Seattle City Council Briefing 4/18/22

you and good afternoon.

Today is Monday April 18th.

I'm Deborah Juarez.

Will the meeting please come to order?

It is 2.01 and clerk will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Morales?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Councilmember Nelson?

Present.

Councilmember Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

And Council President Juarez.

Here.

Seven present.

Great.

We will keep moving in our agenda then.

We'll go to approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of April 11th will be adopted.

Not hearing or seeing any objections, the minutes are indeed adopted.

Let's have the record reflect that Council Member Morales has joined us, as well as Council Member Mosqueda, and Council Member Nelson's here now.

I think we're all here, everybody.

Okay, after that, let's go to the President's Report.

So before I give my President's Report, I just wanna thank all of you just to share this is Council Member Herbold usually does our public health announcement.

Many of you know that I had COVID, so right now I'm doing good.

Even though I was vaccinated and boosted, many of you know, which is not a secret, I also have MS. So I just wanna, if anyone's watching, please get vaccinated, please take care of yourself.

This COVID is no joke.

It is serious.

And since I have a compromised immune system, it was a bit harder on me than probably most.

But I really want to thank and I want the public to know that I really thank my staff that kept the office running.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for stepping in and being Council President Pro Tem.

I want to thank all of my colleagues.

All of you reached out to me to make sure I was okay.

That I was well and you were worried about me and that meant a lot to me.

And I want to thank those also in the mayor's office and other departments that sent their well wishes and were concerned.

I think at the end of the day, sometimes people forget that we really are a team and we do care about each other.

We may disagree on some things.

At the end of the day, we are all filled with and seeing each other's humanity.

So I want to thank all of you.

And a big shout out to Council Member Strauss for leaving a bunch of chicken soup on my porch.

So that was great.

And Pedialyte.

So thank you.

So with that, I want to go ahead and talk about what I'm supposed to talk about.

Regarding tomorrow, the consent calendar will include the minutes.

the IRC and payment of the bills, as well as one appointment, which has been reviewed and recommended by that particular committee.

And as a reminder, we will take one vote on all items on the consent calendar, unless any council member requests that a particular item be removed, which we can vote on separately.

Next, we'll go to signing of letters and proclamation.

We do not have any letters or proclamation for today or tomorrow.

And so now we will just go to the preview of council actions.

And the lineup today starts with Council Member Morales, then Council Member Mosqueda, Nelson, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, Herboldt, Lewis, and then myself.

So with that, Council Member Morales.

There you are.

I've got a lot happening in my house right now.

So, okay, let's see.

The Neighborhood Education Arts and Rights Committee will meet this Friday, April 22nd, at 9.30.

We will have a presentation by the Seattle Arts Commission, three more landmark ordinances, including the Center for Wooden Boats, Wagner Floating Home, and Seattle First National Bank.

We will also have appointments to the Seattle Arts Commission, the FEPP Levy Oversight Board, and the ISRD.

Yeah, hold on to your hats.

Okay, this Thursday I will participate in the Board of Health meeting.

So moving on to district updates.

Last week details are to be worked out in the coming weeks, but I'm glad to say that my office got word that lead will be expanding into the South End.

This is something my office has been working on for some time with members of the Mount Baker community for almost two years now and really is a reminder to folks that organizing is very important and you have to just keep fighting for what your community needs.

Last week, I also led members of the delegation from Nantes on a tour of District 2. We stopped at El Centro de la Raza, at the Beacon Hill Food Forest, the Rainier Beach Urban Farm.

I also joined the mayor and OIR to welcome the delegation to the city and participated in a welcome reception at the Port of Seattle to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of our sister city relationship.

So I want to thank the members of that delegation and the mayor's office for that reception.

It was lovely.

We also held our second within-reach panel discussion last week, this time focused on equitable community development, social housing, and what it means to build a 15-minute city.

In addition to the deputy mayors from Nantes, we heard from Alderman Carlos Ramirez Rosa from Chicago, and heard from both of them about the work that their cities are doing to make their neighborhoods more well-connected and better resourced.

We also heard from Miguel Maestas at El Centro de la Raza about the work that's happening right here in our own backyard.

You can watch that discussion on the Seattle channel via my council website or on the Twitter.

Let's see, my staff and I also met with our Seattle Within Reach Coalition.

We have a policy cohort of about 30 organizations that we've been meeting with for some time now to continue collaborating on policy work for the year.

This afternoon, I'll be touring the South End Tiny House Village, which could be offering shelter for 40 individuals.

As you, I'm sure, have been reading, there's been a glitch in the operating funding for that tiny house village.

I'll be working with Council Member Lewis to advocate for funding what should be an obvious opportunity for getting 40 of our homeless neighbors into some sort of housing stability.

So more later after I visit.

Let's see, this week I'll be meeting with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs in America and the New Partnership for New Americans.

There will be a press conference to promote the naturalization support that they offer and to really highlight the work of the city, the county, and nonprofits doing a lot of really important work to ensure eligible legal permanent residents have access to naturalization services.

I'll be meeting with King County Council President Claudio Balducci to discuss transportation issues in the region, particularly how to ensure that safety improvements and investments are made in the Rainier Valley, that those investments are part of the budget planning for Sound Transit.

My staff and I will be meeting with SDOT to get an update on MLK safety study that my office called for via a sly in last year's budget.

And my staff will also be meeting with SDOT to talk about some good news regarding the Lake Washington Boulevard and the work that our office pushed for in the budget last year as well.

I plan to visit the Willow Crossing Affordable Housing Development at Othello to learn more about that project and tour one of the newer additions to the affordable housing landscape here in D2.

And finally, I will be meeting with residents in Georgetown to hear their thoughts about Maritime Industrial and EIS.

And I think that is actually all that I have.

Are there any questions from my colleagues?

I am not seeing any, so I will hand it over to Council Member Mosqueda.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The next Finance and Housing Committee meeting is on April 20th at 9.30 a.m.

We're going to have a few items on the agenda related to the budget and the state of the city.

This includes the payment of claims resolution and a template, which we had on our committee meeting from last meeting discussion, but we didn't have the chance to go over it.

We'll have that for briefing discussion and possible vote.

We'll have the April revenue forecast update.

This will be presented as a summary of the forecast council meeting for which Council President Juarez and I currently sit on and had our meeting last Friday.

We will then have a rounding out of the revenue forecast presented by the city's budget office.

This will provide an update on the other lines of revenue that the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council does not have under its purview, but remain at the city budget's office.

And so with the combination of the information that the council, that being the Revenue Forecast Council received last Friday, and the update from the city's budget office on other lines of revenue, we'll have a fuller picture of the revenue forecast for the remainder of 2022. We will have the projections also shared with you from the city's budget office via an email that will be updated, excuse me, an email that we will circulate via Ali Panucci, our interim director for central staff.

And it will also be included as attachments to the updated finance and housing committee agenda that is being circulated this afternoon.

If you are not part of our committee, but would like to participate in an update on the revenue forecast, of course, you're welcome to.

Please let our office know.

And you should also all be receiving that information in real time along with me this afternoon.

The final item on our agenda is the Seattle Rescue Plan implementation update, as I've committed to at the beginning of this year.

We're going to have quarterly updates on the spending of the American Rescue Plan Act funding.

I want to thank the CBO and executive team for sending us monthly report outs.

We just received one again this morning.

These quarterly report outs are an opportunity for us to not only see the funding that has been allocated and encumbered, but ask questions about the timeline for the encumbered dollars and making sure that all of the federal dollars are being spent swiftly.

given the high amount of need in our community.

And again, I wanna thank our congressional members, our congressional delegation for all of the work they've done.

We continue in Seattle here to show how important these dollars were and how swiftly they were put into action to support working families via direct cash assistance, small businesses, and also funding for our most vulnerable who are still dealing with much of the trauma and impact of COVID.

And with that, I wanna thank Council President Juarez for sharing your personal story with us.

I'm so thankful that you are feeling better and also really appreciate the reminder to the community about how important it is to get vaccinated and stay socially distanced and wear those masks.

I'm glad you're feeling much better, but a lot of people like to think that COVID is over and sadly it is not.

I want to thank you for all your lovely texas Daily more than my some of my family members Checking on me.

So thank you Have you talked to the doctor about this?

I know have you talked to your doctor about this?

Did you check on that?

Really?

Thank you.

It's very kind of you, but i'm so glad you're feeling much better Um colleagues, there are no items from the finance and housing committee meeting on tomorrow's full council agenda I do have a few updates from this week and last week.

Last Thursday, I attended the Association of Washington Cities Board of Directors meeting in our discussion and deliberations about the next CEO for AWC, and that announcement will be coming shortly.

This Wednesday, I'm going to be looking forward to a conversation that's hosted by Local Progress, the director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network, otherwise known as EARN.

David Cooper is going to be presenting on the impacts of inflation across our country.

On Wednesday as well, I'll also be attending the North End community events that are happening to support cannabis workers.

on 420. We are going to be thanking all of the cannabis workers for the work that they've done in these especially trying times as we see both the health and safety of workers be on the front line during the pandemic.

We also know that cannabis workers as bud tenders face additional policy changes that are desired from their community that we've heard much about over the last three to four months.

I'll also be speaking in a virtual town hall with our partners in St. Louis County, Missouri.

We'll be talking about democracy vouchers and how the experience of Seattle's democracy vouchers is something to be looked at in this public education event hosted by Honest Elections Coalition, who are working to bring democracy vouchers to their community as well.

This town hall is gonna feature speakers from the University of Missouri, St. Louis, who will share initial findings from a study that they're looking at about how to create greater civic engagement.

Again, I want to thank our Seattle Ethics and Election Commission, who is finalizing the report out from the now third round of the use of democracy vouchers.

And again, cities and jurisdictions around the country continue to look at SEEC for their helpful report outs and the experience here in Seattle.

On Thursday, I'll be speaking at the Hill Task.

This is an event that's being hosted by Capitol Hill Business Alliance, and the event is focused on connecting Capitol Hill small businesses with cities around them.

We'll be looking at everything from walkability and livability and thriving Seattle in the Capitol Hill neighborhood as we think about what investments are needed to make sure that folks are getting out, walking about, and really shopping local.

Also wanted to note as many of you may have heard, Scott Morrow is currently hospitalized and we saw an email go around to many of the folks who've worked with him over the years and I want to thank him for all of the work that he's done on behalf of and with the folks at share the Seattle housing and resource.

effort.

They've been working with Nicholsville and the tenants union over their incredible advocacy life as well.

We send him our best wishes and hopefully a speedy recovery as he is currently battling cancer and wanted to thank him and the larger community who continue to show up in person.

I remember fondly many of the presentations that Scott made to our Seattle City Council and send him our warmest wishes and also want to thank him for his incredible advocacy and his lifelong dedication to fighting for those to be able to have access to housing and shelter.

A quick update from FAS.

FAS continues to engage in distribution of masks.

They are also working on labor issues through the FAS Capital Development They are tracking the ongoing issues related to the concrete employers not engaging in fair negotiations.

And while concrete workers have returned to work, the delay in coming up with a finalized contract is still something that I know many of the workers are dealing with, even though the contract has to be yet finalized.

I look forward to continuing to support these concrete workers as they continue to engage in negotiations.

We know that there is an impact on various projects around Seattle and looking forward to not only standing with them and supporting them as they continue to negotiate, but want to send a huge note of appreciation to them as many of them have gone back to work in these times to really support some of our community driven projects around transportation and housing.

So thanks to them.

And yet our eyes are on the negotiation process and solidarity still with those workers.

And finally, FAS has the Consumer Protection Division that is continually tracking House Bill 2076. Governor Inslee did sign that bill into law with a small section veto related to exempting transportation network companies from the state's common carrier status.

In doing so, the governor cited the lack of obligations for TNCs to protect consumers and hope the legislature would address this issue in the future.

and thanks to FAS for their ongoing work to make sure that those who are either riding in Lyft, Uber, other transportation network company vehicles or driving those vehicles have the protections that they need.

Madam President, that is all my comments.

Not seeing any questions, I'll turn it over to Council Member Nelson.

Thanks so much.

Thank you very much.

The Economic Development, City Light, and Technology Committee does not have any items on the full council agenda tomorrow.

So I'll just go into the big news, I think, in case you haven't heard.

Last week, Resolution 32050 regarding SPD staffing incentives was introduced and referred to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee for a first discussion on April 26th.

This resolution does three things.

Section one states council's support for the development of an SBD staffing incentive program.

Section two states council's intent to lift the budget proviso prohibiting the use of SPD's 2022 salary and benefit savings for any other purpose except by subsequent ordinance.

And so essentially the resolution sets the policy direction for a separate ordinance allowing part of the projected $1.4 million in underspend this year for these incentives.

And then section three states council's intent to approve the staffing incentive program that is developed by the executive.

And I put this forward because as the recitals layout We're experiencing a public safety emergency.

We don't have enough officers on the street to address it and we need to use every tool in our toolbox to bring on more officers fast.

And so most of all, you know, As Chief Diaz has said many times, we need to level the playing field because most, if not all, other jurisdictions in the region have some sort of staffing incentive program.

And we need to do the same in order to compete for a limited pool of applicants.

That's it.

And the additional benefit is that having a program could give us more choices.

It could allow us to be more selective in the officers that we do hire because we want to ensure that we hire great officers and that they reflect the diversity of Seattle's communities.

So the money is already there and in SPD's budget, and frankly, I can't think of better use for it.

People are, I don't know, not to be melodramatic, but people are dying.

We say that we want to get guns off the streets, and we also need to interrupt the high-level drug dealing that's causing a spike in fentanyl overdoses and also address organized retail theft.

And I don't see how we do this without an adequately staffed police department.

So basically, this resolution begins the policy debate that will be then sort of uh, enacted in subsequent pieces of legislation.

Now, I want to acknowledge that incentives aren't a magic bullet.

I know that because while an incentive, be it hiring incentive or relocation stipend might help a, uh, recruit decide amongst many employment opportunities, the most important factor is work environment.

And because nobody wants to work in a hostile workplace, everyone wants to feel valued and appreciated at work.

And the good news is that the mayor and council, as SPD's employers and funders, get to set the tone for that workplace.

And so to retain the officers that we have right now and recruit new ones, We just have to ensure that the city is a welcoming and supportive place to work.

So for me, that starts with saying simply thank you to the first responders and investigators for the work that they're doing right now.

An example of a thank you is that I'm grateful for the work that special unit detectives have put into the five joint task forces that SPD participates in with DEA and FBI to address, investigate high-level, serious federal crimes like drug, weapons, and human trafficking, cybersecurity issues, et cetera.

And we learned in last week's Public Safety and Human Services Committee during discussion of a report that was called for by a slide last year, sponsored by Council Member Mosqueda, that SPD assisted in the seizure of, let me pull up the, see if I did the math right, 40 kilos of cocaine, 105 kilos of meth, 55 kilos of heroin, 93 kilos of powdered fentanyl, and 970,000 fentanyl pills.

And also 294 firearms, including 163 that were seized in one month alone.

And these investigations resulted in a bunch of arrests and convictions as well.

So thank you to the detectives and officers whose work prevented the deaths that could have been caused by those drugs and weapons hitting our streets.

And that, I should note, was just in 2021. But these task forces have been going on for decades.

And just for background, if you weren't listening to the committee meeting, These federal agencies, how it works is that they, these federal agencies, the FBI and the DEA, write a check to Seattle to pay for, to cover the overtime expenses for Seattle personnel, and it's deposited in the general sub fund, and then routinely, council approves reimbursement to the department with these monies.

And so that's, Seems like a no brainer to me this year.

I wanted to make the point in committee meeting, but this year there will be a, the slide does require some community input before council approves that reimbursement.

and the point I wanted to make, but we were running over time in last week's meeting and we needed to get onto the next item in the agenda, but I wanted to just state for the record that I hope that the input from people who have direct experience with gun violence and addiction and overdose deaths and identity thefts and basically all of the crimes that these task forces investigate, I hope that they are included because you know, basically I'm just talking about including the people with lived experience of these crimes.

And I finally was going to say thank you to the personnel for their work on this.

So that is, I'm just basically following up on the question that I asked last week.

And I gotta say, as an aside, I'm really looking forward to in-person council meetings, because it just makes for Just a more smooth conversation about the important policy issues that are brought before us.

And the public can see our facial expressions and raised hands and all of that.

So I'm looking forward to whenever that happens.

All right, so I wasn't here last week to talk about some of my staff, to what my staff was going to do and did.

So I'll just mention a little bit of the highlights of last week.

My whole staff attended and my chief of staff spoke at the launch of Seattle Restored.

And this is an economic recovery program that matches vacant downtown storefronts with pop-up shops and art installations from small businesses and artists.

And they focus particularly on entrepreneurs and artists of color, and this has been long anticipated, so it's wonderful to see this partnership between OED and Shun Pike and the Seattle Good Business Network come to fruition.

So I'm sorry I couldn't make that.

Last week, my staff and I did a walking tour of Vigor Shipyards on Harbor Island, which employs 1,500 employees, mostly involved in the repair of very large commercial and publicly owned ships.

And so, for example, there were two ships that were docked that were undergoing repair, and they were all aluminum hulls, I believe Navy ships.

And each of them was under contract for about 1.5 million labor hours.

So that's a lot of employment.

for a workforce and they do draw from, they have a special program that draws people who have, who are emerging from prison and train them in all the way up to the project manager level so far.

So that was exciting to see.

And also Vigor partners with South Seattle Community College to host an intensive welding certificate program.

And so it's really great that they actually have a classroom right where they have a whole bunch of Well, welding to go out and look at and this program graduates about anywhere between 15 to 22 graduates twice a year.

So it was really great to to learn about that workforce development program right there at the shipyard.

We also my staff and I also they not me. attended the fourth annual Climate Policy Forum, where they learned about all of the technology, energy, and capital going into solutions to fight our climate crisis at the state and federal levels.

And they attended the opening of the Seattle Film Festival, which is, I'm happy to say, is in person this year and live, and lasts through April 24th.

And I have to say I attended the Mariners opening day and we won.

And that was great.

And so I'm happy to see baseball alive and well in our city and so many people traveling to the stadium and stopping off at the small businesses on route to support them.

So highlights this week, if I'm not over time, Council President, external meetings that I will attend.

The Firefighter Safety Training Tour is coming up on Tuesday, as well as the Magnolia Community Council meeting that evening.

The Seattle City Light and the Parks Department will be having a ribbon-cutting event to commemorate the completion of a community microgrid project at the Miller Community Center.

That's really exciting, and it's been a big learning opportunity for the departments, but it can be replicated, so that's good.

And then finally, I'll be meeting with the Crescent Collaborative partners to talk all things community, economically equitable development going on in the city and how I can assist.

So that's my report.

Thank you very much.

Are there any questions?

I would just say one thing that I'll call on Councilor Mosqueda.

I also thank you Council Member Nelson for the resolution that you're putting forward.

I want to give a big thanks to Council Member Herbold for putting it in her committee and thanking both of you for being collaborative and working together.

And Council Member Herbold, thank you for making Working with Council Member Nelson, though, to have it in your committee so we can have a full policy, full-blown discussion about all these issues.

So thank you, Council Member Herbold, for that.

Council Member Esqueda, looks like you had a question.

Thanks very much, Council President.

I just wanted to offer some clarification for members of the public and for colleagues here.

In reference to the small businesses and the activation of street fronts, I wanted to congratulate the other eight council members who were here last year, because that's actually money that you put forward and the appropriation of the coronavirus local relief funds.

That's $3 million that we put forward in the Seattle Rescue Plan.

And that's also including $5 million from the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force.

Part of their recommendations as well was activating small businesses and using a combination of general fund and Jump Start funding.

Thank you very much for highlighting that, but to the folks who were here last year, both in the executive and at the council, I wanted to make sure that that work gets highlighted.

Sometimes use of JumpStart funds or ARPA funds get referenced in press releases, and then we kind of forget what led to those dollars.

So I wanted to really emphasize the origin of those dollars.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

I appreciate your kind words, Madam President.

We're going to do this whole thanking everybody thing real quick.

I want to thank Council Member Mosqueda for allowing the hiring incentive study to be heard in my committee.

It was originally supposed to, since it was citywide, it was supposed to go to her committee.

But since we do have this resolution about specifically SPD, I thought it was important to hear that slide report from the executive as a way of sort of setting the context for the discussion.

So really appreciate that.

And also as it relates specifically to the federal task force presentation in my committee last week.

Thank you to Council Member Nelson for highlighting the findings of that report.

I just wanna, for the viewing public who may not understand how our committee agendas are developed, they are developed by the chair of the committee in collaboration with the presenters.

So it wasn't just by accident that that presentation was scheduled for a public briefing, we received the S.L.Y. report, but I thought it was very important to allow SPD to come in and present publicly the findings of that S.L.Y. report and exactly the good work that those task forces had done.

And so just That's a report that could have ended up on a shelf somewhere, but I thought it was really important to actually have it on our agenda and invite SPD to come in and tell their story.

So just wanted to make sure that that was understood by folks who may have heard Council Member Nelson's description.

Thanks.

Okay, so let me just wrap this up before we go on to Council Member Peterson.

I can't tell you how thankful I am that we are all working together and as Council President, you know, I'm monitoring all these situations and Councilor Herbold, thank you for sharing with the general public how things just don't get assigned willy-nilly.

I mean, we wanna work with each other to say, hey, is this a good issue?

Does it belong in your committee, my committee?

What's the best way we handle it?

We all talk, our staffs talk to each other, because we want the public to see what we're doing, obviously, in the spirit of transparency and doing the people's work.

So thank you, Councilor Herbold, and thank you, Councilor Nelson, and thank you, Councilor Mosqueda.

So with that, I think it's Councilor Peterson's turn.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

On tomorrow afternoon's full City Council agenda, there is one item from our Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities, the renewal of a term permit for existing pedestrian tunnels near Bowling Field.

This Council Bill 120290 was unanimously recommended by our committee on April 5th.

If you have any questions about that legislation, please feel free to reach out to our City Council Central staff before tomorrow afternoon's vote.

Our next committee on transportation and Seattle Public Utilities is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19 at 9.30 a.m.

The published agenda includes a vote on two council bills as well as two briefings.

Council Bill 120303 is authorizing the Seattle Department of Transportation to accept grant funds from non-city sources for two projects.

multi-modal improvements to East Marginal Way and sidewalk improvements along 4th Avenue South near I-90.

Council Bill 120304 would grant final approval getting choked up about this project, would grant final approval of the vacation of a portion of 39th Avenue South near the Othello Light Rail Station to facilitate the development of the 211-unit low-income apartment project called Willow Crossing.

I believe that's in Councilmember Morales' district, and she might have mentioned it earlier.

This is the one Council granted conditional approval for back in November of 2019. Our committee agenda also includes two briefings, both related to the Sound Transit 3 expansion in Seattle, which we refer to as the West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions, and which will also impact the International District, SOTO, Southlake Union, Interbay, and much of downtown.

I will now turn it over to the city manager.

at our February 15 committee meeting.

And so this briefing tomorrow is an opportunity to hear more from our city government departments.

The second briefing will be from key staff of Sound Transit who will focus on recent concepts to potentially save costs and refine the proposed line extensions.

As we know, the city of Seattle is ably represented on Sound Transit 19 member board by our own Council President Flores and Mayor Harrell.

All council members are invited to attend both sound transit briefings at tomorrow morning's committee.

And of course, Marshall Foster and his team are available at any time to each of you individually.

In District 4 this past week, I attended the monthly meeting of the Laurelhurst Community Council.

This follows my participation earlier this year with the U District Community Council, Wallingford Community Council, Wedgwood Community Council, and Northeast District Council, as well as the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association Community Cleanup.

That concludes my report.

Any questions before we hear from Council Member Sawant?

I would only add that Council Member Morales would like a gondola in her district.

So we'll be working on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Council Member Swann is next.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Good afternoon, everyone.

There are no items on tomorrow's city council agenda from the sustainability and renters rights committee.

There were several items voted out of committee last Friday that will appear on next week's full city council meeting agenda.

The items voted out of the sustainability and renters rights committee that will appear on the.

April 26th City Council meeting agenda include five appointments and reappointments to the Seattle Renters Commission and the bill from Councilmember Strauss's office that aligns the City of Seattle timeline for renters to repay back rent accrued during the pandemic to the timeline set statewide by Senate Bill 5116. In Friday's committee, we also heard from renters at the Matkin Apartments on Capitol Hill in District 3. My office attended a meeting organized by the Tenants Union of Washington with many of the residents of the Matkin last Wednesday, and we invited the tenants to tell us their story at the committee.

The long time owner of their building passed away and the new owners have stated that they intend to sell the building, the renters in this building have really made it a home, several tenants have lived there for over a decade which is an increasingly rare occurrence.

They like the building, they like their community, and most importantly, even after a decade, they can afford the rent.

Their experience really shows that renters can form a real community when they are not continuously displaced by rent hikes, they can raise their families and children, and that rental apartments can also be a place where seniors can You know, spend the later years of their lives we heard some poignant stories from different age groups of tenants.

The tenants are extremely worried understandably that they are building will be sold to a developer who will demolish it and displace everyone.

And we heard from, as I said, many of the tenants, including seniors, and all of them are worried about the risk of displacement.

The good news is that they are getting organized, forming a tenant association so they can fight to save their homes.

Last year, the New Hope Community Development Institute, fighting alongside community activists and my council office and several progressive labor union members, won state and city funding to save the homes of the tenants in Squire Park Plaza, which was similarly at risk when it was put up for sale.

My office supports the city and state funding of a similar nonprofit to buy the Matkin Apartments, if possible.

That is the report from the committee and my office.

Do council members have any questions before I end this report?

I don't see any questions or comments, so that ends the report from my office.

Council Member Strauss is next in rotation.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President, colleagues.

Here in District 6, since my last briefing, I attended the Wallingford Community Council for questions and answers.

It was great to see everyone, and I was happy to answer questions ranging from Woodland Park and the homeless encampment removal that is ongoing there, to public safety and policing, to answering questions about the inner and outer loops of Green Lake.

As always, I continue to hold my weekly operations meetings, both in the last weeks and the coming weeks.

coordinating with community leaders, governmental entities and non-governmental entities to make meaningful interventions to address homelessness in specific areas in our district.

I also continue my weekly public safety conferencing meeting with King County prosecutors, city attorney and SPD to address specific incidents, cases and places of crime in our district.

These meetings are a product of a series of meetings with D6 businesses to address public safety.

And since my last council briefing, I also hosted this district six small business public safety meeting as a follow-up to our meeting in February.

The larger meetings include the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, Seattle Attorney's Office, SPD Investigations, Seattle Police Department North Precinct, SPD Crime Prevention, Seattle Restaurants Association, Finney Neighborhood Association, Ballard Alliance, and we even had folks from Greenwood with us this last time.

We have and continue to provide resources on how to target, pardon, capture and retain relevant evidence and keep investigations active.

I also hosted my weekly office hours with D6 residents Thursday from 2 to 6.30 p.m.

I met with three residents from Ballard, two from Upper Fremont, one from Green Lake, and one from Tangle Town, where we discussed pedestrian safety, public safety, the Green Lake outer and inner loops, and light rail station placement.

We have been getting a lot of inquiries about the Andy Pelster, Applicant Overview, City of Santa Rosa My staff attended the Finney Neighborhood Council meeting and the North Precinct Advisory Committee meeting.

My staff also attended a community meeting regarding noise ordinance enforcement at Golden Gardens Park with Seattle Parks and Recreation.

We have some of the most highly used parks in District 6 in the whole city.

We have Green Lake, which is the highest.

Golden Gardens and Alki are the highest during the summer, so it's a great place, but we've got to With riches come responsibilities.

So we've got some issues to iron out there.

My staff and I also met with Ballard Football Club, Ballard FC, to discuss their needs from the city for their upcoming season and longevity of seasons.

Their home field is Interbay Stadium, which is a Parks Department facility.

And lastly, I was able, in District Six, I was able to tour the Ship Canal Water Quality Project site in Ballard in Fremont, just elevating that there was recently an injury there steps have been taken to ensure that this can't and won't happen again.

Safety is number one for their team.

And I just want to share my thoughts with Travis for a quick recovery.

A lot of people are pulling for you.

So thank you to everyone working on that project.

This upcoming week in district six earlier today, I met with city staff to discuss sound transit expansion presentation at the transportation committee tomorrow.

This is going to be an important discussion for our community.

You can tune into the Seattle channel Tuesday at 9 30 a.m.

I'll have some poignant questions to ask because there's a lot of work to be done to ensure that Sound Transit Service serves the core of Ballard and not just the larger geographic entity now known as Ballard.

I will be meeting with Seattle Public Libraries to discuss the community ideas for uses for the public spaces in and around the library, both in the garage and on the front patio.

I'll be attending a meeting with SDOT regarding implementation timeline of improvements to the street cafe pilot that is on Ballard Avenue.

Hopefully, we'll be able to get those in place before the summer.

And I'll, as always, be hosting my weekly office hours with these six residents Thursday from 2 to 6.30 p.m.

Here at City Hall, since last briefing, I was able to meet with Deputy Mayor Kendi Yamaguchi regarding economic development and community events, met with Department of Neighborhoods Director Greg Wong and I attended the Growth Management Policy Board meeting.

I also was able to join the Sustainability and Runners' Rights Committee as my tenant protections legislation allowing for rent repayment plans.

Council Bill 120305 was being heard.

Thank you to the chair and committee members for hearing and voting this bill out of committee.

colleagues, I look forward to sharing more with you next week as it will be coming to full Council, not tomorrow, the following Tuesday.

This coming week at City Hall, I'll be meeting with Office of Economic Development.

Even work phones get spammed sometimes.

This coming week in City Hall, I'm meeting with Office of Economic Development, Director Mark McIntyre.

I'll also be hearing from the Office of Planning and Community Development, Acting Director Rico here in Dongo on OPCD's 2022 work plan, and I'll be hearing from Seattle City Light about residential solar opportunities and electrification.

Here in the Land Use Committee, there are no items from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

There's one item from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's introduction and referral calendar, legislation that allows for major institutions like colleges to build some type of housing, including affordable housing, without applying for a new master plan.

The next meeting of the Land Use Committee is next Wednesday, April 27th.

There will be four items on the agenda, the annual RSJI presentation from both SDCI and OPCD, a public hearing on Council Bill 120287, which changes allowances for rooftop features and equipment, a briefing from OPCD on their outreach for the comprehensive plan major update, and several appointments which are currently being ironed out at the moment.

So with that, thank you, Council President, colleagues.

That is my report.

Do folks have questions?

Seeing no questions at this time, I will now pass to Council Member Herbold.

Great to see you all.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss.

There are no items on the full council agenda tomorrow from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, and the Public Safety and Human Services Committee is not meeting this week and will meet next Tuesday, the 26th at 9.30 a.m.

Just a few updates I'd like to share.

I did have the privilege of participating last week at a press conference with Mayor Harrell, Chief Scoggins and other members of the fire department where we announced that the Seattle Fire Department has become the first department in the state of Washington to ever receive what's called a class one protection rating from the Washington Surveying and Rating Bureau.

This puts the Seattle Fire Department in the top 1% of fire districts in the nation.

Only 1% of all the fire districts in the nation have this class 1 protection rating.

And I just want to highlight that this rating is the result of not just the fire department's work, but also work that the uh, police facilities have done to make sure that, um, the, uh, fire trucks and other, uh, other, um, facilities under their control are at the level required by the particular rating, as well as Seattle Public Utilities for ensuring that water availability through monitoring work that they do of the fire hydrants.

But again, most of all, 27 chief scoggins and the entire department this rating would not be achievable without all of everyone's hard work dedication and service to the people of seattle and this rating depending on how your particular insurance company uses this information, this rating might result in reduced insurance costs to individual homeowners as well as businesses.

We'll be putting out more information about how you can find out about that.

later.

Also want to address one of the high profile issues in the media related to the monitors.

This is the monitor to the consent decree.

Dr. Aftali, he is putting out what are called preliminary assessments to the areas of the consent decree.

And he issues those preliminary assessments and receives public input on those preliminary assessments.

And that public input will help inform what the final assessments will be on each of these areas of the consent decree when those assessments are submitted to the court.

And so the Preliminary assessment last week was specifically on the issue of use of force.

And the monitor and the community police commission held a joint public outreach meeting so that they could share those preliminary findings.

And one of the elements of the assessment, which looked at use of force data from 2019 through 2021, showed that use of force is down overall.

It shows that there's still high disparity, racial disparity in use of force.

But one of the findings that really, in addition to the racial disparity that is shown by the data that they do have, it also shows that there's a gap in demographic data.

And so it stated that officers did not report subject rate for 32% of use of force subjects between 2019 and 2021. The monitor said this is concerning and complicates SPD's capacity to conduct comprehensive analyses.

use of force across demographic groups.

When I learned this, I reached out to Chief Diaz, and on Friday afternoon, Chief Diaz replied and also provided information on the SPD's blotter that the gap in demographic data on use of force reports is not an officer reporting issue, but it's related to basically how a couple systems are talking to one another.

It's a mapping error between the source system for use of force reporting and the data analytics platform, which we call the DAP.

And so they're They're not talking to each other correctly, and so the DAP is reporting non-specified in one of the public data sets.

PD said that the source system data is accurate and complete, that the exact transfer and load failed on this particular dimension of reporting.

They intend to have this resolved this week.

And I want to just note that this use of reporting into Mark 43, this is an integration project of SPD into Mark 43. And you might remember that this is the $1 million project that was funded by the council.

last fall in the 2022 budget, and they are anticipating that the number of unknowns will be significantly reduced when the mapping error is fixed.

So I'm wanting to let folks know that who may have missed our report or weren't on the email communication between myself and Chief Diaz last week.

I have also included some clarification on the time period involved.

Review of use of force reports from previous years shows lower levels list uh listed as unknown in previous years for race um starting in 2014 and 2015 it's only 12 percent of the reports have an unknown category for race and it has increasingly increased since 2015, and so we really want to, for the incomplete reports that are not linked to this data migration, but that might predate the data migration, we still want to get a sense of what the department is doing to make sure that these use-of-force reports are complete.

Also, as far as coming up and things that happened last week, I want to note that the non-Sister City welcome reception that Councilmember Morales referenced earlier today, I also joined that reception and want to note because I wasn't here at briefings last week that the Nant Citrus City delegation also visited Nant Park in District 1 Sunday before last to unveil some fantastic artwork.

Since I wasn't here at briefings last Monday to recognize more than 500 volunteer hours from the Seattle Nant Citrus City Association, District 1 Admiral Neighborhood Association, West Seattle Garden Corps, and others, I just wanted to take the opportunity to do so now.

Also last week, I joined the Domestic Violence Prevention Council, which I co-chair with Chief Diaz, several presentations looking at sexual assault.

I've been hearing reports from advocates that survivors' cases are not being investigated and they are not receiving advocacy services.

So I really appreciate the police department getting some light on this concern in this meeting so we can look at how the system is functioning for survivors.

I will be asking Chief Diaz for some additional data to better understand what's happening when a sexual assault case is reported.

And likewise, I ask that the Human Services Department provide information about their advocacy caseloads, because they have the advocates at HSD, so I want to learn more about their caseloads as well.

Coming up this week, we'll have a Board of Health and Regional Homelessness Authority meetings.

They're both happening on Thursday at 1 p.m.

at the same time.

So I'm going to try to attend the most important parts of each meeting.

I'll also be meeting with Seattle Public Utilities and the Amish River advocates to discuss waterway cleanup.

I have a West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting this week.

And lastly, I want to just highlight that I will be meeting as a member representing the City of Seattle on the Link Advisory Board as a coordinated team of service providers.

I'll run through the Center for Children and Youth Justice, working to re-engage youth in secondary education, connecting them to counseling, treatment services, and employment opportunities, as well as reducing gang slash group involvement.

So that's all I have for today.

Do any of my colleagues have questions or comments?

Council Member Nelson?

You're on mute, sorry.

Thank you very much.

I just want to thank you personally for that clarification on the missing data, because I was listening to Week in Review, and that was a big focus of the conversation.

And I was thinking, well, why didn't somebody just ask whoever made the report what's up with that missing data?

So thank you for taking the extra step to get information and explain that to the public.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Not seeing any other questions or comments, I will pass the baton to Councilmember Lewis.

Thank you so much Councilmember Herbold.

Good to see you back.

A couple of things to report on.

First of all, the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee is not going to be meeting this Wednesday on May 4th.

Our agenda item on getting a shelter update from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is going to be consolidated into our May 4th meeting coming up in two weeks, since the Regional Homeless Authority is already going to be presenting to respond to our request for information on the Peer Navigator Program.

And so it made sense to consolidate those two presentations into one presentation that was already scheduled on May 4th.

We do not have any additional agenda items or business for the committee on Wednesday.

So we are canceling that committee meeting.

So folks have their Wednesday afternoon back if you are on that committee.

I am happy to report that I also took that tiny house village tour, Councilmember Morales, last Friday and was shown around by the low-income housing institute at this location that is off of Martin Luther King Junior Way South in District 2. I look forward to discussing next steps, Councilmember Morales, after your opportunity to take a tour this week.

And I do understand that the King County Regional Homelessness Authority is working with Lehigh on scheduling a tour for some of their staff, an informational tour.

So hopefully we can continue to work together on finding a way to use those 40 currently vacant tiny houses to get folks out of encampments and into a place that is more conducive to recovery and getting back on your feet.

I do have a couple of department updates.

Clean City Initiative for the tail end of March and beginning of April, 1,520 needles collected and 105,320 pounds of garbage from 41 encampment trash pickup locations.

During this cycle, Rogers Playground got focused treatment for additional deep cleaning.

So I appreciate the opportunity to continue to share our weekly updates from the Clean City Initiative and the great work that they are doing to remove trash from public right-of-ways and public assets.

Department, or sorry, Seattle Public Library In honor of National Library Week, the Library Senior Management team has decided to make this week Staff Appreciation Week.

If you have a moment to swing by one of your district branches or send a message of support to our hardworking team at the Seattle Public Libraries, please take an opportunity to do so this week.

I will personally be visiting my neighborhood branch later this week in Queen Anne to express my strong support for our library leadership team and all of the pressure that they have been under, especially during this COVID era of the last two years, to keep this essential city service accessible to the public.

So thank you so much, and I look forward to coming by in person and extending my thanks during this National Library Week.

More from the library.

In early May, the Northeast region will return to pre-pandemic hours of operation, Northeast region of the city.

New staff are being onboarded and fully trained, and the library is eagerly expanding hours as onboarding people allows.

So we are looking forward to that continued recovery, especially from the last big variant in the tail end of December, beginning of January.

which led to a limiting of library hours.

On Tuesday of this week, Sorry, on Tuesday of last week, rather, we publicized some of the things you can do with the library via our 50 free things to do through the Seattle Public Library program.

This list includes things you can do without a library card, such as participating in Seattle Reads, our citywide reading program, requesting a free one-on-one virtual appointment to get help with your small business, or learning about Seattle's culture and history through our online collection.

There are many things you can do with a library card besides check out books like getting free personalized one-on-one tutoring through tutor.com, learn tech skills like Word or Excel with Northstar digital literacy lessons, and take citizenship or English as a second language classes, or get assistance with writing a cover letter or preparing a resume.

The Seattle Public Library is a great public resource, as all of us on the Council are well aware.

And now that we are in the beginning of National Library Week, we will take every advantage to expand on those 50-plus free things and let the general public know of some of the great opportunities through the Seattle Public Library.

Madam President, that is all that I have.

So I will open it up for feedback from colleagues or questions.

Seeing none, I believe I do hand it off to you as I am the last presenter.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Let's see, I will be brief.

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

However, tomorrow's agenda includes one item for a vote that was referred directly to council, that is Council Bill 120298. It's an ordinance authorizing a memorandum of understanding between the city of Seattle and local 77 signal, I can never get this right, signal electricians to be effective January 23rd, 2021 to January 22nd, 2023. Central Staff Analyst Karina Bull prepared a memo which was included in the agenda for your review, and Karina is available to answer your questions before tomorrow's scheduled vote.

Next, the next meeting of the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee has been rescheduled to Thursday, April 28th at 930 instead of this Tuesday at 930. And I want to thank my vice chair, Council Member Peterson, and all the other committee members who were so gracious in allowing me to reschedule this.

So thank you for allowing me to interrupt your schedules and move this kick this over a week.

I appreciate that.

Last week's summary.

Again, I met with Alice Conti of Simon Property Group to discuss the progress made on the Northgate Station redevelopment, formerly known as you all know, Northgate Mall, which is pretty big.

Um, we're going to be learning more and working more close or more meetings are lined up to meet with, um, the Simon property folks to talk and discuss some of the information that I shared with you last week about the two hotels coming in and the over 500 units of housing, but also childcare, the grocery stores and local food and weaving in some small businesses, local businesses that can have a footprint.

on this huge economic engine up in the north end right next to light rail.

So that is everything that we wanted in transit-oriented housing, transit-oriented development, transit-oriented employment, all that good stuff that we've been talking about for at least a decade.

I met with Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff and the Sound Transit staff regarding the 130th Street Station and the cost estimates, which I will, as you know, not just COVID, but the concrete strike backed up a few projects.

So we're trying to figure out all three county-wise where those projects may be some delays and what we can do to overcome that so we are not so far out that we meet the expectations of the voters.

I also met with Chief Diaz regarding SPD's presentation at the Public Safety Committee meeting this week.

Even though I wasn't in the meeting, I watched it.

So I had a really good meeting with Chief Diaz talking about some of the specifics that Council Member Herbold brought up and that Council Member Nelson brought up and that Council Member Mosqueda brought up.

On Thursday, my staff will welcome undergraduate students from Seattle University to City Hall to provide them with a tour and answer their questions about public service.

In addition, this is exciting.

We do this every year, but this year it's a lunch.

The Muckleshoot Tribal Leadership has generously offered to host Mayor Harrell and myself for a working lunch to discuss the relationship between the Muckleshoot Nation and the City of Seattle.

I believe Councilor Musqueda will be joining me.

Also, again, in the news, I will speak to the new cohort with the Native Action Network, their Legacy of Leadership Series.

Native Action Network is an amazing organization that has been around for over 20 years, empowering young Native women to serve as leaders in their community, both tribal and non-tribal communities.

And with that, I have no other items to offer.

Are there any questions?

All right.

Oh, got one from Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Nelson.

Yeah, I unmuted before I started talking.

So I just want to say you gave me a rundown of what's going to happen at the Simon Properties on the phone.

And I just have to say that you're being a little modest about what you've been able to accomplish in partnership or with the property owners.

And I'm especially excited about the fish store.

But I just wanted to thank you for your stewardship on that because, you know, you really, I think, had a lot to do with the small businesses going in there.

And so thank you very much for your advocacy.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And, you know, just to follow up on that, Council Member Nelson, we had talked about this, but some of our prior council members as well, you know, a lot of connecting Simon Properties with OVG and NHL and Climate Pledge Arena and Sound Transit and 130th A lot of those are about relationships, you know, and what's for the good of our city.

And also agreeing to disagree when we need to and coming to consensus, always marching forward.

And that's kind of my style of leadership.

We may not get there today, but we will march towards there.

And hopefully we can all do that together, because this is a great city and we want good things to happen for our great city.

With that, I see Councilor Herbold's hand is up.

A hand is up, and it may not be up at the right time.

I did not have a question or comment on your wonderful report, Madam President.

I realize I forgot something from my report.

Is it an old hand again?

Because I think last time I was here it was an old hand.

No, it's not an old hand.

It's a new hand.

OK.

It's not about your report.

It's about something I forgot that I wanted to, at the end of everybody's reports, mention.

Why don't you go ahead?

Now is the right time.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

So I just want to mention that in my last Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting, we had a really great overview from central staff on the introduced version of the pay up legislation.

And I just want to say a couple words about what to expect at our next committee meeting.

Staff highlighted some initial issue ID, and they touched upon issues ranging from whether or not we want to look at doing a study on the impacts of the legislation, whether or not the coverage in the legislation of both on-demand and what we refer to as market these companies is how we want to move forward.

Other items that have been already identified for issue ID include specific adjustments to the inputs to the minimum compensation, including the cost factor, the time factor, and the mileage factor.

That's been highlighted as potential issue ID with some options.

And then rulemaking, whether or not things that we are identifying in the legislation should be delegated to rulemaking or whether or not they should be answered in the legislation itself.

And so those are sort of the high-level issue ID that's already been done.

We're going to have a more in-depth issue ID discussion on the 26th.

And I just wanted to mention that today, because as central staff is developing the issue ID memo.

They're not only include the items that we've already sort of lightly touched on, but they'll include new issues that have been identified.

And I know I'm meeting with stakeholders and meeting with platform owners as well and identifying new potential issues.

And to the extent that my colleagues on the council are doing so as well, and want those issues, those new issues reflected in central staff's memo, it would be great if you could provide some of that feedback by Wednesday.

This will not be the only opportunity.

This is sort of, again, high-level issue ID.

At a subsequent meeting, we'll be doing actually the development of amendments.

to the extent that any council member, whether or not you're a member of the committee or not a member of the committee, have issues that you want identified and discussed and options developed, please do send them our way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let me ask you two questions.

I watched the committee hearing and I read the memo.

Who did the memo for you?

Amy Gore working with Karina Bull and Jasmine Muraha.

So Amy walked us through the memo in the fiscal note and is a really good memo with the question posed and the options.

So if people haven't had a chance, I'm sure obviously was connected to the agenda.

I'm guessing you'll have an update of that memo as well.

And that was really well done.

So thank you so much for having central staff did a great job.

A big shout out to Amy for walking us through every scenario and what the options and choices were.

So thank you for that.

And the second, oh, you already answered my second one.

You would be doing a second memo and update on that.

Okay.

Is there anyone that has questions for Council Member Herbold regarding the pay up that was in her committee last week?

Nope, I don't see any old hands or new hands.

Okay.

Thank you.

So before we adjourn, let's just let me share that I will see you.

I will see you all tomorrow at two for council.

But next council briefing is next Monday at two o'clock.

And so with that, we stand adjourned.

Thank you.