight this week that over the weekend during our day of service, my team joined folks at the West Seattle, I'm sorry, the White Center Food Bank.

Though it's located in White Center, it serves many people in need from District 1. The food bank in 2021 served almost 84,000 individuals from the Delridge area last year, and I'm really grateful to all the community members who worked at this location on a regular basis to increase food accessibility, but as well as all the folks who came out on Saturday in the day of service.

It was a great, great opportunity to come out and help an important community resource.

Also, as I mentioned earlier this morning, I had a visit with a number of folks associated with the effort to meet the needs of people who are living unsheltered.

Specifically, we had the Regional Homelessness Authority Director, Mark Jones, and some of their staff, along with outreach workers who we're going to be.

Regularly through both reach.

There are also with lead who joined us and members of the West Seattle mutual aid and we went out to actually talk to the towards enforcement of the 72-hour notice, we really need to be finding out more about how to address the fact that there are a lot of vehicles out there that are inoperable, there are garbage needs that need to be addressed now, and there are just some case management needs that are really important that we address.

and we need to help people get these vehicles fixed if they are going to have to move their vehicles with understanding that the executive is moving towards enforcing the 72-hour notice.

Previously met with neighbors of the RV residents and have been doing so on and off for years now and have also shared their concerns.

and later this week I look forward to meeting with the mayor's office to discuss the planned enforcement of the 24-hour parking rule here and I'm really grateful to have the opportunity this morning to talk with folks more about their perspective and insight moving forward.

Secondly, I also have attended I'm a member of that of that of that meeting and just want to highlight the online open house for the project through June 13 and virtual community meetings tomorrow and Wednesday.

My newsletter at herbal Seattle.gov has links for the meetings and for the open house as well.

this replacement project is a really important watchdog effort and really hope that folks can have the chance to check out the online materials and participate.

And thank you so much.

Do any of my colleagues have questions or comments?

Seeing none, I will pass it off to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Good to be with everybody this afternoon.

There are no items on this afternoon's agenda from the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee.

We did have a great discussion last Wednesday at the committee with the Seattle Public Library regarding the race and social justice initiative progress that that department has made I will report back at this time.

A question was asked by Council President Juarez regarding the impact of late fees and whether the change in the policy from the last levy to no longer apply late fees has had an impact on items being long overdue or lost.

Happy to report.

that the response from the Seattle Public Library is that there's been a 38% decrease in items being overdue or lost.

I'd appreciate Council President Juarez raising that question and appreciate Seattle Public Library for very quickly providing us the response to share a briefing today.

On a related note, I was able to, I'll do the department stats first before moving on to that.

Clean City Initiative between May 9th and May 13th collected 1,959 needles, also 64,760 pounds of trash from 13 trash pickup locations.

There were no focus clean parks for this week, but hopefully moving forward to next briefing, I will be able to announce parks that got a special deep clean focus from the Clean City Initiative.

Libraries.

In addition to that follow-up regarding Council Member Juarez's question, Seattle Public Libraries launched the Summer Book Bingo program.

The adult summer reading program is presented by the Seattle Arts and Lectures and the Seattle Public Library jointly.

If you read books in five categories for bingo or in all 25 squares for a blackout of the bingo card, not only can you earn bragging rights among your colleagues, but you can be entered to earn prizes and highlighted on social media channels for the Seattle Public Library.

Members of the public can download their bingo card, and I will be distributing this program via my newsletter, designed by local artist Jorge Villavicencio.

This will be in English as well as in Spanish on the Seattle Public Library's website, and both of those links will be shared in my newsletter this week.

So look forward to them, but it's spl.org slash book bingo or in Spanish spl.org bingo de libros.

So you can pick one of these up at any library location and completed cards must be returned to a library branch by Tuesday, September 6th of 2022. So everybody get reading for the summer and participate in this great program from the Seattle Public Library.

The Central Library bike cage renovation project is underway.

The bike cage fencing has been expanded to a bigger size and the new badge reader for the bike cage has been installed.

And new bike racks and electrical outlets for e-bike parking are going to arrive soon and be installed in the first week of June.

And I will confirm that at briefing once those installations are completed.

Last week, and as an appropriate first item, given that I just gave the Seattle Public Library updates, I did have the honor of hosting Tom Fay at the Magnolia Public Library along with the Seattle Parks Foundation for a meet and greet with Librarian Fay to talk about his initial baptism by fire as the city's new chief librarian, as well as to take questions from the community members and from foundation board members about some of his goals and priorities for the future of the Seattle Public Library.

It was a great opportunity to meet with local community members and enjoy the Magnolia local branch and really appreciate Librarian Fay making himself available to go and do this tour of Seattle Public Libraries with the Seattle Library Foundation and really appreciate working with Librarian Fay.

I joined Mayor Harrell and Council Member Nelson for a One Seattle Day of Service event in Pioneer Square on Saturday morning, where we joined very nearly 200 of our neighbors, I would say, potentially even more, to engage in a variety of service activities in the Pioneer Square neighborhood.

It was really great and inspiring to be joined by folks from the Alliance for Pioneer Square, Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, as well as Council Member Nelson and Mayor Harrell to really dig in and really be part of the solution of bringing the city back.

And really enjoyed that opportunity to have that good shot of morale in the neighborhood to move forward on really coming back from a pandemic that has really hit the Pioneer Square neighborhood particularly hard.

And it was a really good morning.

We had great weather for it.

Look forward to more days of action like that day of service last Saturday.

Similarly, that afternoon joined Councilmember Strauss for the inaugural game of the Ballard FC, where they were able to win their first game, which was really exciting, 5-1 over Eugene, Oregon.

and looking forward to continuing that tradition in the Interbay neighborhood and really becoming a big dedicated fan of Ballard FC.

It was a great energy.

A lot of people turned out and it was a lot of fun to be a part of that.

Looking forward to this week, I have a event with Seattle Music Commission along with Council Member Nelson at Trinity Nightclub in Pioneer Square.

to meet and greet and celebrate the work of the Seattle Music Commission and the Office of Economic Development.

Going to be a really good event to really center the musical heritage of the city and really have a conversation about how critical the creative economy is to our recovery, including the important role of our musicians.

And I will similarly on Thursday have a meeting of the Puget Sound Regional Council.

Otherwise, I don't have any additional updates.

If anyone has questions on my presentation, happy to open that up.

Seeing none, Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Let us see.

Okay.

There are no agenda items from the neighborhoods Education Arts and Civil Rights Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

Our next meeting is this Friday at 930. I would like to request committee members to please notify me by the end of the day today if you're not going to be present.

At that meeting, we'll continue discussing and hopefully vote on the confirmation of Hamdi Mohamed as the Director for the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Very much looking forward to that.

And then we will vote on one reappointment to the LGBTQ Commission and seven appointments to the Youth Commission.

Last week I had my monthly meeting with Office of Civil Rights, speaking of commissioners there are commissions, there are six vacancies right now on the Human Rights Commission so if you know somebody who might be good in that capacity, please send them my way.

OCR is about to hire or they may have already hired a new director for their race and social justice work.

So I'm very excited about that.

The department is also working on an ordinance.

We've been working on it together with them for codifying the race and social justice initiative.

This is a really important piece of work.

that we've been hearing across the city from all of our departments but it is an initiative and so there is work underway to create an ordinance and that will be coming forward probably not until later this year but excited that that work is moving forward.

District updates.

Last week, my team and I took a mobility tour of District 2. One place we stopped was Lighthouse for the Blind.

If you don't know, it is a social enterprise that provides employment, support, and training opportunities for people who are blind.

who are deaf blind, and who have who are blind with other disabilities.

The lighthouse is important it's provided employment and support for people in our community since 1918. I was excited to meet with the CEO George Abbott.

And with Amy Cole who's the VP of employee and community services.

Part of what they provide in terms of employment, it's basically a manufacturing facility and they do kind of precision parts for Boeing, they do personal hydration systems and canteens and things like that for for God.

They have about 250 employees who use public transit to get to this facility every day.

And so part of what we were talking about were the challenges that their employees have with navigating from the bus stop past construction zones, for example, challenges with sidewalk and crosswalk design and maintenance.

And we, you know, there are lots of construction happening around their facility, lots of new projects that are underway.

And as they are, one of them is the very beginning stages which means it is basically a pit was much like we have across the street here in front of City Hall, just a pit with a fence around it.

between the bus stop and this facility and the fence was fallen over.

And so we were hearing from from George that, you know, about the dangers here, because if somebody is not protected by having a fence there, there is a very real possibility of people falling into the pit.

So we need to beef up our construction monitoring around construction projects and make sure that people aren't aren't in danger.

Anyway, we will be talking more about that later.

We also met with students from Raider Beach High School who had written letters to my office to share some of their concerns about traffic safety near their school.

Many of these students have nearly been hit by drivers while they were in the crosswalk.

Having experienced that myself, I know how scary that can be.

And so they just wanted to express to their elected official, their representative, that they want to be safe walking in their neighborhood.

Ironically, or maybe not, on our way back to the Rainier Beach light rail station, my staff and I witnessed a driver make an illegal U-turn and use the sidewalk as his re-entry point, coming within feet of a toddler who was in the parking lot with their parent.

So I will be back at Rainier Beach High School tomorrow to speak more with the students about advocating for a safer experience for them and for their community.

And I just want to say again, you know, how important it is for us to be hearing from constituents about the very real day-to-day experiences that they have, you know, so we can understand what, from their perspective, what pedestrian safety looks like.

And especially as Council Member Peterson was kind enough to start talking about scheduling a Vision Zero briefing, I want to have some real examples to talk about in those conversations.

My staff and I joined with Mayor Harrell's One Seattle day of service on Saturday.

We packed, I think, 300 bags of groceries at the Rainier Valley Food Bank and did some cleanup around the elementary school in Rainier Beach.

I also learned after being outdoors for many hours at this particular time of year that I'm allergic to cottonwood.

So maybe you guys learned that too.

I went home and took some Benadryl.

Um, on Wednesday I toured the Seattle center to get a better understanding of the proposed sound transit station placements, really concerning that there's consideration being given to a site so near the Seattle Repertory Theater within the Seattle campus rather than outside on one of the surrounding streets so.

We will be in more conversation with them.

And I think we're all hearing similar things, regardless of what part of the city, our constituents are in, that there's just a lot more information people need before they feel comfortable with the decisions that are getting made there.

We met with leaders last week from the Tubman Health Center.

This is a new group of folks who are advocating to advance health justice culturally appropriate care and integrative medicine.

They are designing a community health clinic in the south end that will specialize in meeting the needs of marginalized communities in in Seattle.

and are looking to open their clinical doors in 2025. So they are already providing some service in an existing facility, but are hoping to be able to purchase a parcel and to have their own clinic.

So I look forward to partnering with them to increase access to medical care in the South End.

On Sunday, members of my staff took part in two different bike month related events.

One was to celebrate the really incredible work done to promote youth education around cycling.

This was held by District two's bike works program if you don't know it you should check it out.

It's fantastic.

The other was a critical mass on Lake Washington Boulevard, where nearly 100 parents and kids from one to 10 years old were out riding their bikes along the boulevard to really showcase what a great place that can be when families are out to enjoy recreation to be safe, and to really just create a great environment for for their families.

And then finally, this week I'll be hosting the next in my series of Seattle within reach discussions, you'll recall I, the first one that we had was on the comprehensive plan.

We had a second one on social housing.

And so this third event is going to be on mobility, this being mobility month.

So we look forward to a discussion on mobility issues will be joined by Anna Zbarts, who is the director for the disability mobility initiative program.

Disability Rights Washington.

Clara Cantor, who's an organizer with Seattle Greenways.

And I'm really excited, we'll be joined also by Vancouver BC's City Council Member, Christine Boyle.

So I'm looking forward to that conversation.

That's going to be on Thursday.

It will be recorded and we'll be providing a link to it once that is done.

That is all I have this afternoon.

Does anybody have questions or comments?

Okay, then I will hand it off to Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

The next meeting of the Finance and Housing Committee meeting is going to be on June 1st at 930 a.m.

We have four items on our agenda.

This includes the Office of Housing, Race and Social Justice Initiative presentation, the City Budgets Office, Race and Social Justice Initiative presentation, the Office of Housing Director appointment.

That includes all of the questions that you have provided additional input to that we are expecting back from Interim Director Michael Winkler-Chin before our next committee meeting, and we will republish the agenda in anticipation of our committee meeting on June 1st with her answers.

We'll also have the Washington State Department of Transportation Royal Braum lease, the two real estate leases that are coming to us from the Finance and Administrative Services Department.

For full council, there are three items from the Finance and Housing Committee meeting.

This will be on tomorrow's full council meeting.

This is at 2pm on Tuesday.

The first two bills are the exceptions ordinance and the carry forward ordinance.

This is Council Bill 120316 and Council Bill 120317. Every year we address these two sets of legislation as part of our process to consider as supplemental discussions or supplemental as to our budget bill.

The carry forward ordinance includes, excuse me, the carry forward ordinance and the exceptions ordinance had become part of our regular routine course of business to retroactively approve overages and spending and to carry forward funding from the previous year into the current year for projects that have not yet been complete.

This year, unfortunately, is no exception.

So we will continue this process, and these bills will be in front of us tomorrow.

I do want to note, as we discussed in our Finance and Housing Committee meeting, a great amount of work has gone into thinking about this process from the City Budget's office, thanks to Director Julie Dingley, and central staff, thanks to Ali Panucci and Tom Meisel for their work to think about how we can streamline the process so that it is more So that it is not an expectation that there will be an exceptions ordinance and that we get a greater transparency throughout the year on any underspend that happens so that we know going into the end of the year, clear numbers about what would be in a carry forward.

ordinance.

So this year the legislation in front of us is pretty routine and a great central staff memo.

If you haven't had the chance to read through that yet, please do.

Central staff provided an overview of what we've done in the past and a little preview of some of the things that we're working on in future years.

Both ordinances were approved unanimously by the Finance and Housing Committee and they will be in front of us for tomorrow's vote.

The other item that we have is Council Bill 120318. This is the Office of Housing Staffing Bill.

This legislation authorizes the Office of Staffing to add staffing to perform the range of services and activity that go into investing in and promoting the development of affordable housing through development and acquisition of affordable housing.

This is supported by the Jumpstart Spend Plan.

Again, as a reminder, up to 5% of the funding allocated to each of the departments was allowed to go to administrative needs to make sure that implementation was possible.

And this is just around half of that amount going to the staffing needs.

The rest is going to go into creating affordable housing, both rental units and first-time home ownership opportunities.

So thanks again to the great stewardship of the funding from Office of Housing and their work to make sure that they have sufficient staff to implement the ordinance, as well as trying to get as much dollars out the door to build affordable housing.

to highlight last week I had the chance to speak with folks across the country and national partners that are working on labor standards and protecting workers through the local progress economic justice advisory table.

They are on the cusp of releasing a new report that is focused on workers rights that can be promoted at the local level.

This is especially important as we think about the ways in which local jurisdictions have been able to spearhead labor standard policies in cities and counties and to be able to see those take wave across the country.

I'm very excited about the opportunity that has been presented to work with Local Progress, and this is in partnership with the Harvard Law and Work-Life Program, Local Progress, and the Economic Policy Institute.

So thanks to all who joined that presentation last Friday, and we will look forward to sharing out that report with you very soon.

This week, I'll be attending a couple of exciting events.

On Wednesday, I'll be at the Kaiser Permanente Bike Everywhere Breakfast, benefiting Cascade Bicycle Club.

Later in the day, I'll be going over to see our friends from Weld and Pallet for a visit of their collaborative reintegration resource center.

Looking forward to seeing how their units are being stood up very quickly and hearing more about how we're able to serve so many in our community who not only need shelter, but need additional assistance with re-entering from incarceration, homelessness, and recovery.

I look forward to reporting out.

Weldworks, as folks probably knows, offers temporary to permanent direct placement for employment programs, connecting members of employment opportunities in construction, general labor, manufacturing, property maintenance, and retail.

Look forward to celebrating that.

And a little bit of personal news from our office, I want to note that we have three weeks to celebrate Aretha Basu, who has been in our office.

Since before my election she actually served as my campaign manager for the 2017 election has been a.

A strong part of Team Teresa providing everything from important moments of levity in our office and always there as a guiding star in terms of a moral compass, has served as our lead on everything from economic justice to arts and culture, and working with the courts and so many other strategies as we think about reimagining public safety.

Aretha, we are so proud to have had the opportunity to work with you and folks she won't be going far so I'm sending out an email about that here soon and look forward to celebrating all that she's done and we'll make sure that you get a notice as well as a way to celebrate her work on June 3. We'll send out a notice to the floor if you'd like to come by and say thanks or congratulations and send her on her way.

But she won't be going far.

And we just wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to send in your notes about anything you'd like to share with Aretha Basu.

So thanks again, Aretha, for all you do, for providing the puns, the dad jokes for me, and for the incredible advice on public policy and strategy.

You will be missed, but we know we'll see you often.

And that's it, Madam President.

I look forward to sharing that information around as we celebrate Aretha and look forward to seeing you all on June 1st.

Well, it looks like I have a pair of earrings for Aretha, my traditional going away gift or welcoming gift.

So I'll come down the hall and hand it over.

You know, she'd love that.

So thank you in advance.

Council Member Nelson.

Good afternoon everyone.

Tomorrow on the full Council agenda there are three pieces of utilities related legislation that Councilmember Peterson and I are co sponsoring, and I will present on two of them.

Council Bill 120327 extends the suspension of interest charges and late payment fees until June 30 2023. And Council Bill 120328 would authorize Seattle City Light to extend the emergency bill assistance programs through the end of 2023. And these programs provide two credits toward the outstanding balance of utility bills for all income eligible households.

And they were set to expire at the end of 2022 by ordinance 126493. So this is an extension of that.

Really looking forward to the final vote on resolution 32050 coming up tomorrow.

And then the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee meeting is this Wednesday at 930. And there's just one thing on the agenda, which is the Department, the Office of Economic Development's Race and Social Justice Initiative report.

Right.

Last week, I met with Amy Lillard of the Washington of Washington Filmworks to talk about the incredible opportunities that our region and also the state has with the passage of House Bill 1914, which expanded state film incentives from 3.5 million to 15 million.

And I learned some interesting things about about these incentives.

So one is that Washington is now the first state in the country to offer incentives for films telling stories about historically marginalized communities.

Washington will also be providing half and three quarter million dollar grants toward workforce development in marginalized communities.

And the bill also provides funding support for emerging filmmakers with small budget productions at $1 million or less.

They will be the first agency to contribute to the overall budget of these small productions.

So I learned a lot, but I think Amy's main point in contacting me and I believe other council members was basically to, to tell Seattle that we need to be ready to respond to a huge increase in in permit applications in interest, both from from local and regional film production crews and members of the artistic community, but also film productions from across the country.

And so she was really saying that it it will be important for her to have someone, some place, some entity to direct interest to at the City of Seattle.

So now's a great time to equip OED with at least the staffing that will be needed to process these increased permit applications, you know, strengthen Seattle's strategy on film and how to promote it and also Well, there's ongoing talk about the creation of a film commission, so that will help.

If we were to do that, that would generate the industry expertise to get Seattle back into its place of prominence as one of the best places to create film on the West Coast.

All right.

So I mentioned that I was going to go to a fire department training, and I have to say that I didn't really I didn't know much about how we train our firefighters.

You know, I know more about about how our police recruits are trained.

They go to the academy, et cetera.

But I did not know that the new recruits for the Seattle Fire Department go through a 15 week training.

That is the curriculum is designed by by Seattle firefighters and in in leadership.

It's a nationally renowned training program and it's taught by our own firefighters as instructors.

So what I was able to watch last Thursday was the last phase of this 15-week training program, which was basically them putting out deliberately set fires in a house.

This one was a two-story house in Fremont.

Property owners donate a home that's going to be demolished for this purpose and really saw Obviously, we can all sort of imagine what hard work it is, but just seeing really the them in action was humbling, to say the least.

And I got to hear the debrief of what went well and what could have been done better.

But the point is, those people are now all across the city helping to protect our homes and businesses and other structures from fire and ready to put them out if need be right now.

So I also learned a bit about the budget needs of the department, and I'm sure that some of this will come up in the budget discussions later on this year.

But basically, staffing for the Seattle Fire Department has remained fairly static despite the growth in population and some of the new challenges posed by encampments and also responding to the pandemic.

So that was really interesting.

I recommend anybody checking that out if you have the opportunity.

All right.

Council Member Lewis explained very well what we did on Saturday, but I did join him and Mayor Harrell, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, and the COO of the Sounders, whose name is Maya Mendoza-Ekstrom.

And this was actually the Alliance for Pioneer Square's 15th annual spring clean, so it just conveniently fell on the day of service.

Anyway, it was inspiring to see everyone there, and I got to know folks at businesses that I'd never heard of in the neighborhood.

I had already heard the Sounders and the Seahawks.

Anyway, that was a really great event.

Kudos to Mayor Harrell's administration for pulling off that feat of coordination and also just providing an opportunity for all of us to come together, be of service, and meet each other.

After that, I headed to, on Saturday afternoon, to Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil Rights Memorial Park for a vigil that was organized by Reverend Walden and Mothers for Police Accountability to honor the 10 victims that were killed in Buffalo at Tops Market last week.

It was really powerful to be in community and community members actually studied the lives of all the people murdered and in related details about their lives to really, I don't know, to to touch on the humanity that was lost.

And it was just, I will just say, a powerful collective event to mourn and also celebrate their lives.

All right, tomorrow night, also, I'll be joining Council Member Lewis again at an event celebrating the Seattle Music Commission.

And I'm supposed to talk about the importance of the music industry on Seattle's economy and in Seattle's recovery from the pandemic, but I'm really looking forward to learning what more the city could do to support the nightlife sector as a whole.

You know, be that legislation at the city level or the state level or regulatory changes that we can support at LCB, whatever it may be.

I'm looking forward to hearing from the experts, which is after all, why we have commissions.

All right.

And then last thing, and I'll pass it over.

Finally, my office is going to tour and enjoy lunch at the new PCC Market downtown.

And we'll be toured by the President and CEO and find out what it's been like to be downtown.

That's it.

I will now turn it, well, I'll ask if there are any questions.

Seeing none, I will pass it to Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

Good afternoon colleagues on tomorrow afternoons full city council agenda there are four items from our committee on transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Council 120 300 renews a permit for a tunnel downtown.

Council Bill 120301 renews a permit for two tunnels for Harborview Hospital, and Council Bill 120302 renews a permit for Skybridge at Swedish Hospital.

Then we have Resolution 32053, which grants conceptual approval to allow Dunn Lumber to install a communication pipe under Latona Avenue Northeast to connect its existing building in Wallingford to one it's constructing across the street.

As customer Nelson mentioned on tomorrow's full city council agenda we're co sponsoring three bills from the executive to help Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities customers still struggling with their bills.

Our next committee on transportation Seattle Public Utilities is scheduled for Tuesday June seven at 930am.

At that June seven committee will be considering several items which are likely to include two bills from Seattle Public Utilities.

One is a technical correction, accepting to property deeds to perfect SP use property rights for two parcels originally acquired in 1986. And the other bill is to accept an easement from the State Department of Natural Resources to install replacement sewer line.

As we know, the Sound Transit Board is working toward its decisions for the West Seattle Ballard Link extension routes and stations.

As early as our June 7th Transportation Committee, we'll be prepared to start discussing a joint resolution with the executive regarding Seattle's preferences.

After our first discussion, we'll have a second committee meeting, potentially vote on that resolution probably in July.

Council members can reach out to Central Staff Analyst Calvin Chow to provide early input.

Also at our June 7 meeting will vote on Mayor Harold's nomination of Andrew Lee to become the permanent general manager and CEO of Seattle Public Utilities.

Again, as chair of the committee I'm following Resolution 31868 for that nomination process, confirmation process.

We've already circulated the mayor's appointment packet to you, and we'll be circulating Andrew Lee's answers to our preliminary questions in a couple of days, well before the June 7 confirmation vote at our committee meeting.

Also at our June 7 meeting, SDOT will provide their RSGI report, and SDOT and SPU are potentially finalizing other minor pieces of legislation that we'll try to vote out of committee on June 7. This weekend in District four I participated in Mayor Harold's one Seattle day of service with several other neighbors cleaning up Cowan Park.

There are many other locations bustling with volunteer spirit in Northeast Seattle, including along the Ave to spruce up the U District for the resurgence of the popular U District Street Fair.

The U District Street Fair return is a huge success on both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, thanks to the nonprofit U District Partnership, all the sponsors of the event, and tens of thousands of visitors springing forth from the new light rail station.

With the opening of that light rail station at Northeast 43rd Street and Brooklyn Avenue, it's easier than ever to get to the shopping, dining, and festivities of the U-District, which remains the funky heart of District 4. That concludes my report.

Any questions before we hear from Council Member Swan?

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Good afternoon, everyone.

There is one item on tomorrow's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

This is a bill from my office in response to a Court of Appeals decision that objected to one small part of Seattle's six-month eviction defense.

That ordinance requires renters to attest that they have suffered financial hardship in order to be eligible to use that defense against eviction.

And the court of appeals objected to the mechanics of that attestation, specifically that there isn't language giving landlords the ability to rebut the claim that the tenants are facing financial hardship.

I wanna be clear as I've been throughout and also at the committee on Friday, that the six-month eviction defense is still in effect because the city has appealed the Court of Appeals decision.

However, out of an abundance of caution and particularly to avoid confusion, my office sponsored this bill to respond to the Court of Appeals concerns.

The initial version of the bill drafted by my office addressed the Court of Appeals concern by simply removing the requirement for financial hardship.

Therefore, there would be no claim to rebut.

And as I've argued in the past, it should be a given that if a renter is an eviction court, it's because they have suffered financial hardship.

There's no other reason they would be there.

It's not like it's something anybody would desire to have on their rental record.

Requiring people to declare financial hardship, particularly their landlords, start challenging those claims, drags the renters through a humiliating process that in reality has a chilling effect.

preventing the very people this eviction defense was intended to help from using it.

The bill was discussed in the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee last Friday, and it was amended to address the Court of Appeals concern in an entirely different way than what I just stated.

Instead of removing the requirement for financial hardship, in other words, removing We should have removing all the elements of means testing.

The bill now keeps that requirement and adds language explaining how a landlord can rebut those claims of financial hardship.

I did not support that amendment for the reasons I just explained.

However, as I said in committee, I still support the legislation because it will allow the eviction defense attorneys from the Housing Justice Project.

to use this eviction defense without fear of confusion.

That is my report.

Do council members have any questions or comments before I end the report?

I don't see anything, so Council President Duarez, back to you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant, back to me.

I hope you get well, so.

Thank you.

Good.

And before I begin, I just want Councilor Peterson to know that I did not know there was a funky part of D4, Thank you for putting that on the record.

So I will go check it out.

Thank you.

Okay, guys, I will be brief.

There are three appointments, as I shared earlier, recommended by the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's full council consent agenda.

Again, this includes the appointments of Danielle Alvarado and Dustin Lambrow to the Labor Standards Advisory Committee, and Chehalia Al-Halima I got it right, yes.

To the Seattle Ethics and Elections.

I think I got that right.

That being said, let's see what else we got here.

The next meeting of the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee will be Thursday, June 16th at 930. Also tomorrow's full council agenda is Council Bill 120324, which I have sponsored and which was referred directly to full council without committee review.

This ordinance appropriates funds to city departments to cover the costs of complying with six ordinances that were previously passed in late 2021 and early 2022. Funds to cover these costs have been held in reserve and are available.

Karina Bull on central staff has reviewed this bill and can answer any questions.

Last week, I had my weekly meeting with Interim Chief Diaz, in which we spoke about staffing levels at SPD, as well as SPD's current work to collect and review data on missing murdered indigenous people.

I meet with Chief Diaz at least at least once a week.

Okay.

So the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women data collection work was the featured presentation in the Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee on Thursday.

At the committee we introduced, and I don't think all of you have met him yet, Luis Gomez-Ventura, who is the data collection specialist now working with SPD on these cases.

And we want to welcome Luis and the work that he's been doing and working with the Seattle Indian Health Board.

In addition, in committee, we had Esther Lucero, who is the CEO of Seattle Indian Health Board, Christina Diego, and Shannon Keene were also present to work to talk about, and they had a PowerPoint as well, about the collaboration and the five-year contract that they put together with SPD for missing murdered indigenous women and girls.

So that taken together, it's clear that the committee members and the panel that there's more work needed to partner with appropriate tribal police Tribal governments, our city attorney's office, and others to address cold cases and prevent the jurisdictional issues and misclassifications that have been an obstacle to ensuring that complete investigations are indeed done.

So I'm looking forward to continuing to receive regular updates on the progress of this work with the aim to prevent Indigenous families from experiencing the loss of a loved one.

And as you know, we've been working on this for a couple of years.

I also met with the Sound Transit Board CEO search committee.

As you know, I serve on that committee.

We are still looking and have narrowed down the candidates who will be our next CEO of Sound Transit.

And we reviewed the finalists for the CEO position at Sound Transit.

More to come on that.

Last Friday, I participated in a Sound Transit meeting regarding the West Seattle Ballard Link light rail extension.

It was what we call a workshop, a three hour workshop.

This was an opportunity for regional board members to review options for consideration in the DEIS.

And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Brindell's right off here to the side.

I believe we're going to vote on that on July 28th.

It was late June.

Now it's July 28th.

Upcoming this week, I will be attending another Sound Transit North King sub area briefing on Wednesday and the Sound Transit Board meeting on Thursday, as I always do.

On Friday, I'll be meeting with the Ironworkers Local 86 regarding apprenticeship programs and facilities at North Seattle College.

Those of you who have been around for a while know that we started our apprenticeship program under the leadership of Dr. Brown, who was the president of North Seattle College.

And we've continued that work with Dr. Crawford, who is now the new president, or not new, it's over a year now, of North Seattle College.

We have been working on these apprenticeship programs and working with all the local labor unions, and it's just been a phenomenal success and we want to continue that.

And we also have been working with North Seattle College and the Seattle School District in the Promise Program.

And a big shout out to North Seattle College.

In D5, they have been a phenomenal pillar with all of our community groups and business groups to making, including Light Rail, making North Seattle College, the campus, and their facilities, quite frankly, available not only to D5, but to the North End.

This week I will be attending, I think it's the first, Friends and Fry Bread at Seattle University, hosted by coach Tony Monroe, member of the Yakama Nation.

He is the program assistant and assistant coach for the Indigenous Peoples Institute at Seattle University, the track and field cross country program.

I'll be there, along with the CEO Jackie McCormick of Rise Above and a bunch of our other Tribally, our Native-led Native organizations and Tribal representatives, and I'm hoping we make it a regular thing.

If indeed, Tony said he's providing huckleberry jam for my fried bread.

So if you guys want to join me, you're more than welcome.

I think that's all I got for you today.

And before I adjourn, let's remind everybody that we're going to have an executive session.

It will be for half an hour and I'll let the clerk do that.

So let me go ahead and read into the record what we need to do to legally go into executive session.

As presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorneys as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by whatever 30 minutes is, Madam Clerk.

I'll let you read that in a moment.

If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.

I'm guessing if we go 30 minutes, it will go till four o'clock.

Is that clear, Madam Clerk?

That's clear.

Thank you.

Thank you guys.

So do I have my colleagues stay on the line or how do we do this?

you