Seattle City Council Briefing 2/14/22

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Happy Galentine's Day.

Let's say today is February 14th, 2022. The Council Briefing Meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.03.

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.

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Here.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council President Juarez.

I'm here.

Nine present.

Thank you.

So let's go to approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of February 7th, 2022 will be adopted.

Hearing or seeing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

Let's go to the President's Report.

On today's agenda, we will be hearing again from our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, OIR, to focus on the proposed state transportation package.

Council Member Herbold will also propose a proclamation to highlight the safety issues surrounding the unreinforced masonry.

And as a reminder, tomorrow, Mayor Bruce Harrell will be at our 2 p.m council meeting to deliver the state of the city address to the council and the public at large.

We anticipate that the state of the city address will be approximately 25 minutes and it will be our opportunity to hear from our new mayor and his perspective and priorities of his new administration.

So with that we'll go to item number three on the agenda and that's the state legislative session update OIR And I'll hand it over to Gail Tarleton.

Go ahead, Gail.

Thank you, Council President and members of the City Council.

We're here today to not only celebrate Galentine's Day, as the Council President said, but to celebrate the impending fiscal cutoff in the House and the Senate tomorrow at 5 p.m.

So our State Relations Director Quinn Majewski and our State Lobbyist Elsa Brown will give you an update on major pieces of activity the last few days and today.

And the council briefing was sent to you last night, and council also received from Quinn Majewski a summary of the move ahead Washington, which he will go into very shortly.

So turning over to you, Quinn.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, members of the council.

Happy to be here today.

As Gail mentioned, we are coming up tomorrow at 5 p.m.

on the House of Origin cutoff.

So just as a reminder, that is the deadline that bills have to move out of the chamber from which they originated.

So House bills have to be passed off the House floor.

Senate bills have to be passed off of the Senate floor.

We are closely tracking a number of bills that are of interest to you and interest to the city, and we'll go into those in a little bit.

I do want to provide a couple other high level updates before we do that however first.

The revenue forecast, the state's revenue forecast is going to be coming out with an update on Wednesday the 16th.

That is going to presage the release of the update or the proposals for the operating capital and transportation budgets.

We are expecting to see those either later this week or early next week.

So those will be coming out and we'll be monitoring those closely and looking for items of interest and items of impact to the city.

And then also something that we have been, and I know is of interest to many of you closely monitoring, last week, last Tuesday, just after our council briefing, the House and Senate transportation shares released a new transportation revenue package proposal.

And I'll go over some of those details now before we jump into the bills.

I'll start by saying, I know we've been talking about this and the legislature has been talking about this for several years now.

Some changes in legislative dynamics occurred during the interim, most notably a change in the Senate Transportation Chair.

Senator Hobbs was promoted to be the new Secretary of State with Kim Wyman leaving.

And Senator Leis stepped into his role as Transportation Chair.

I think that, combined with some other dynamics, allowed for the House and Senate to align more closely on their proposals.

You may recall in previous years the House had their sort of proposal and then the Senate had their version.

This year they have jointly come together to release a proposal, which I think speaks to some real movement and a better chance of something getting done this year.

The proposal has changed somewhat from one that we have reviewed previously.

It is smaller in scope.

We're looking at a $16.8 billion package, which I know sounds very large, but the proposals last year were 18 to 28, so this is scaled down.

Most notably, that scaling down has come by removing any new increase to the gas tax.

That was a major component of previous proposals, and that has been removed.

Instead, legislators are relying primarily on revenues derived from the Climate Commitment Act that was passed last year.

That is the state's new cap-and-trade, cap-and-invest program, so predominantly relying on those revenues, $5.4 billion.

They're also assuming $3.4 billion in funding from the reauthorization of the Service Transportation Act at the federal level, so assuming some federal funding.

There's also a proposal to institute a new tax on exported fuels, so fuels exported out of the state.

That would raise $2 billion.

There is a one-time transfer from the operating budget to the transportation budget of $2 billion.

And then there is sort of a smorgasbord, a litany of increases to various fees, raising just north of $1 billion.

So that's kind of the summary on the revenue side.

On the spending side, there's also been some shifts and changes.

Most notably, the proposal that was put forward has more money than previous proposals and more money than any revenue package we have seen in the state's history put towards multimodal funding.

So transit, bike, ped, green transportation and electrification.

That's all funding that's booked from the Climate Commitment Act.

It's about 5.4 billion in total.

A number of new and increased state grants that the city would be very competitive for.

The remainder of the package, It's, in the past I've described it as highway spending, but what it really is is 18th Amendment restricted, which just means that it has to be spent on certain sources.

And I make that distinction now because it's not really dedicated to highways in the way that we have understood it to be in the past and seen it to be in the past.

So there's about 3 billion in maintenance and preservation, which is a really sizable investment from the state's part.

There's $2.4 billion for fish passage barriers and the state's culvert obligation.

And then there is some funding for new projects within the 18th Amendment restricted account.

And there's some spending that I want to highlight that would impact the city of Seattle, either through WSDOT programs or directly on Seattle projects.

The most substantial, a lot of the transportation revenues have been declining since the pandemic, whereas other revenues have bounced back.

So a number of projects from the Connecting Washington 2015 transportation revenue package have been experiencing shortfalls.

And so this proposal would backfill a lot of those shortfalls, including the State Route 520 West End project.

which obviously is within the City of Seattle.

So that would receive $406 million in backfill there.

In terms of new projects, there's $50 million bookmarks for North Aurora pedestrian safety improvements, $25 million for the Ballard-Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor System improvements, and then $500,000 booked for the pedestrian improvements in White Center.

I will pause there and see if there are any questions, because I do want to save time for updates with regards to the bills that we're tracking for you all.

Before we go to Council Member Peterson, real quickly, Quinn, or let me just share with my colleagues, this was attached to the memo that we got from OIR, the last two pages.

There's an attachment that outlines the whole 16.8 billion.

And thank you, Quinn, for going through those.

Those are the things that you mentioned were exactly what I was going to just mention as well.

the North Aurora safety improvements, the white center one.

I'm also very excited that the tribes, their tribal transit mobility grants.

I don't know if I've ever seen that in there before.

So that's good.

So with that, I'm going to hand it over to council member Peterson and see that he has a question.

Thank you, Council President Juarez, and thank you, Quinn, and to your team.

I appreciate the briefing last week as well.

I know a lot of us are excited about the Democratic State Transportation Package and the projects you mentioned, like 520 and Aurora, et cetera.

Just for context, the $16 billion, that's spread out over 16 years, though.

Is that correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Thank you for clarifying that, Council Member.

So this is a 16-year proposal.

And of the sources of funds in the two resources bills, the House bill and the Senate bill, of that $16 billion spread out over 16 years, are there any sources that are more at risk than others?

And if those sources don't come through, do we know how the state would then prioritize the $16 billion in spending?

Sure.

I think the two that have maybe a little bit more uncertainty attached to them for a variety of reasons are the exported fuels tax and the one time transfer from the general fund.

So that's obviously not a.

in substantial amount of the package.

Those two are each 2 billion.

So combined it would be about 4 billion.

Unfortunately, council member, we don't really know necessarily what they would cut if for some reason those don't make it across the finish line.

I will say, obviously we're advocating on behalf of the city's interests and I think If those don't have sufficient support within the legislature, we'll see a revised proposal before something is passed, but obviously the chairs including it would indicate that it has at least some support and ability to pass if slightly shakier than other elements.

Thank you.

And there is a policy change in the legislation allowing for utilities to potentially be increased.

But as I understand it, in reading that legislation, that would not impact Seattle City Light and it would not impact Seattle Public Utilities.

Is that right?

Yeah, so the proposal contemplated includes a handful of new revenue options for cities that they would receive the authority to implement.

One would be a 0.1% councilmanic sales tax, very similar to our existing transportation benefit district authority.

The other would be a new 2% tax on select utilities.

I believe this is in the document that was sent.

This is listed as all utilities except electricity.

We've actually They've been rolling out information and official language on these bills sort of throughout the week, and we have some additional clarity there.

It actually would just be three specific utilities, and that would be natural gas, steam, and telephone.

So it wouldn't impact our municipal utilities here at the city.

And I would just note that that 2% tax would be something, if the package were to pass, that would be an authority that the city would gain and need to make a decision about whether or not to impose.

It wouldn't be something imposed on us.

Thank you.

And last question, my favorite topic, bridges.

I appreciate you highlighting a couple of bridge items that are important to us.

And it looks like it's still not much for bridges.

And I don't see the I-5 bridge to North Seattle.

I don't see that.

That has concrete literally falling from the bridge the belly of the bridge onto a couple of our parks.

How would that be funded for WSDOT to fix that?

Because I don't see that listed separately.

Yeah, so there's no specific call out for any sort of work on I-5 in that area that you're referencing Council Member.

I will say the 3 billion in maintenance and preservation, that additional funding certainly could go towards that.

And that's something that we would look to work with WSDOT on if this is passed on the implementation of where those dollars are going.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Are there any more questions for Quinn regarding this piece?

I'm not seeing any.

Gail, you want to keep walking us through this with your team?

Yes, indeed.

Thank you, Council President.

And we'll have Elsa give you as much up-to-date input on the moving train that is happening in Olympia virtually and physically right now.

Go ahead, Elsa.

So Quinn usually covers transportation, but I'll mention a few bills that we've seen move forward already before cutoff.

One is 5707, which would extend our automated traffic camera enforcement pilot.

I'm really encouraged to see that move with ease out of the Senate.

We have another bill that we're supportive of that would create more ease in renewal of our transportation benefit district.

Right now there's a limit on the number of times a city can renew that authority and this would eliminate that sunset.

So we're encouraged to see both of those move out of the Senate.

Another bill that a number of you have been following that we've been working on for quite some time is related to SEPA.

for tiny house villages and clarifying city authority around SEPA exemptions.

We saw that move out of the Senate, which was very encouraging, and we'll be working with House members on how to strengthen that policy in the House.

So some of those big city priorities have already moved, which is really nice to have that happen.

Eases your mind a little bit as you approach cutoff.

A few other bills in the housing space that we've followed for some time.

I know that this bill has maybe not been briefed this year, but came up a bit last year, which is 1099, which would add climate change response to the state's comprehensive planning framework.

That came out of the House, and so we're encouraged to see Representative Dewar's bill move out.

Another bill that moved out in the housing space is Representative Chopp's bill, Apple Homes for Health, which would provide some continuity for Medicaid community supports, and we're encouraging support of that bill this year.

I know some of you have caught up with our team on that one.

Some bills we're still awaiting action on, something I think many of you have indicated your interest In following to our offices 1782, the governor is missing middle housing proposal.

That bill is still awaiting a vote in the House.

It has been pulled to the floor calendar, but we have not seen it on the on the run list yet, so we'll be continuing to follow that bill quite closely and watch for a floor vote on that bill.

I think the other bill that some of you have been tracking quite closely is 1904, Representative Peterson's rental notice bill requiring notice to renters about increases in their rent above 7%.

That bill is also on House second reading and has not yet received a floor vote.

So we'll continue to watch that and provide you all with a more comprehensive update next week about bills that have made it through cutoff or have not made it through cutoff to continue on in the process this year.

I think maybe the final section that I would touch on really quickly is on public safety.

Many of you have been following updates to use of force legislation.

There has been movement on those bills.

The Senate Bill 5919, which would modify the standards for use of force in a number of areas, including establishing a definition of use of force and authorizing some vehicular pursuits passed out of the Senate last week, and a House Bill 2037, which has somewhat more limited reach than the Senate version, has also passed off the floor.

So both of those bills are continuing on through the process and have received their floor vote.

Thank you.

And Council President, That concludes our report, but we are happy to take questions and comments and any other concerns.

I know you said this in the memo, but can you just briefly for the viewing public rattle off the dates for when the cutoffs are and when session ends?

Yeah, happy to do that.

So it's House of Origin cut off tomorrow on February 15th.

Things move pretty quickly after that.

On February 24th, we will have the opposite House policy cut off.

So that's when bills that have made it over will have to make it out of the Senate policy committees or the House policy committees.

On February 28th, we have the opposite House fiscal cut off.

So those bills that make it out of policy committee will have to make it out of a fiscal committee if they're referred to a fiscal committee.

Um, on March 4th, we have the opposite house cut off where bills have to make it off the opposite house floor.

So, um, you know, there's still some time after that, which can be a little bit mysterious, but sometimes when a bill makes it over, it's amended in the opposite house.

So, you know, a house bill maybe made it through their committees, but in the Senate committees, there's further changes.

So from March 4th until sine die, there's the process of, um, reconciling the differences between House and Senate bills, and seeing if there's agreement on bills that have passed both from the House and the Senate on what version will become law, or if there isn't agreement, won't be able to make it through the process.

So sunny day is March 10th?

It is.

So this is an even year, so that means the House starts on the House side or the Senate side?

Bills.

So they always start on both sides, confusingly.

So, you know, they'll both cross over after House of Origin cut off.

Okay.

Well, is there anything else, Gail and team, Elsa and Quinn, you want to share with us before we say goodbye?

I think I see Council Member Mosqueda.

If you have a...

Oh, I didn't see your hand.

I don't see her anymore.

Hello.

Sorry, Madam President, I don't have my virtual hand up.

I had my real hand up.

I can't see your tile, though.

You're not on my screen.

Really?

I wonder if my audio is not working well.

Okay, well, I apologize.

I just wanted to follow up on the question that you just had a second ago, Council President.

Perhaps maybe the question for our OIR team was whether the budgets originating from the House or the Senate, depending on the year, and that's a great question, too.

I don't know.

This year, is the House or the Senate initiating the budget?

I forgot.

Well, in the biennium year, it trades back and forth.

So whoever introduced it in the biennium year, and I think it was the Senate in 2021, the House will introduce it in the next year.

So there's a likelihood that the House and the Senate operating budgets are going to come out at about the same time.

That's what we have been told.

In 2023, it will matter really a lot, and I think the House will, if I'm remembering from 2021, and Quinn, correct me if I'm wrong, because they do flip back and forth in the biennium year.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at when you flip back and forth.

I think the supplementals, they are so closely aligned.

And the revenue forecast, as Elsa mentioned, is coming out on the 16th.

And so they are ready to move as soon as that revenue forecast comes out.

And so they'll both want to come out pretty much the same time.

I don't know which side's bill number will carry the budget.

I don't know that yet.

Okay.

They may know that.

I don't know.

I don't know yet.

Well, I know it's just, it just, I just want to thank you because you, um, all three of you, um, including Sierra, who's not with us today, but, um, anyway, for providing with us and breaking down, um, every week now we're down to like nine topic issues, um, and what bills have hung on and which ones are gone now.

I noticed from just comparing week to week, I can just see where things are falling off.

So that's why I was just trying to track that.

So thank you for that.

Mr. President, a very quick federal affairs for all of you.

It looks like there will be a continuing resolution and that there is an effort to actually get an appropriations bill out by sometime in May.

An extraordinary thing could happen in Congress.

We might actually have an officially approved budget and not just a continuing resolution.

That's according to today's report from our federal lobbyist.

And next week, we'll see what happens.

You mean the bill back better, breaking it into pieces?

It's in negotiation again.

OK.

Right.

But in pieces?

Not necessarily.

OK.

OK, good.

Well, you know more than I do, as you should.

As of today.

And tomorrow, it could be back in pieces again.

OK, well, give me a call.

Call me.

I always will keep you all up to date as soon as we have a sense of what votes they're taking.

Well, with that, colleagues, is there any other questions that we have for our team here?

Nope.

I just want to double check with Council Member Mosqueda since she's back online here.

OK, so thank you so much, you guys.

And we will see you next week, same time.

Same time.

Thank you.

OK, bye.

That was our great Office of Intergovernmental Relations, OIR.

So with that, let's move on into the agenda.

It looks like we have a proclamation teed up here that Council Member Herbold has for signature.

Council Member Herbold, do you want to take us through your proclamation and we'll have the clerk do whether or not who will be affixing their name to your proclamation.

Thank you so much.

So every year on Valentine's Day or Galentine's Day, whichever you observe, the National Trust for Historic Preservation spreads love for historic places through their what's called a heart bombing campaign.

Heart bombing is the act of showering an older or historic place with tangible expressions of affection and devotion.

Today's proclamation recognizes the significant cultural and architectural unreinforced masonry buildings that are some of Seattle's most beloved community gathering places.

These are the sweethearts and the icons of many neighborhoods.

On this Valentine's Day, the council is pledging its adoration for our architectural and cultural past while reimagining the future with safe, seismically upgraded masonry buildings.

This afternoon, my office forwarded on some one-pagers from Historic Seattle on key unreinforced masonry buildings for each district and the city as a whole.

for the two at-large council members.

And the proclamation itself, Alex in my office sent it out last week.

And tomorrow, URM, Unreinforced Masonry Stakeholders, Historic Seattle, and the group ASAP will join us for a brief presentation directly following the Mayor's State of the City speech.

And I hope you can join me in affixing your signature.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I had a chance to look at your proclamation and I really appreciate the language of the Valentine's Day.

Heart bombing is the act of showering an older or historic place with tangible expressions of affection and devotion.

So maybe I can tell my spouse that and I will get some jewelry out of this.

So with that, is there any, does anyone have any questions of Council Member Herbold and her proclamation that we will vote on today and then she will present tomorrow?

Okay, not seeing any.

Madam Clerk, not seeing any concerns or questions or hands raised.

Will the clerk please call the roll of which council members would like to affix their signatures to the proclamation?

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 in favor.

Great, thank you.

So let's move on in our agenda to the preview of city council actions.

So this week, the lineup starts with council member Strauss, and then it will go to council member Herbold, council member Lewis, council member Morales, council member Mosqueda, council member Nelson, council member Peterson, council member Sawant, and then myself.

Council member Strauss.

Thank you, council president, colleagues.

Welcome to today.

Last week in District 6, I continue to hold operational coordination meetings with community leaders, governmental entities and non-governmental entities to make interventions to address homelessness in specific places in District 6. This work continues, and if you'd like to meet with me for status updates, more information, or to receive assistance, please do sign up for office hours.

Last week, I also met with the Ballard Brewery Coalition about safety improvements we can make to the brewery district.

And last Saturday, I joined Anissa Nunn, the mother of Mohamed Mohamed, a 15-year-old boy whose body was pulled from Seattle's Green Lake last July, as she and community members were canvassing the park and neighborhood to see if anyone may have information about what happened to Mohamed in his last hours of life.

There are many questions that are left unanswered.

You were at Green Lake between July 2nd and 14th of 2021. Mohammed's family is asking for you to look at your photos and videos to see if Mohammed was either in the background or if there is information that may be helpful to the investigation.

You can contact his family directly or reach out through my office and we'll put you in touch.

On Sunday, I joined the Green Lake Litter Patrol to pick up litter around the park.

The organizers meet every Sunday morning at 8 45 at the bathhouse parking lot.

They have litter pickers, vests and bags.

All you have to do is show up on.

I really want to thank all the volunteers who helped make it a successful event and to the organizers for making it happen every week weekend.

Last week in District 6, I also hosted my D6 office hours Thursday.

We met with four people from East Ballard, one from Loyal Heights, one from Crown Hill, one from Whittier Heights, and one from Tangletown.

I think almost every single meeting had discussed homelessness.

A traffic circle request was only one meeting.

Public safety, land use, and neighborhood vibrancy and zoning at large.

So I want to thank everyone.

And if This week, office hours are on Thursday from 2 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

again, and if you'd like to meet with me, please do sign up.

This week in District 6, we're continuing to host a public safety coordination meeting focusing on where the industrial and commercial areas border, again, to make a meaningful intervention into some of the issues that are occurring there.

This week, I'll also be attending the AWC Board Legislative Steering Committee meeting, and I'll be joining the Fremont Chamber of Commerce for a virtual coffee on Wednesday and then attend the Regional Transit Committee afterwards.

Last week, outside of District 6, citywide, I was happy to meet with Mayor Harrell.

We had a great discussion, and we're already partnering on a number of projects.

I look forward to continuing to work with him and his entire team on many things about the entire city and District 6 specifically.

I was also able to meet with Interim Budget Director Julie Dingley.

As many of you have heard through your briefings, We received the overview briefing regarding the current fiscal situation that is looming.

I also was able to meet with Patrick Arney, the executive director of Weld Seattle.

Weld provides housing and workforce development for people who have been incarcerated, and the program is highly successful by utilizing vacant buildings and homes that are set to be demolished.

If you want to know more or know of a vacant building that could be used, look them up at weldseattle.org.

I was also able to meet last week with Puget Sound Regional Council to discuss the Transportation Policy Board to again help with as Councilmember Peterson was talking about bridges, and I hope and I know that Councilmember Lewis will be talking about Ballard Interbay Regional Transportation Corridor.

It's great to partner with you both to get the infrastructure needs met in the BERT.

And lastly, I attended the meeting of PSRC's Transportation Policy Board.

I think this is where Council President Juarez calling this my diary.

Thanks for letting me do this.

Lastly, and most importantly, in the Land Use Committee, there is one item from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full agenda.

Council Bill 120253, which extends for six months, temporary floodplain regulations.

And there is one item from the Land Use Committee on today's introduction referral calendar legislation to expand the boundaries of transferable development rights program on First Hill.

The next land use Committee will be on Wednesday, February 23rd at 2 p.m.

There are currently two items confirmed for the agenda.

A vote on a quasi-judicial contract rezone of a property at 10713 and 10735 Roosevelt Way Northeast, and a briefing and public hearing on the First Hill TDR legislation.

With that, Council President, colleagues, are there any questions?

Seeing no further questions, I am excited to announce Council Member Herbold is back, as we've already seen, and I'm just excited to be able to pass it off to Council Member Herbold.

Thanks so much.

I am back, but I am still off camera, so hopefully I will continue my forward trajectory with healing.

Really appreciate all the kind wishes of healing that I've received from everybody.

And on that note, I want to also thank especially Councilmember Lewis for filling in for me last week and stepping up to chair the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

That was very kind and needed.

Really appreciate that Chief Diaz joined the committee to present.

to committee members the basic law, I'm sorry, I should say the pre-basic law enforcement training program that he's starting this spring.

You may recall that I sponsored for this training in the budget.

discussions and the council supported that training.

One really interesting bit about this training is not just the content of it and how it is designed to give recruits meaningful exposure to the unique communities that they will be serving and the organizational culture of SPD.

And it's designed to give them that foundation before they enter sort of the standardized statewide training.

But normally students are on the department payroll for months before they begin their formal training at the State Academy.

this sort of training curriculum that the chief has developed, make sure that while they are on the city payroll, we are working to give them more exposure to the unique communities of Seattle and what it means to do public safety work in the city.

So really, really appreciate that.

There's no Safety and Human Services Committee this week.

For next week's Safety and Human Services Committee meeting, just want folks to know, because I know that the year-end crime report went out last week.

We missed the opportunity to hear it in our committee last week, but we have invited SPD to come and present.

on the year-end 2021 crime report.

And then also, because of some of the conversations that have happened in last week's Economic Development Committee and some work that Councilmember Lewis and I have been doing, we've also invited SPD to come and talk about the existing Retail Theft Program.

from the Seattle Police Department currently operates.

Some other public safety related updates that folks might be interested to learn some more about.

The mayor's office let me know last week that they will will be sharing a proposed policy on ruses with me and other partners the second week of March.

I know there's a lot of public interest in the new SPD policy on dishonesty.

That is where the policy on ruses is sort of held within the policy manual.

It's the dishonesty policy.

And really appreciate the opportunity that the executive and the department are giving stakeholders the opportunity to review it before it's finalized.

Also, I know folks saw the stories in the Seattle Times and in the media about former Mayor Durkin's letter, which accurately included the council's amendments to the hiring bonus executive order adopted by the council in Resolution 233. to act on any mayoral emergency to refresh people's memory.

We modified the executive order that we would limit it until the end of 2021. There's no funding for this program in the 2022 budget.

And the council was in strong agreement.

We wanted to look at the needs of other departments for hiring bonus programs.

The action that the council agreed to was to authorize spending during 2021 and making available up to $500,000 in bonuses for 2021. You may recall that there were various proposals for providing funding for a 2022 budget bonus program, including one that I co-sponsored.

They did not make it into the 2022 budget.

and on December 30th at 6 p.m.

the former mayor sent a letter to the Community Safety Communications Center director and Chief Ghez saying the not have to adhere to changes to the executive order, and that those changes were not effective.

The city attorney's office, as we all know, did not provide this advice.

And the good news, though, is that Mayor Harrell's office quickly directed the departments to cease offering the bonuses just as soon as they became aware of this.

And I'm working with the mayor's office on addressing the issue related to the fact that in January, five SPD recruits and 13 new employees joined the CSCC and were offered bonuses.

Just a last reminder on this issue, the council adopted a request for a report from the city budget office for a citywide bonus hiring program focusing on frontline workers with a request of a date of March 1. I've encouraged the executive to respond sooner than March 1 if they're able so that we can consider this really important issue of 2022 bonuses.

Just as quickly as we get that report, I want to thank Mayor Harrell and Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell for the transparency and collaboration on resolving this issue.

on the Human Services Department side of things.

Last week, the Human Services Department announced the results of their supportive reentry RFP, which closed back in November.

The RFP provided about $1.4 million to fund truly appropriate reentry services.

and a rerouting program for communities currently and formerly incarcerated individuals.

This was a recommendation of the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force, where we were well represented by Madam President Juarez on that task force.

And in response to the RFP, Human Services Department received 26 proposals totaling nearly $6 million in requested funds.

The rating panel was comprised of community members and staff who were of and or work with the focus and priority populations.

And there were ten, nine, I'm sorry, there were nine upgraded proposals recommended for funding.

and receive funding.

And those organizations include Seattle Club, Boys and Girls Club of King County, Arms Around You, Community Passageways, Creative Justice, the East African Community Services, Freedom Project, Northwest Credible Messenger, and the University Beyond Bars.

Lastly, just want to note that as far as regional committee update, this week I'll be attending the Board of Health meeting on Thursday where we expect to vote on a repeal of the bicycle helmet mandate, harms and injuries experienced by BIPOC bicycle riders who bear the brunt of disproportionate enforcement countywide, and we'll also be acting on a resolution in support of helmet use.

as a tool to prevent injuries and fatalities associated with head injuries.

That's all I have for folks today.

Do any of my colleagues have any questions or comments?

All right, seeing none, it looks like I'm passing it on to Council Member Lewis, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Herbold.

Good to be with everybody here this afternoon.

My briefing will be fairly brief in keeping with what would be expected, I would hope.

So committee agenda for this coming Wednesday, February 16th of the public assets and homelessness committee.

We're going to be hearing a how the programming at Climate Pledge has been going so far and just closing the loop on the impressive process, engineering, and everything that went into creating that really critical facility here at the Seattle Center.

So looking forward to that opportunity to hear from the team from Climate Pledge.

We will also be considering several commission appointments to the Seattle Parks and Recreation commission on the March 2nd council or committee meeting for homelessness and public assets and homelessness.

My hope right now is to see if we can get an update from the Just Care team, which has not presented to the council for several months now, but we do try to check in with them on at least a quarterly basis, at least under I'm going to be working with my previous committee of homeless investments and assets.

So hopefully on March 2nd, we'll be able to get an update from the Just Care team on how things have been going in the downtown core, and the other catchment areas they've been working in, including Chinatown ID, as well as Little Saigon, over the course of the last couple of months.

what the horizon of that program looks like as it's currently anticipated to wind down in June and what ways we can preserve and expand potentially that capacity or buy it a little bit more time given that we're in this transition period on trying to make a big visible impact on homelessness in the city of Seattle.

So it'll be interesting to hear what lessons we've learned from that and what we might be able to do to help out with those looming deadlines as relate to just care.

And they've generously agreed to come on March 2nd.

And I believe Deputy Mayor Washington will be available to join us as well to talk about how we might move forward as a city family in addressing those issues.

Moving on to some of the departments under the public assets committee, happy to give the weekly report from clean cities between January 31st and February 5th, the clean city initiative removed We have collected 3,183 needles and collected 68,220 pounds of trash from 35 encampment cleanup locations.

Of course, we will continue to monitor the Clean City Initiative, which has really been stepping up its game throughout the first quarter of this year, and really appreciate them transmitting to us their statistics for briefing every week so we can share with the general public and members of the Council.

The Seattle Public Library submitted information to me that the windows at the Madison and Seattle Central locations that had been vandalized have been fixed so patrons can go to those locations and no longer see windows that have been damaged by vandalism.

I appreciate the library for sending that update along.

to indicate that that work order had been completed.

We know that, at least in the case, I believe, of the Central Library, a vehicle had driven into the building in March of 2021, which had caused considerable damage.

And it's good to see that that has finally been addressed.

Also, the two finalists for Chief Librarian were interviewed last week.

And the board of trustees is expected to make final decisions in late February or early March regarding who will be our new chief librarian.

So I appreciate members of the public that are tuning in and weighing in on that critical decision as we look forward to replacing our last permanent librarian, Marcellus Turner, who moved on to new opportunities.

Finally, I do want to recognize the announcement today from Expedia in my district that Expedia will be reopening starting officially on April 4th.

This comes along with a similar announcement from Microsoft, which will be returning to a hybrid working on their campus in Redmond.

It's really great to hear that Expedia, which put so much time and resource coming over from the east side, to really build out the old Amgen campus in the Interbay neighborhood and really develop that space into a big, robust, activated campus.

It's really good to hear that they are going to be making the bold decision to come back officially on April 4th.

give that big vote of confidence to us here in the city.

That campus employs 3,000 people who are going to be coming back to work either full-time on campus or in a hybrid posture.

It's a really great vote of confidence as we expect to have more firms making announcements that they will be returning to work and activating the city center.

Really, really pleased to see this great neighbor in the Interbay neighborhood returning.

and returning their 3,000 employees to this critical urban campus and really validating the decision that Expedia made to relocate from the east side to Seattle and take advantage of that opportunity at Amgen several years ago.

And I know that they had just finished it before COVID struck and didn't really have much time to move in.

So I really hope that now in the post-COVID era, they can make full use of of that location and that campus in the Interbay neighborhood and really make it their own.

So I look forward to seeing that return to work from Expedia and looking forward to other firms following in that example and making similar plans to return to work and look forward to our work as a council and the city government and the investments and the strategy necessary to ease and support the decision of firms to return to work in the coming months.

And with that, Madam President, I don't have anything further and we'll hand it over to Council Member Morales.

Sorry, unless there's any questions for my presentation, but otherwise I'll hand it over to Council Member Morales.

Seeing none, I'll hand it over to Council Member Robbins.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Lewis.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Let's see, I want to start by letting you know that there are no items from my committee on today's agenda.

Last week, the Neighborhoods, Education, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee met.

We had a briefing from the Arts Department on their current grant programs.

And we did vote to recommend confirmation of two Human Rights Commission reappointments.

I believe those will be coming next week to full council.

We also received a briefing from the Department of Education and Early Learning.

on the rollout of their youth-led social justice grants.

I mentioned last week there was a technology issue that resulted in dozens of students receiving notification that they had been awarded grants when they had not.

So I want to thank Director Chappelle and his team for being very responsive.

I had heard about this from constituents who were concerned about the young people who were very confused and unsure about their status.

So the department attended my committee, and I want to thank them for coming.

You know, one of the responsibilities, key responsibilities we have is to provide oversight of our departments and how they function and provide service.

So in order to ensure transparency about these mistakes, I invited the department so that we could hear about what happened, and really, more importantly, to hear about how the department plans to prevent things from happening again.

Director Chappelle indicated that in order to repair the harm done to the young people who sought to participate, they were able to notify all of the applicants that their proposals will be funded.

So, excited that young people will be able to participate in the grant program.

We had originally 17 The intent was to be able to fund 17 awards.

We had 82 applicants.

And so my understanding is that all 82 will receive some funding to be able to support their projects.

The next committee meeting is Friday, February 25th at 930. Moving on, last week my staff and I visited King's Hall, part of the UW Laundry Facility project.

We went along with folks from the Office of Housing, the Arts Department, SDCI, DON, Arts, and FAS.

really to get a sense of how the space could be temporarily activated for community use.

As I've been saying for I think almost two years now, folks in the neighborhood are really in Mount Baker neighborhood are very interested in figuring out how we can activate space around that facility, that particular apartment building and the spaces that are around it.

So we will continue to pursue what we might be able to do there.

I also met with folks in the CID Little Saigon area.

We had the first of our what will become regular meetings to hear from small businesses in the area and from residents.

I had a separate meeting with a mutual aid organization.

You may have seen an article in the International Examiner over the weekend about the egg rolls – they call themselves egg rolls – who are very interested in finding really meaningful ways to support folks.

in the neighborhood.

Right now they've been, for some time now, they've been providing Sunday meals.

They've also been providing clothing, PPE, and other essentials to folks who are, particularly folks who are living unhoused in the area.

And they're asking for our help in figuring out how to connect people to services and to job opportunities.

So we are continuing to meet with them and we'll continue to see what we might be able to do to provide meaningful support to people there.

My staff also met with CORD, which is an organization in South Seattle particularly focused on Rainier Beach, South Park, and the Brighton neighborhood, Hillman City area of South Seattle.

This is a group of folks who seek to increase access to capital, particularly for black developers so that they can more equitably compete for purchasing and developing property.

And this is a a coalition that has been organizing in the South End for two or three years now and are really coming together now to look at different ways that they can support, particularly support Black developers and project managers who want to be able to lead and drive the kind of changes that they want to see in the neighborhood.

Starting on Wednesday the 16th, I will be participating with Real Change.

Their vendor week starts this week, so I'm excited to be participating.

It'll be virtual, but I'm nevertheless excited to be one of the vendors for the week and look forward to working with Canada Jones, who is the person that I am going to be partnered up with.

Thank you Real Change for all you do to support our neighbours.

And let's see, finally, colleagues, I do want to address the eviction moratorium that.

We know will be, has been a topic of conversation for the last several days, really for the last two years as the pandemic has taken a toll on our neighbors.

We know that low income renter families have been particularly hard hit and are dealing with high stress, especially if they are folks who are deemed essential workers who have had to be out in their communities or who have just experienced the hardship of the pandemic.

None of that has changed and certainly won't change by the end of February.

We know that Omicron is showing signs of slowing, but nevertheless, we still have over 300 cases a day in the city of Seattle, which is higher than we had prior to December of last year.

Come March, COVID will still be here.

People will still owe rent.

Neighbors will still be missing work.

And really until renters have had a chance to catch up on their rent debt, I think it's important for us to reconsider this decision.

I want to make sure that renters understand their rights.

So we have a winter eviction ban that will be in place until March 31st.

and it will return on December 1st.

So that provides some level of eviction protection.

But we also have the civil emergency that is still in place.

And that means two things.

You know, there's a lot of talk about the 2020 ordinance we passed that provides six months of defense following the end of the moratorium, the eviction moratorium.

But I wanna remind folks that last year, my office brought and this council passed legislation to ensure a defense to eviction for those with an inability to pay rent during the civil emergency and for the following six months.

So I want folks to know that this is another layer of protection that doesn't end in February, and it remains in place until six months after the COVID civil emergency ends.

Additionally, in 2020, my office brought, and this council passed, an update to the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance to ensure that in most cases, if you're served an eviction notice, if you're taken to court for an eviction, or if you're evicted during the civil emergency, it is a Seattle Fair Housing violation if a future landlord tries to use that to deny you housing.

So these are certainly not going to stop any trauma from an end of an eviction moratorium, but I do want folks to understand that there is at least some additional protection for people.

Nevertheless, this isn't going to slow if we end the moratorium at the end of the month, that isn't going to slow a potential surge in displacement and homelessness that could result in ending that.

So I really want to urge the mayor to reconsider the eviction moratorium to allow it to extend past the end of February and at least, you know, give tenants a chance to catch up on rent now that folks are at least somewhat able to go back to work.

That is all I have.

Two last things.

This week we do have a new staff member joining us.

I am very excited that we will be welcoming Evelyn Chow who will be serving as our Community Outreach and Communications Manager.

Evelyn will be coming to us from Ingersoll Center where they have served as the Economic Justice Manager.

So if you see Evelyn around please be sure to say hello.

and lastly council president i would like to ask to be excused from next monday's council briefing and next tuesday's council meeting uh february 21st and 22nd and that is all i have colleagues uh if there are questions yeah i think i can i think we do the uh next monday's holiday

So the 21st is a holiday.

That is correct.

Council President, excuse me, it's Jodi.

I need to say this tomorrow afternoon anyway, don't I?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Thank you.

That's what I was going to say.

Way to get on it, Jodi.

I was going to say that.

Thank you.

OK.

Any questions?

I do not see any questions.

Council Member Mosqueda, did you?

No.

OK.

That is all.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much Council Member Morales.

I want to say Happy Valentine's Day to everyone as well and want to encourage folks to spread the love this Valentine's Day and donate some blood.

Our local blood supply is hitting a record low and we really want to stand in partnership with organizations like Bloodworks Northwest who are encouraging folks on this Valentine's Day to sign up to give blood.

Donating blood is the safest and the most simplest process now and blood donation has helped to make sure that we are saving lives and truly making sure that we're there for folks in these times of emergencies.

So thank you for considering signing up to give blood.

It's at schedule.bloodworks.org is a great place to start to sign up to give blood.

Colleagues, the next Finance and Housing Committee meeting is this week on February 16th at 9.30 a.m.

We have four items on our agenda.

We'll have the appointment to the Sugary Sweetened Beverage Community Advisory Board from the Council.

We will be considering the confirmation of Julie Dingley to serve as Director of the City Budget's Office at this meeting.

I want to thank all of you for your questions that you provided.

Interim Director Dingley has responded to the robust questionnaire that we sent her, and that's going to be shared with all of you, so please do read it in advance.

And if you're not members of our committee but do have questions or would like to attend, of course, you're welcome to.

Please let my office know first.

We will also have a briefing and possible vote on the Seattle Rescue Plan 4. We've already done three Seattle Rescue Plans, and this will be Seattle Rescue Plan 4 that we'll be considering in our committee.

All of those materials should be published online.

And finally, I'm excited to announce that we're going to have a community panel talking about the cannabis industry in Seattle.

Cannabis workers are going to talk about their experience in the industry and the need for safety and training and workforce development training, especially for cannabis workers in these times.

We've seen a lot of reports.

about the impacts of not having equitable access to being able to work in the cannabis industry in terms of small business owners, especially impacting BIPOC small business owners.

We've seen other reports about the need for additional safety for these workers.

And we will talk a little bit about how investments from this industry should be going back in, especially to black and brown communities, which have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.

and how in the years after legalization we can continue to work towards those equity goals in the cannabis industry.

For full council, there are no items from the Finance and Housing Committee on this week's full council agenda, and I did want to provide you with an update on some of the items that we have been working on in the last week and what's coming up ahead.

In terms of last week, I did have a chance to go on a walking tour in Belltown.

I mentioned that last Monday as well.

This was a walking tour with folks from the Belltown Business Association, the Belltown Community Council, and other neighborhood organizations.

We talked about the need for investments in small businesses, as small businesses are seeking to sustain or open up after COVID, the need for additional public space and lighting, cleaning investments in the neighborhood, and making sure that folks feel safe, whether they're workers there or folks who are residents, and continuing to encourage patrons to come to our smallest businesses in that area.

I'll keep council members updated as we send out action steps from that conversation.

If it has overlap with your committee, we'll make sure to loop you in on the dozen or so action steps that have been requested of us.

This morning's already been a busy morning, so two things we did this morning.

First, I had the chance to join our former colleague, Councilmember Bagshaw, along with probably about 25 volunteers at Sound Foundations Northwest, and we built tiny houses.

Speaking of spreading the love on this Valentine's Day, we put together tiny houses, and this is, as you all know, Sound Foundations Northwest works with an all-volunteer crew.

We are continuing to track the $200,000 that needed to have gone to them last year in the Seattle Rescue Plan and appreciate that the new mayor's office, along with the regional government, excuse me, the Regional Homelessness Authority, is working to try to expedite the RFP that will go out for helping to stand up more tiny house villages.

But that was just a great example at Sound Foundations Northwest of how people come together and can build those houses.

on an assembly line process that Barb the Builder has constructed.

It was great to be back there and to see our former colleague.

This morning I also joined about 50 members of Teamsters 174. Teamsters 174 members have been on the strike line since Thanksgiving.

From Thanksgiving to now Valentine's Day, Teamsters members have in the concrete and in the concrete driver industry have been calling for a fair contract.

These Teamster members have been on strike against six of our major concrete suppliers, and it's resulted in thousands of hours of not being able to be on job sites that are helping to rebuild our city, and these workers want to be there.

But in order to be on our job sites, whether it's through sound transit jobs, whether it's building affordable housing, whether it's helping to supply some of the concrete for the West Seattle Bridge, the thing that's needed first is a fair contract.

And these employers have not been coming to the table and bargaining in good faith as required by labor law.

So standing in solidarity there today with them and every day until the employers sit down at the table and negotiate in good faith.

This morning, Congressman Smith was there and Congressman Adam Smith said this stance still comes at the expense of working people and hurts families.

The actions by the employers, seem to indicate a greater interest in undermining unions rather than coming to the table to negotiate in good faith.

I echo that sentiment and I want to continue to share that this council has heard a lot of supportive comments for the workers and their right to be out there striking and we are rallying behind them to make sure that they get a good contract and that we get trained and skilled union members deploying concrete Whether it's in Northgate or in the South End, we want to make sure that these union members from Teamsters 174 have their contract fulfilled and that we have the infrastructure of our city's needs met.

And we do that by fulfilling the needs of workers.

You can find out more on our website as well.

We put information out about where to go to support the Teamsters Strike Fund.

I want to make sure that folks get the chance to donate to that if they're interested in doing so, because it is a really important way to support them.

and all of the work that they've been doing on the line.

As we know that a lot of folks have been faced with hardship.

They mentioned some of their union members sleeping in their car because they haven't been able to keep up with some of their bills.

And this really, the strike fund really does help out.

So please check that out on our website.

This week, I'm going to be doing a webinar with Local Progress.

This is a group of progressive local electeds across our country who have come together to talk about how to lift up working families and invest in our communities in an equitable way pre-COVID and especially now.

So I'll be highlighting the work that our city council did with the American Rescue Plan Act funds and the ways that we invested those dollars, especially to to invest directly into workers like child care providers, immigrants and refugees, and working families.

Along with my colleagues, we'll be joining the Board of Health meeting on Thursday.

We will be considering legislation to eliminate the helmet law.

I want to direct you to Seattle's transportation We've been working with a number of different teams.

We've been working with the transportation equity group, which is staffed from members of SDOT's Vision Zero, transportation equity, bicycle master plan, and mobility solutions teams.

they recommended repealing the helmet law.

Critically, SDOT recommends pairing repeal with a holistic systems-based approach for focusing on engineering and engagement efforts to increase safety for people bicycling, centering on BIPOC families and communities and on people experiencing homelessness.

In doing so, SDOT says, Seattle can be more effective at advancing our city's safety, sustainability, and racial equity goals.

I think that's an important nexus to tie back to what SDOT has evaluated, and just by way of education for our colleagues, I want to note that an all-ages helmet law is extremely rare.

examples are very limited, and even in those cities that do have an all-ages helmet law, Seattle is one of the very few, and Tacoma just repealed their helmet law in 2020 in July, notably because of the impact on racial equity concerns and the bias that is going into enforcement.

Court records from a decade ago show that black cyclists in Seattle were three and a half times more likely than white cyclists to be ticketed by SPD for not having a helmet on.

And then a decade later, the average disparity was about four times.

So this is about racial equity, and we will also be working to pass a resolution simultaneously that talks about how we can do education and outreach that does not involve Seattle Police Department.

Madam President, the last thing on my list here is just a very quick note as well about the eviction moratorium.

As Council Member Morales noted, with the eviction moratorium going away today, we know there is a huge need for rental assistance beyond what has already been allocated.

And if the policy is going to be reconsidered, as Council Member Morales noted, that's great.

I want to be a part of that conversation as well.

But we also must continue to get funding out the door for rental assistance.

Our state and federal partners together combined gave us about $59 million that has been allocated to rental assistance.

Of that, about $34 million has been spent, and so the remaining amount to go out the door is about $25 million.

That's the announcement that came from Mayor Harreld last week, that this is funding that we need to get out the door ASAP to make sure that folks are getting rental assistance.

I want to make sure to clarify to our state partners, to our federal partners, this is not 25 new dollars or additive dollars.

This is 25 million dollars that we already had approved and there is still an incredible need for us to work in partnership with our state and federal partners to get additional rental assistance.

We have been in communication with members of the state legislature to make that ask for additional rental assistance dollars and we will continue to do so.

through the funding that's being requested at the federal level as well.

United Way of King County's rental assistance program has been efficient and effective at getting assistance out to those who need it.

And we're continuing to see that the largest number of funding is going into BIPOC households.

I want to thank partners like Chief Seattle Club and El Centro de la Raza, who have been working hard to get rental assistance out the door to more.

And we also know that 96% of rental assistance dollars have gone directly to landlords.

So I hope that dispels any misinformation out there that tenants are somehow receiving the money directly.

This is also for supporting our smallest landlords, which we know has been an issue that folks have called in about.

So I'm grateful that we've had the backstop of federal dollars.

I'm grateful that we have the backstop of the council's six-month COVID eviction defense.

And we also really need to expedite getting the dollars that the council has passed, the $200 million in affordable housing, through our processes so we can build the housing so that more people have affordable housing to move into and amplify.

rental assistance to add to the existing 25 million that's out there.

Madam President, that concludes my comments and I don't see any hands up.

Oh, excuse me, Madam President.

I do see, wow, I see two hands up.

I am the lucky council member today.

Okay, I see Council Member Herbold and then Council Member Nelson.

Yes, thank you so much.

Councilman Mosqueda, your comments about the helmet law.

I also gave a report about the helmet law, but I was talking about the Thursday Board of Health action.

It sounded like you were talking about something else or I may have misheard.

Is there a recommendation for the city to take action?

I know there was a red flag.

Councilmember Herbold, thank you for clarifying, and I'm sorry I didn't note that it was in addition to what you said.

It's the same meeting, Board of Health meeting on Thursday, and I was just citing a report from 2021 from SDOT to try to make sure that folks who are not with us at Board of Health know how our department through the Seattle Department of Transportation has been considering such a repeal and that they have weighed in with support for that repeal, in addition to doing additional outreach and education that does not involve Seattle Police Department.

Okay, thank you so much for the clarification.

That working group also worked very closely with the Inspector General, Inspector General Judge that led to the Chief, Chief Diaz, the end of 2021, making the statement before the Board of Health action that they intend, regardless of what the Board of Health does, hopefully we will vote to repeal, but that the city's policy is to deprioritize enforcement of that law.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

That's a great reminder, yes.

Council Member Nelson?

Thank you very much.

I just wanted to second your comments on the concrete driver's strike and note that this is relevant to public projects because we've got Sound Transit and other public projects that are being delayed by this.

So that is extremely relevant for the city of Seattle and as part of the taxing jurisdiction.

And I don't know offhand the projects that Seattle is lead on, but those are being delayed as well.

And I talked to Community Roots Housing, and they mentioned that they are already about $850,000 delayed that they've lost because of the concrete strike.

And it totals about $15,000 a day on their two public affordable housing projects that they're trying to get built.

Just wanted to thank you for making those comments and note that this is impacting the things that we're actually trying to get done to meet our policy goals.

And thank you.

And I would emphasize as well, the Housing Development Consortium, who also sent letters to the employers, really emphasized the employer side of this, that the employer needs to come to the table.

They need to bargain in good faith.

So I appreciate that Housing Development Consortium sent that message in solidarity with the workers who are trying to get those employers to the table, because it really hinges on those employers and companies.

we're going to be negotiating in good faith as required by labor law.

And for anybody who's concerned about West Seattle Bridge, affordable housing, sound transit, then we ought to also jointly be concerned about the behavior of these employers, not bargaining in good faith.

So I hope that message is sent loud and clear and that we continue to stand in solidarity with the workers who are asking them to come to the table and at least bargain.

Thank you.

Oh, Council Member Nelson, I believe you're next.

So I will just hand that microphone right back over to you.

Thank you very much.

There is nothing from the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee on City Council agenda this week.

At my meeting last week on February 9th, we hosted a panel of business owners and representatives of neighborhood business districts.

including the Ballot Alliance, the U District Partnership, Alliance for Pioneer Square, the Soto BIA, to discuss the impacts of rising crime on their businesses, workers, and customers.

You can see that on Seattle Channel, obviously, and there are also some clips on our website.

But I insist on saying rising crime, both violent and property, to counter the misinformation that we're seeing in some blogs that this crime is not in fact increasing or that it's merely anecdotal.

Because in fact, according to SPD's crime dashboard, property crime did increase 8% from 2020 to 2021. And that does not really even reflect the reality of what's going on out there because, as we heard, many small business owners do not report incidents because either they don't have time to wait for an officer to come in to give a statement or they don't plan on submitting an insurance claim because they're afraid of their premiums going up.

That was discussed, and I just wanted to say that all the council members did receive the recommendations that were put forward by the participants, and they are now posted on my website if you want to see the steps that they're suggesting the city could take that would help document and mitigate, ideally reduce crime, but things that we could do right now that would also show some coordination amongst departments that would really help them.

So that's a recap of my meeting last week.

Our next committee meeting was scheduled for February 23rd, but it has been canceled and you My committee members probably received a notice on that.

So let's see, last week I attended the Community Technology Advisory Board where we learned about what our major carriers are doing to advance digital equity.

Moving forward to this week, this morning I met with Kitty Wu and Daniel Pak of the Music Commission.

to learn about their priorities for invigorating Seattle's music industry.

And so that was exciting to learn more about what they're doing, what they want to do in the future.

No surprise they're interested in sort of rebooting the Office of Film and Music.

But anyway, I look forward to learning more at their next meeting.

And this coming week, I am attending the Regional Transportation Committee as an alternate on Wednesday.

So that's my bailiwick, but I wanted to also comment on core.

CORD.

Council Member Morales, I have been in conversations with Curtis Brown, who's sort of leading up this effort.

And the list of proposals they've got to meet those goals is really compelling.

And so I just wanted to say thank you for bringing that up.

And if there's anything I can do to support those efforts, let me know.

Because there are things that we could do to help, especially with access to capital there.

So that is all I have to say and I will ask for any questions.

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

Thank you, Councilmember Nielsen.

Colleagues, on tomorrow afternoon's full City Council agenda, there are no items related to our Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities.

Our next Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities is tomorrow, Tuesday, February 15 at 9.30am.

Most of our committee time this week will be spent with Sound Transit as our guest to discuss the draft environmental impact statement for the next big phase of implementing the West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions.

The voluminous draft EIS is on Sound Transit's website and public comments are due by April 28. As we know, Seattle is ably represented on the Sound Transit Board by our own City Council President, Deborah Horan, and our Mayor, Bruce Harrell.

In addition to the multiple community advisory groups, our Council's Transportation Committee is making itself available at key junctures to serve as an additional venue to communicate and receive information on these regional transit issues impacting Seattle.

The draft EIS is a massive collection of documents, including a 40-page cover letter, 58-page executive summary, followed by six chapters, 30 appendices, and many more tables and figures, so this overview at committee will be very helpful.

At the virtual table tomorrow morning, we will also have our Seattle Department of Transportation as well as the highly experienced Marshall Foster, who is our city's new designated representative for the executive.

Please consider this as an invitation to all council members to attend the committee tomorrow, even if you're not a member of the committee.

This concludes my report.

Any questions before we turn it over to Council Member Sawant?

Okay, Council Member Sawant.

I thank you, Councilor Peterson.

Good afternoon, everyone.

There are no items on tomorrow's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is this Friday, February 18th at 9.30 a.m.

At this meeting, we will discuss with renters and renter rights advocates about Mayor Harrell's decision to end the eviction moratorium at the end of this month.

My office has asked City Council Center staff to draft a resolution modifying the initial emergency order establishing the eviction moratorium to extend its duration until the official end of the COVID public health emergency.

This legislation would address the most urgent need of our city's renters and respond to the call from the 40 organizations of renter and housing advocates, union members, and socialists in the Stay Housed, Stay Healthy Coalition.

Mayor Howell's decision to end the pandemic moratorium is a plan to allow the eviction of thousands of working-class renters in Seattle and is unacceptable and inhumane.

Those facing eviction are disproportionately Black working-class renters and other communities of color.

We know this from before the pandemic.

Mayor Harrell claims that COVID cases steadily declining, that's a quote from his press release, justifies the end of the eviction moratorium.

Yet the fatality rate from COVID is still frighteningly high, both in the United States and globally.

In fact, the daily fatality rate is still nearly as high as during the peaks of earlier waves of the pandemic.

Ending the eviction moratorium now could lead to a deadly wave of evictions and increased homelessness in the midst of this ongoing public health crisis.

As I said, I will be hosting renters and organizers at the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee on Friday, February 18 at 9.30 a.m.

to discuss the legislation from my office.

to extend the eviction moratorium through the end of the COVID emergency.

I hope the council members who spoke today in favor of maintaining the eviction moratorium will support the resolution I am bringing forward.

Just a quick correction, the winter eviction ban lasts through March 1st, not March 31st.

The winter eviction legislation was brought forward from my office and the renters rights movement in 2020 and the legislation as we brought forward said the winter moratorium should last five months to the end of March each year.

However, an amendment proposed by Council Member Strauss unfortunately passed at that time with a four to three vote with the support of Council Members Mosqueda, Lewis, and Peterson, which shortened the winter eviction ban to three months, ending on March 1st each year.

So in a sense, Mayor Howell has chosen to extend the pandemic moratorium only until the winter eviction ban itself ends for this year and not one day longer.

I also want to stress that the defenses against eviction that Council Member Morales described are important, but they are not a substitute for a moratorium on eviction.

The moratorium is different from a defense against eviction because the moratorium means that landlords cannot send renters to court in the first place.

In order to use a defense against eviction, renters need to go to eviction court.

And already, and this is a statistic I'm about to say is from not just the pandemic, from before the pandemic, statistically, half of renters facing eviction never make it to eviction court and are evicted by default.

And it's often the most vulnerable renters in the first place who get eviction notices.

And this is an issue that we've discussed in my committee many times, and it is a legislation that my office intends to bring forward to address the problem of default evictions.

But right now, that is the problem.

And so while the defenses to evictions are extremely important, And I was a co-sponsor of one of the legislation which was sponsored by Council Member Morales and I strongly support them, but we also need to extend the pandemic moratorium through the end of the public health emergency.

Tomorrow I will join Starbucks workers and labor movement leaders and union members and activists and socialists in a protest at Starbucks headquarters starting at 8 a.m.

This rally is being organized by the Seattle Starbucks Workers United, many local unions, Socialist Alternative, the Democratic Socialists of America, and my council office.

As I explained last Tuesday when the city council voted on the Starbucks Union Solidarity Resolution from my office, the company retaliated against workers organizing for union and fired all seven members of a Memphis, Tennessee stores organizing committee.

These wrongly fired Starbucks workers, now known as the Memphis Seven, announced their union campaign on Martin Luther King County, sorry, Martin Luther King Jr.

Day last month, linking their fight for a union and better working conditions to King's unwavering fight for the poor, the working class, and the oppressed under capitalism.

Starbucks workers in nearly 80 stores across the country now are undertaking a courageous unionizing effort against one of the most powerful corporations in the world.

I'm happy to announce that among the newly announced stores that are unionizing is the roastery on Seattle's Capitol Hill, which is one of the flagship stores of the corporation.

If successful, a Starbucks union would be a monumental step forward for the entire fast food industry and service sector workers and would give confidence to workers at other megacorporations like Amazon and McDonald's who also want to fight back against their own exploitative bosses.

Just hours after the Memphis workers were fired, they organized a picket outside their store chanting, quote, say it loud, say it proud.

Memphis is a union town, end quote.

This is exactly the kind of response we need when we run into this kind of vicious union busting tactics.

And this rally tomorrow morning is part of a coordinated nationwide action to speak up again in solidarity with the Memphis 7 and demand that Starbucks stop union busting and immediately reinstate the Memphis 7 workers who were unjustly fired.

And we know this is not the first retaliatory action Starbucks has taken against the workers.

In Memphis, in late January, Starbucks shut down their store ahead of a solidarity action organized by the workers.

Now the company has taken the union busting to the next level by trying to cut ahead of the store's organizing efforts.

The labor movement cannot allow Starbucks executives and billionaires to get away with their brazen union busting.

If they do, we can be sure that Starbucks will fire as many workers as necessary and continue these union busting tactics to stop the momentum of the struggle.

And that is why This nationwide coordinated day of action to defend the jobs and get them reinstated for the Memphis 7 is extremely important.

And of course, we need to follow this up with more escalated action because we know that Starbucks is now going to escalate their union busting as well.

I urge members of the public who are watching this briefing to join us tomorrow Tuesday, February 15th at 8 a.m.

at the Starbucks headquarters on Utah Avenue South to tell CEO Kevin Johnson that we will not back down until the union busting of the corporation ends.

That is my report.

Do council members have any questions before I end my report and pass it on?

I don't see any hands, zoom hands raised.

So if there are no questions or comments that will end the report from my office and Council President Juarez, I hand it to you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

So I have a few items to share with you all, and I will be brief.

There are no items from the Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

The next committee meeting is on March 7th at 9.30.

In regards to Sound Transit, I attended the Sound Transit Ridership Experience Operations Committee last week.

During the meeting, we heard from CEO Peter Rogoff, who detailed the findings of an investigation into the train stalling after the Apple Cup, which was on November 26th, 2021. Mr. Rogoff also explained what operational improvements Sound Transit's Sound Transit will be making to ensure that this problem doesn't happen again.

As Council Member Peterson pointed out, the DEIS is out.

It's been out.

I invite you all to go to tomorrow morning's council meeting and Council Member Peterson's committee and be careful what you ask for because they love their PowerPoint.

So get ready for that one.

Make sure you have a big cup of coffee.

My next Sound Transit meeting is Thursday, February 24th.

Let's see.

that's all i have for y'all except i just want before we adjourn as uh council member morales started to state next monday is a holiday so we will not have a council briefing next monday on the 21st and so our next council briefing will be monday two o'clock on february 28th and i is there anyone that has any questions about what i've just shared nope Okay, so with that and the good of the order, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Bye.