Good morning.
Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled briefing on October 8 2018 I'm gonna give a brief Statement or two and then we'll go around the room and and I I think we'll do the, we'll stay on the agenda, we'll go through the state legislative session first and then we'll go around and do a preview of today's action.
So why don't I, why don't we just start now and have the team come on up.
Okay, so and right as you get situated because Councilmember Juarez has a conflict.
Why don't we at least start with you and then we'll stop and keep going because I was trying to stick to the agenda here.
So Councilmember Juarez, why don't you give us a preview of today's actions or any other information then we'll dive into the state legislative update.
Good morning.
Good morning.
And thank you, Council President.
I appreciate you letting me do that.
Councilmember Johnson and I got to head up north.
Quickly, however, let me begin with what we're going to be doing today.
First of all, happy Indigenous Peoples Day.
Happy birthday to my mom.
She's only 30. So today at 11, I'll be joining Mayor Jenny Durkin, Todd Lewicki, President and CEO of Seattle Hockey Partners, and Lance Lopes, the Project Manager for NHL Seattle, for a special public announcement regarding our city and the NHL.
You're all invited to join us.
What's happening, as you probably all know, is the NHL has partnered with Simon and they will be putting their training facilities at Northgate Mall.
That's 52 acres up there.
We're excited that we are now going to have this major infrastructure within the city limits.
So that's one.
Number two.
11. Today, between 11.30 and 1.30, there'll be a celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day in the Bertha Landis Room.
There are three events.
I'm going to be able to attend the second one.
You're all invited to attend.
I'll be there reading a proclamation we all signed.
We will be signing.
And this evening there'll be another Indigenous Peoples event at Daybreak Star.
If you need details, please feel free to ask my staff.
I want to thank Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Sawant because I understand that they'll be speaking at today's ceremony at 1130 on Indigenous Peoples Day.
And before I go any further, I want to just go a quick run of show about the event happening at 1130. We will have Elder Ken Workman from the Duwamish Tribe coming to speak.
Master of Ceremony will have Wesley Rhodes, Cheyenne River Sioux, videographer, designer, works with Native people against recidivism, and the Board of Heal for Reentry Program.
We also have Maria Lockhart.
Her father's from Panama.
Her mother is Issei, native Japanese.
She's a Baldwin Fellow, a youth violence prevention advocacy.
And of course, we'll have Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Sawant speaking.
I'm really excited to announce that we will have as our keynote Miss Takaya Blaney, First Nations young lady.
And she has a phenomenal bio, and she's only, I think, 16. She's an actress, a singer, a songwriter, an activist for environmental and social justice issues.
She's been performing internationally and across Canada since the age of 10. And she also won an award acting at age 15. in a feature film depicting a young nation's grower who testifies against oil pipelines at a hearing.
She also received a Leo Award in 2018 for this role for Best Lead Actress in a Feature Film.
So we have those people lined up to speak.
That's starting at 11.30, and the Bertha Knight Landis till 1.30.
And I just want to say and thank former Councilmember Tim Burgess, Councilmember Mosqueda, and Councilmember Bagshaw, who, along with me, attended the Chief Seattle Club annual luncheon on October 4th.
Hi, perfect timing.
I was just talking about you.
The title, which was really nice, is called It's Good to Be Home, because this is Indian country.
And they went from 300 attendees last year to 400 this year.
They raised over $200,000.
And as you know, that money will go to provide low-income housing for Native American folks, as well as other treatment and holistic health issues to address the Native American population in the city of Seattle.
And that's it.
Very good.
Councilmember Johnston, because you may dash out too in the middle of the briefing, would you like to do your preview of full council action items now?
It'll be very brief.
We have two items on introduction and referral that now are quasi-judicial because their contract resounds.
It's the application of Pecos Pit to rezone 9,600 square feet at 3423 Southwest Genesee from single family 5,000 to neighborhood commercial 65 with an MHA suffix, and an application of Homesite to rezone a 19,000 square foot site at 7343 MLK Junior Way South.
from NC240 to NC255 with an MHA suffix.
So those are now quasi-judicial, meaning your rules apply for ex parte communications.
We don't anticipate taking action on any of those for 18 months or so, but beware if you're approached by either of those folks that those are now quasi-judicial matters.
Very good.
So team, we'll go back after the state legislative update and do a preview of action.
We just had some time restraints for those two members, unless anyone else has something Okay, we're good.
So, okay, why don't we start with introductions, dive into our 2019 overview.
Good morning, Council President, Council Members.
Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
Karen Benedetti-Cargill, State Relations Director.
Christina Postlewaite, State Lobbyist.
We know you have a full agenda today, so we very much appreciate you taking the time for us this morning.
As we are moving through the process of identifying your individual 2019 legislative priorities for the coming session, we are compiling those into a comprehensive agenda.
But today we wanted to start just by providing some context about where we are at, kind of the lay of the land moving into a long session where the legislature will decide on their biennial budget.
And we first wanted to thank you all for your efforts lobbying in the previous session and working with our team to develop this year's agenda.
We've met with, I think, almost all of you at this point.
And while it is not yet finalized, Karen and Christina will be laying out in more detail the timeline of that process.
But we do know that just some of the highlights that housing and behavioral health rent regulation, a particular focus on in the behavioral health space operational versus capital resources are important to you all.
Block the box, automated traffic lane, camera enforcement and legislation related to improving congestion, freight mobility and traffic flow are important to you all given the upcoming period of maximum constraints.
Firearm safety, criminal justice, and eliminating the death penalty continue to be top priorities.
And then the expansion of portable benefits for independent contractors, expanding the state's recently established legal defense fund.
Voting access and protections for immigrant workers will continue to be high priorities for us moving into 2019 as well.
And although the governor will not propose his budget until December, we have been coordinating in conjunction with the county very closely around the behavioral health space given where those funds flow to the county, but understanding how critical that partnership will be moving into this session.
While we won't have a full picture of what the House and Senate look like until November, we anticipate stronger Democratic majorities in both chambers, more likely a more significant increase in the House.
But we won't know for sure until legislators return to Olympia in January.
We really appreciate your engagement through the interim.
A special thank you to Councilmember Bagshaw and Councilmember Mosqueda for their engagement around the Association of Washington Cities and your leadership there, particularly in the behavioral health space again and advancing that as a priority for that organization.
And we also have a few changes in our office I'm excited to announce.
Karen Cargill has now taken on the role of our state director, and we are very excited to have Christina Postlewaite, our newest lobbyist, who has deep roots in the Seattle community.
She was also an advocate in D.C.
She spent some time lobbying in D.C.
and also has a lot of experience in the legislature working for who is the former capital budget chair.
So we're very glad to have her expertise on board.
And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Karen and Christina.
Okay.
It's nice to see you all again.
I can't believe session's just around the corner.
So as Lee mentioned, we are approaching the 2019-2021 biennium.
This next session coming up will be 105 days, which means it's a long session when the budgets will be developed.
So we'll see the development of a new operating budget, capital budget, and a transportation budget.
We would anticipate seeing the governor's proposal in December.
And then the legislature will start working on their proposals.
as soon as that comes out and once we understand what the makeup of the legislature will be.
Again, as Lily mentioned, 2018 elections could have some significant impacts on what the legislature will look like in January.
Some of the primary results had indicated a pretty strong Democratic showing, so we'll wait until November to see what this looks like and have an understanding of what this could mean for our agenda.
But a lot of the items that we would be working on we'll continue to push through in our agenda regardless of what the makeup will be and we can adjust as we understand a little more of who we'll be working with next year.
Some key dates that are coming up on the legislative side are committee assembly days.
Committee assembly days are almost, I like pre-session days.
It's where a lot of the committees get together and talk about what they'll be working on during the next session, do some work sessions.
So the Senate's is coming up on November 14th and 15th and the House is coming up on December 3rd and 4th.
So we're hopeful that we can have a lot of our agenda outlined at that point and we can start working on showing what our priorities will be in the 2019 session as early as November.
So we're really excited about that.
I just wanted to take a quick moment to go over some of the accomplishments that we saw last year.
Under Housing and Homelessness, after some significant efforts from Lissette Cadena, our former lobbyist, the document recording fee, we saw some of the source of income discrimination and the surplus property, which I know the council has taken some action on at this stage.
Race and Social Justice, the Voting Rights Act, Automatic Voter Registration, Ban the Box, Fair Chance Act, and the Equal Pay Act.
public safety.
We know that there's a lot to do still in that area, but there was some movement last year with the bump stock ban, suicide prevention, and the voluntary waiver.
Education, a lot of movement on some apprenticeship programs and some higher education financing support for students that are taking out loans.
So that was both with the Student Loan Bill of Rights and the Student Opportunity Assistance and Relief Act.
And on healthcare, though that larger behavioral health bill that we had worked on did not pass, there was a lot of that, a lot of those items that were encompassed in the budget that we, that was initially passed.
And we did see some work on the conversion therapy and the drug take-back program, which were things that were, along in the works.
So I just wanted to go over again and remind everyone of kind of what the process is with developing our legislative agenda.
So OIR has spent the last few months meeting with all of you, meeting with the different departments, meeting with stakeholders, and we collect all of the information that everyone is interested in pursuing next year, and we're in the process of compiling that all into that large document that we will actually be presenting you for the first time next week.
That will be circulated on Monday next week.
So that will be your first opportunity to kind of look at that and provide some feedback and opportunity for us to adjust that.
So the document that we present next week will in no way be the final, just kind of what we've heard from initial conversations.
And we'll start its legal review and whatnot.
So we will anticipate doing that next week on Monday, that's where we're scheduled to do, and then on the 29th we'll be back in front of you again where we will have hopefully received a lot of the additional feedback that you have about things that you want to make sure were in the agenda, if there are any questions, and we can add and adjust as necessary within those two weeks between our initial and our final presentation.
So we're going to continue to monitor a lot of those issues and I know Christina in our next slide will talk about some of the issues that we're seeing as city at large topics for next session and take any questions at this point.
Thank you so much for the work that you're about to do for the 2019 session.
We know how comprehensive that document is that you always prepare for us.
I'm wondering if you might be able to, if it's all possible, send it our way maybe on Friday so we can have the weekend to review it.
Sometimes we get it about nine o'clock on Monday and it's a pretty thick document.
Having come in just about this time last year, I was impressed and also didn't necessarily have enough time to read through sometimes.
If that's at all possible, would you be able to send that our way early?
I am hopeful that we will have it done by Friday and we will send it to you when we get it wrapped up.
Thank you.
We sort of updated and monitored Typically give out money as a standard practice try to get out Friday's that sort of or just the draft versions you want us to try to get it on Friday's I understand that also during the legislative session You're doing a lot of work over the weekends and things may change so if that's not possible I think we could probably get you something just I'll acknowledge if there are any adjustments that are made over the weekend in the document Thank you.
I have one item that I You may have been engaged with our 36th District delegation.
So you know the Magnolia Bridge is a big issue for those in Magnolia.
There is absolutely no way that the city can afford to pay for this by itself.
There aren't enough users of that bridge that federal funds are going to kick in.
So over the last several months, I've met with the 36th District delegation, Gail Tarleton, Noel Frame, Reuven Carlisle, as well as with the port.
So they, the 36th District, are willing to go down to the legislature this year and to see if there is monies that could go in for the entire area that is the freight corridor.
And I just want you to know that we're working on that.
We don't know what it looks like yet, but we'll stay in touch on it because we know that between now and the time that the Magnolia Bridge is going to have to be replaced, there's going to have to be major decisions around funding.
So with all of the ST3 and everything we're looking at, looking at that whole corridor is really important.
So let's just stay in touch on that and I'll let you know what I know.
And we just want to thank you for including us in some of those initial conversations that you guys have been exploring options to work on this topic.
So thank you.
Yeah, you bet.
Thanks very much.
I think there's a lot to do, and I'm so glad to be working with you.
Thank you.
So we wanted to touch on some quick highlights of issues we anticipate that will come up this session.
This is not at all comprehensive.
We know things pop up that we don't anticipate.
We're trying to anticipate as much as we can here, and these seem like likely big issues for 2019. Enhanced funding for homelessness services, public health, mental health, and addiction and other important human services.
Local options, tools for affordable housing, likely revisiting the local option bond bill that was a big part of session last year, potential for REAP III, and fully funding the housing trust fund.
Along education, we're looking at supporting apprenticeship programs and scholarship program expansion.
In the environmental area, electrification of transportation will continue to be an issue for us.
issues related to carbon emissions, residential stretch code, and MOTCA funding.
And transportation, we're looking at automated enforcement of transit and restricted lanes as a priority for the session.
Thank you.
I want to thank Lily for mentioning rent regulation legislation in the top line.
I just want to make sure that it's prioritized in the paper as well.
I can assure you it is in the agenda.
I think in the agenda we lumped it into the housing section there.
I did want to recognize we know that's a very high priority for the council as well.
And just for process too, I know that the document that you guys end up adopting can be a little bit, can be quite dense and challenging to find things.
So if you ever have questions about where things are located or you have questions about whether something's included, please let us know and we'll help you make sure that it's there.
So thank you.
One thing I'd like to flag, and I'm not quite sure if this is legislative or administrative, but my understanding is this is along the lines of addiction treatment.
There's only one licensed mobile treatment van in the state, and in speaking to behavioral health organizations that are doing the work, they're doing the treatment work at fixed facilities, they have funding for more mobile treatment vans, but apparently it's been impossible for the last number of years to get a license for a new one.
They've been able to get money to replace the old van, but it could only have one.
And so there's one agency that has one van.
And we'd love to, I'm happy to connect you with folks, but figure out how we can kind of break this log jam and see what's holding that up.
Because I think we could use that on our streets.
We'd be happy to follow up on that.
And then I think if you could connect us with some of the provider contacts, that would be helpful.
Is it Evergreen Treatment Service?
They're the ones who has the one.
And I think there are others that would like it.
And Evergreen would like to have multiple.
Super Hey, so just one more review of the sorry, that's I Just wanna make sure he remembers not to do that in the future I
On education issues, I just want to make sure that we're keeping our eye on early learning and childcare issues.
I think that's going to be particularly important for 2019 and 2020. So can you just give me some level of affirmation of what the city's priorities are going to be in that space?
One remains on our agenda, definitely continues to be something I know in the facilities area is a big topic that we're continuing to want to monitor, seeing if there are additional resources that we can potentially collect from the state to help with our lack of facilities for expansion of those.
I'll also add, I know a few of you have highlighted to us that some of the requirements around outdoor space for some of these facilities has been a problem.
So I think we're happy to explore kind of what alternatives could exist given we don't have a lot of outdoor recreation areas available for those facilities in the city of Seattle.
Yeah, I think ultimately as as the city of Seattle looks to garner additional dollars for purposes of expanding significantly expanding the number of Preschool classrooms that we have through our Seattle preschool program it'll be important for us to address the realities of capacity issues in terms of being able to utilize and leverage our those city resources in a way that will actually allow us the opportunity to deliver on the expansion that we envision for preschool classrooms and a lot of the administrative rules related to Early learning facilities and childcare facilities, including our preschool programs, are really designed for suburban cities.
And, you know, I think we need to leverage as much of our lobbying muscle to influence either on the administrative side or on the policy legislative side fixes to some of those capacity concerns that we have heard very loudly and clearly from our service provider community and from our Department of Education and Early Learning as well.
Thank you.
And from the Seattle Public School System.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
So finally, just repeating what Karen said, we want to make sure these dates are in your mind.
We also wanted to flag that state legislative committees are currently meeting and they'll continue to meet through the fall.
Again, committee days in the Senate will be in November and the House in December.
And the mayor, council, and Seattle delegation meeting will likely be in December or January.
We'll be working to coordinate that with you all shortly.
Legislators will return to Olympia on January 14th to begin the 105-day session, and we will be seeking feedback for our high-level draft of the legislative agenda before you next week.
Thank you.
Have you heard conversations within the tri-county area of Snohomish, Kitsap, Pierce about an affordable housing focus?
So it's, I don't want to say it's sound transit like, but having a tri-county opportunity where we're raising funds collectively to have affordable housing across the tri-county area.
And the focus was on the 175,000 number.
That came out of Eco Northwest, their study last year, whereas the McKinsey study said we need $400 million more to obtain the affordable housing we need across the county.
175,000 units was what was identified as being underbuilt over the last 20 years to keep up with job growth and the population increase.
So, I'd heard that conversations were underway.
I don't know whether it's official or just somebody's, you know, good idea after work, but I'd really like to see where we are.
Absolutely.
And Councilmember, if I could take that.
Christina and Karen have been actively participating with a coalition of housing stakeholders that Also, the speaker and Nicole Macri convene and participate in, and they're exploring both local options for the city of Seattle specifically, and then also what we can do to partner with those other allies in other counties as well about pursuing, I think, the local option bond bill is high on that list, as well as some of the housing trust fund dollars and then how we work through some potential language to make sure we're getting those resources in Seattle as well.
Good, and I know King County under Claudia Balducci had this group of elected leaders that were focusing on this issue.
I want to make sure that we don't have all these splinters, but that we're really putting our arms around to corral what the opportunities are and making sure that our colleagues elsewhere in the county and in the other two counties or are also weighing in and helping.
That's a great suggestion.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And we are still meeting Councilmember Bagshaw on a very regular basis, though we just did have our most recent meeting rescheduled.
That Affordable Housing Task Force, which is made up of not only elected officials, but critical stakeholders in the affordable housing and business community, is intending to come up with a series of funding and governance related recommendations.
The intent is by the end of this year, although that may slip more towards the January.
So is the expectation that you will get that to the legislature this year?
I believe that that's our expectation, at least the city delegation's expectation out of that group.
Let me put it that way.
Good.
Thanks.
Very good.
Council Member Esqueda.
Thank you.
So we know last year the state legislature was among many bodies that took on the issue of sexual harassment, intimidation, an assault and created a task force made up of legislators and staff and I believe also lobbyists.
I think they've been meeting throughout this summer.
Do you have an update on when they are going to come up with recommendations?
Any anticipation of when new allegations would be reviewed?
by this body, for example, the new allegations against Senator Fain.
Can you talk about what we can expect from this body going forward?
I would be happy to take that, Councilmember Mosqueda.
I know that the Coalition Against Domestic Violence had been doing a lot of work around rape kit testing in the backlog that we have in Washington State and really finding the adequate resources to address this, and also training for nurses in our hospital system.
There was, there's an effort to make sure that folks are adequately prepared to help survivors when they, when they present at a hospital setting.
In terms of what has happened with Senator Fain, I don't have an update on that for you, but we're happy to look into that and get back to you.
I meant more, do you have a sense of when the internal task force that has, I think, the charge of looking at policies and behaviors on campus will have a sense of recommendations?
Because I think, you know, not unique to the state legislature, the U.S.
Congress is looking at how we can do a better job.
Our own mayor has released recommendations through an executive order for how we can do a better job.
So I think they were going to do an internal analysis of how individuals like yourselves who are down there on a daily basis can feel more comfortable coming forward and reporting incidents, whether it's a state legislator, staffer, or another lobbyist.
And I'm excited about the potential for that body and wondered if we had any sense of when they'd be making recommendations.
I think Rebecca Johnson, one of our contract, one of the lobbyists on our contract team has been actively engaged in that.
I'll follow up with her and then I'm happy to get a list of those recommendations.
I'm not sure when they will be released.
I have a sense just from conversations with her that they have released some at this point, but they may still be working through that process and I'll get you a definitive answer on that soon.
Excellent.
There has been a little bit of pre-work, like as they've been working through some of these, putting forward some of these recommendations.
I know that the Senate is in the process of hiring an additional HR person in order to kind of help be a separate body for some of these staff to have a place to go.
This was before the recommendations were coming forward.
So I know that there's been some efforts made.
I believe it will be by the end of this year to see if there's anything they can do during the legislative session.
We'll definitely have the follow-up and share those with you when they're when they're prepared appreciate it Customer herbal.
Thank you on that note I would be interested to know on the topic generally whether or not we can expect the statute of limitations Bill to come up again.
I am I know there was a lot of interest in that last year And it was not successful did not pass And I think it would be a really good thing for us to work on this year.
And then another issue relates to, I had the opportunity to speak with Representative Macker last night.
She was keynoting at the Allyship dinner.
As Lily knows, Director Wilson-Kodega knows.
I had a conversation with her about her efforts to expand Seattle's Just Cause eviction ordinance statewide, and that's going to be a very exciting discussion around tenants' rights at the state legislature.
I do have a lot of interest in Should that bill not pass this year, a technical fix for Seattle's Just Cause Eviction Ordinance through a quirk in state law, the Just Cause Eviction protections are only granted to month-to-month tenants.
They're not granted to tenants at the end of a lease term.
because of language in state law that says your lease is over when it's over.
And it's kind of illogical that month-to-month tenants are more protected than tenants who are at the end of their lease term.
And it's something that the city has only begun enforcing differently in the last decade or so.
We've had just cause eviction for about 30 years now, and previously lease tenants were protected.
So I think this is really something that we need to have a fallback on.
And so if we could maybe have our city attorneys talk to their state attorneys to talk about how to do that, that would be really helpful.
Absolutely.
We can follow up with, John Chalkite has been very helpful around issues in this portfolio, so we can follow up with him.
And certainly in conversations with Representative Macri, and I'm sure this is something that would be incorporated into the agenda under that broader housing justice header.
And both of which are in the agenda right now, so.
Thank you.
Has the revenue, what did you say?
No, I said again.
Now to Councilmember Gonzalez.
To be fair, I think I've done that to some of the men here too.
I have not.
Okay, all in order.
Here we go.
I was wondering, If the Revenue Forecast Council has already done their projections for the upcoming year, two years, and if the state fiscal analysts have done the same analysis that our CBO has done and are projecting a downturn in the economy coming soon, have we seen that presentation yet?
We haven't seen the most recent quarterly one, but I do have their They handle like a monthly document that talks about that.
And they are, for the next two years, there's a little bit of an uptick.
It's not huge.
It's a couple hundred million.
But I'm happy to share the details of that with you.
That'd be very helpful.
I just want to make sure I understand.
So the state analysts have projected that there will continue to be an uptick over the next two years.
So there's not an anticipation that the state budget will either have to remain stagnant or make cuts.
At this stage, that's my understanding, but I know that the...
the quarterly presentations that they have prepared.
That's helpful.
Do you know when the next quarterly presentation will be?
I believe December.
In December.
Okay, great.
I'd be very interested in getting an analysis of that.
I know we want to be always thinking about what type of downturn may occur.
And I know that we all are intent on having a rainy day fund for when and if that happens.
But if there is some departure from how we're analyzing the current economic climate and the projection over the next Two to four years from the city to the state level that would be very helpful obviously what happens here affects the rest of the state and so we'd expect the Analysis that's being done here to be reflected in the state's budget if that is somehow if there's some discrepancy there That would be very helpful to know happy to share the information when it becomes available, and we'll keep you in the loop with that very good
One area I wanted to mention was two weeks ago I was out in an Olympia meeting with Christopher Polos from the head of the State Reentry Council, and talking about our reentry efforts.
And I know customer Herbalist has done a lot of work for it, and I invited Chris to the lunch session, and I think he will attend.
And so as we look at, and I wasn't aware of too much of the reentry council.
I think it was started in 2016 by the governor and Chris.
He has a remarkable story.
I don't know if any of you know about this.
There's an attorney that was actually, it's very well known, but he was actually a convicted felon and became an attorney and now is doing a lot of work in the reentry council and the governor appointed him to head up the council.
So I really want to better coordinate what we're trying to do with the recommendations coming out of our work group and the state.
And so as part of our agenda this year, I thought this would be the perfect time to sort of integrate all the great things we're doing.
And so we'll weave that into our statements.
Absolutely.
We'd be happy to follow up with him.
I'm very favorably impressed with Mr. Polo.
So we had a great meeting.
You know him?
Oh, I thought you knew Chris.
I was what?
I thought you knew Chris when I said I was favoring or oppressing you.
No, I just know, I know of him and I've heard of him and from him, but I don't know him like you know him.
Yeah, I know him now, so.
Okay, great updates.
Look forward to working with you.
Are we finished with the comments?
Yeah, two weeks.
Okay, thanks Lily.
Thanks everybody.
Good, another strong one.
Another strong, smart one.
Council President, I'm going to be going with my colleague, Ms. Juarez.
Okay, so why don't we skip past Council Member Johnson and go right to...
Oh, I mean, Council Member...
See, it happens to everybody.
Council Member...
Good, thank you.
Now it is.
Now it is.
Let's see what you're doing.
Okay, so just one thing for all of us 10 10 at 10 a.m.
That's this Wednesday 10 a.m.
The first green sheets for me are due Thanks reminder.
So I know that you're all working on them.
We certainly are in our office and Appreciate that and I do want to say thank you to all of you who came to our public hearing on Thursday night I thought it went very well.
It seemed that the tenor of the crowd was wanting to be helpful, and thank you all for being there.
And Seaskate's the only thing I wanted to say that this weekend on Saturday, I went to Seaskate, which is our skate park at Seattle Center, took my first skateboard lesson, but had a great time.
And that was the last kind of public forum that they're going to have there until they move it over on Broad Street.
And then I just want to say thanks to everybody who came, because it was great.
And to these high school girls who held my hand as I was going down the hills on the skateboard, I very much appreciate the training wheels.
I have a video of that.
I'm so sorry.
I'm going to speak fast so Council Member Bakerstock can hear as she walks out.
The one thing on this afternoon's agenda relates to a news item that came out today.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations, released their first report since the Paris Accord, which is now almost three years old, saying that we're way further along than we thought, that there are immediate consequences of climate change deeper than we previously thought.
We need to transform the world economy at a speed and scale that has no documented historic precedent.
And those lights, I'm sponsoring a resolution this afternoon that will state our support for initiative 1631. And so that's all I need to hear.
Well, you can tell us later, but I know.
For the public, I'll read these notes here really quick.
So we will consider a resolution to support, state our support for initiative 1631. I'm trying to bring up my notes here and my phone is not doing it.
Here we go.
It's a resolution endorsing Clean Air, Clean Energy Initiative 1631, a statewide initiative to the people that would charge pollution fees on the largest corporate polluters and use the revenue to invest in healthy communities, clean our air and water, promote clean energy, and slow down the impacts of climate change, all under the oversight of a public board.
We will take that out this afternoon and as is our rules around supporting or opposing citizen initiatives.
We will provide time for folks that are both pro and anti 1631 to say their piece.
We can have a discussion and then hopefully vote on that.
The only other thing I'll mention is there's a special committee of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee on Friday from 930 to 1030 here in Chambers.
That's to hear the results of my office's work on racial equity toolkit for our backyard cottage and mother-in-law or ADU work.
We won't be talking about the environmental impact statement or code changes, but more broadly about how we can ensure that low-income communities and communities of color benefit from increased opportunities for ADUs in our city.
Very good.
Thank you, Mr. President.
First, I want to echo what Council Member Juarez said and recognize that we're recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day today.
I'll be downstairs as well celebrating with the community in Bertha Landis Night Room.
There are no items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's agenda.
And on Tuesday, I wanted to let folks know I'll be speaking with the University of Washington Student Government and also attending the Washington Housing Alliance dinner in the evening.
On Wednesday, I'll be taking a tour of the IOTSE, Local 15 Key Arena backstage tour.
These are the union men and women who make the shows possible, and we want to make sure that they have safe working conditions, and I'm excited to meet with them.
And on Friday, I'll be attending the Filipino Community Hey My Gun dinner, which I'm really looking forward to.
Excellent.
Council Member Gonzalez.
Thank you.
All right, so this week, there's nothing on this afternoon's agenda from the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.
My office will be doing a tour at the Muslim Housing Services.
agency at their invitation.
That'll be Tuesday, October 9th at 2 p.m.
Excited about learning more about the type of culturally and linguistically competent programs they provide to low-income and families experiencing homelessness in Seattle and throughout King County.
On Wednesday morning, October 10th at the wonderful bright and early hour of 730 a.m.
I'll be at the Crosscut Courage Awards breakfast where our former colleague Tim Burgess is one of the honorees who will be recognized with one of the Courage Awards.
On Thursday, October 11th at 4 p.m., my office will be volunteering at the North Helpline site.
We did this last year, had a really good time, and accepted Kelly's invitation to head back up and join them once again to volunteer some hours helping people get their food insecurity needs met.
And then lastly, I will be out of town from the October 30th through Tuesday, October 16th.
I had an opportunity to be invited by city of Philadelphia council member Helen Gimm to visit them in their city as they continue to deliberate and discuss the secure scheduling legislation that the city of Philadelphia is considering passing.
So she has asked me to come out and share some of Seattle's experiences with council members on the city of Philadelphia's council and to also meet with members of the community to talk to them about this particular law and other sort of work force labor standards issues that might be of interest to that community.
So I'm looking forward to being hosted in the city of Brotherly Love next Monday and Tuesday and look forward to reporting back to any of you that are interested how that trip went.
Excellent.
Thank you for doing that.
Council Member Herbold.
Thank you.
So there are no items from the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts Committee on the full council agenda today.
I'm sure before I came in, somebody mentioned, oh, jeez, I'm so sorry.
I just turned that off too.
I have two phones, I turned one off.
So, I'm sure somebody mentioned the Sound Transit elected board meeting last, no?
Well, we did a lot of great work, thanks to Council Member O'Brien's able chairing of that meeting, and we're moving recommendations from the elected leadership group on to the Sound Transit Board, further refining the options with the goal of having a preferred alternative by April 2019. So that was, that felt like we made a lot of progress in that meeting last Friday.
Major events coming up next week.
Well, first I just wanted to touch point of personal privilege.
This weekend, a couple of memorials that I attended with a heavy heart.
There's a memorial service for Neil Powers this Saturday.
Neil was a former aide to Councilmember Peter Steinbrook.
And I just want to say that City Hall was very well represented there, as well as many other people from different parts of the Seattle community.
connected to different issues that Neil was really deeply involved in, from homelessness to indigenous rights to gay rights.
So it will be very, very missed, and he will be in our hearts.
Also attended a memorial service for Jackie Dupree, who was another very beloved community member, very active in the West Seattle community.
and died suddenly and she was also a member of the Seattle Labor Choir who was at the event on Sunday singing some of her favorite labor songs in her memory.
Coming up this week, in addition to attending the Indigenous People's Day event here at BKL, I'm also on Wednesday going to be representing the Council at the 20th anniversary celebration month for Benaroya Hall.
and the symphony, and we'll be presenting our proclamation there that we did last week.
I also will be going to the Courage Awards Breakfast.
Council Member Gonzalez and I were actually participated in helping to select some of the recipients for the awards, and just want to give a shout out to Creative Justice, the recipient of the Arts Award, and that was the panel that I was on.
I'm also attending the Washington Conservation Voters Breakfast of Champions.
Excited to see Van Jones speak on Thursday morning.
Thursday afternoon, the Office of Film and Music is hosting a music safety summit, bringing together the music community to talk about some of the public safety challenges in the music community, one of those being prevalent and disturbing occurrences of sexual harassment and assault in music venues.
And then finally, Saturday I'm going to be attending a program that the city attorney heads up.
And it is focused on working with youth between the ages of 18 and 24. It's a pre-filing diversion program and I know other folks here at the council have had an opportunity to to see how this this program works and I'm really excited to see what the city attorney is doing.
Thanks Councilman Herbold.
Okay, I think we're we've gone around the table with that we'll stand adjourn and see everyone at two o'clock.
Bye!