Seattle City Council Briefing 3/25/19

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled council briefing.

I will, well, this morning we will have our state legislative session update, which is sort of a comprehensive document that we'll review, and then we'll go through our preview of today's council actions, and then we'll end with sort of a fun and exciting Seattle Reads, and our presenter, Marcellus Turner, our chief librarian, and we'll go through our Seattle Reads book for the city.

So I'll say more words about the president's report once we go around the table and do a preview of today's full council action.

So I'll reserve a statement until then.

So right now, why don't we have the state team come up.

And we know you have to sort of get on to Olympia.

So we want to get you up here first.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Yeah, good morning.

Lily Wilson-Kodega, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Cheryl Schwab, Deputy Director of OIR.

Karen Cargill, State Director.

Christina Postle, Waite State Lobbyist.

So we appreciate all the hard work in Olympia last week.

Thanks to everyone who's able to make it down to Olympia.

We are about a little over a month left in the legislative session and quickly approaching the next big hurdle this session, the April 3rd Opposite House Policy Committee cutoff.

So budget's coming out this week, a lot moving.

We appreciate many of you working with us through the weekend on some of our highest priorities, and with that, I'm going to turn it over to Karen Cargill, our state director, to give a quick session update before we dive into individual portfolios.

Thanks, Lily.

Good morning.

I want to start off by just highlighting that we did a little bit, a little special update on the revenue forecast that came out last week, just high-level numbers for the remainder of the biennium that they're anticipating about $300 million.

for the rest of this biennium and an additional 550 million dollars for the next biennium, putting an additional 861 million dollars of available funds.

There's some mixed responses that we're getting towards those numbers.

Other Republicans are saying that that's proof that no additional revenue will be needed, but the Democrats are taking a position that that still will not be enough to cover I know there are a lot of people in the house that are not able to meet many of the needs that will be that they are going to be looking to fix this session.

Most notably the mccleary a lot of the mental health issues.

On the same line the house is releasing all of their budgets today so we will be seeing their operating transportation and capital this afternoon.

And then the senate will be releasing some of theirs later this week.

I know we typically send out a an extra layer of complication to work through.

So we'll get this to you as soon as possible.

And I know that a lot of you have different projects that you're looking for.

So if those aren't highlighted, please just contact us and we'll help determine whether or not they've been included in the different budgets.

Any questions on budget revenue?

So I'm going to move on to education.

The big one I want to highlight is on page 4. That's Senate Bill 5313. This is the school levy fix.

I know that there's been several different proposals that have been put forward over this session.

And this was a new version that was heard last week.

And this would completely change what has been discussed.

It would create two different tiers for adjusting that levy authority.

So for districts that have fewer than 9,600 students, the levy would be lesser of $202.50 per 1,000 of assessed value or $2,500 per pupil.

And then for districts with more than 9,600 students, the levy would be the lesser of $250 per 1,000 AV.

or 3,000 per pupil.

So that was kind of met with mixed reviews and I unfortunately don't have Seattle Public Schools interpretation about what that would mean for them.

But different school districts had said that it would work for them, others said it did not.

So they're still working through that.

I don't think that this is the end of the conversation by any means.

So again, we'll continue to monitor all of that and keep you appraised.

On page six, Senator Rolfes has dropped a new real estate excise tax, a graduated one.

I'm putting this in the education section because this is the first time that she's noted that she would have 20% of the revenue that would be raised through this progressive REIT would go towards the education legacy fund.

So go towards education dollars.

It'd be split to a couple other different accounts that would include the public works assistance account, the city county assistance, and the state general fund.

So there had been some other REIT proposals that were put forward, and this is the first time that there'd be a piece that would go towards education.

or at least that percentage, 20%.

So I just wanted to highlight that, and we'll keep track of that for you.

Moving on to environment.

Sorry, lots of pages here.

I just have a question about school levies while we're going through.

Sure.

Are there discussions about the income or the classification of the students themselves in the districts?

For example, if a school district regardless as to the number of students, if they have a higher number on free and reduced lunch, as an example, are there, do they go to that layer of consideration as they look at individualizing the leveraging?

They have historically.

I'm not, I don't think that that's being worked in as part of the.

part of determining the local levy lid piece a lot of times that goes into the state the state dollars and determining like the state will give additional dollars for school districts that have a higher low-income student group coming in so I'm happy to confirm that if you're interested in that.

Okay, and under the environment section, so still quite a lot of movement on these great environmental priorities that we're working on.

The first on our list is the Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1110, which is the fuel standards bill.

So still moving along, it moved out of the Environment, Energy, and Technology Committee in the Senate on March 21st, and it has now been referred to the Transportation Committee.

This will definitely probably be one of the more challenging places that this bill will We are continuing to offer our support and see where we can be helpful.

I know that Councilmember Johnson was very kind to speak to Representative Fitzgibbon about all of his hard work on his visit last week.

And then a new bill or not new but a resurrected bill the third substitute House bill 1257 right below The last bill that was the commercial building performance standard that bill did not make it passed It's cut off but has been deemed necessary to implement the budget So was actually moved up the Appropriations Committee last week and is now in the Rules Committee it the language still does not include the stretch code that we had been working on and that was the for the residential energy code allowing the cities to determine if they wanted to have something that would be more energy efficient than what the state requires.

So we're still supportive of a lot of the other concepts that are in this, so we're supporting it, but looking for other opportunities for incorporating these stretch code provisions.

And another big highlight, and that's on page 6, is substitute House Bill 1512, our transportation electrification bill, the big priority for City Light.

That moved out of the Senate Policy Committee this week and is now in rules.

So we were successful in getting that out of the Senate last year with some good bipartisan support, so we are working to achieving that again this year.

Moving on to general government, I want to highlight the substitute House Bill 1403 on page 10. This would be the simplification of the BMO apportionment formula.

I talked about this a couple weeks ago.

This was something that FAS was really involved with along with AWC, Department of Revenue, and Association of Washington Businesses.

So they could come forward with some suggestions on how to simplify the formula.

They came to agreement.

So this is an agreement consensus bill.

FAS, Joseph Kuna from FAS came down last week to testify in favor of the bill.

And we are anticipating executive session for that legislation this week.

For a wrongful death on page 11, Senate Bill 5163, there was a public hearing last week and executive action was received on Friday.

on wrongful death, are we all speaking with the same voice in terms of Association of Washington City, City of Seattle on that bill?

City of Seattle, we all have the same voice.

I know that council, right, I'm just, for that, AWC has still opposed to the bill, but they are not vocalizing or working against the bill right now.

Okay, great.

And then the last bill I want to flag for you is Senate Bill 5376. That's on page 12, and that's that consumer data and privacy bill.

I've highlighted that a couple times.

This is Senator Carlisle's big effort for protection of consumer data, being able to delete and having some say about what that, where their data is being used.

Still progressing, and we had a, received a public hearing on Friday, and so we're going to be monitoring to see when it gets scheduled for executive session.

And now I'm going to pass it over to Christina for health care.

Thank you, Karen.

So we're focusing on health care.

The first bill I'm going to address is on page 13 at the top.

It's 1394. And this was related to behavioral health facilities and programs needed to ensure the continuum of care for behavioral health patients.

Wanted to make you aware there was a striker amendment that was included in there.

It came from Senator Dhingra.

And it passed out of the subcommittee on 22nd.

So the striker is more related to licensure and certification for intensive behavioral health patients and treatment facilities.

And it requires the Department of Health to create a certification for mental health peer respite centers.

So this would be for for peer-run programs, for people who are deemed not to need hospitalization, but just kind of ongoing assistance and help and care.

How much money is attached to that?

I am not sure.

I can get back to you on that, though.

I think it's critical we've all been talking about it.

The last time I saw it, it was like a drop in the bucket.

Yeah, well, there's been quite a big push behind this bill.

So behavioral health is one of the big goals of this legislative session.

They keep calling it the new McCleary, even though we're still dealing with McCleary.

So I imagine there's a strong fiscal note attached to that.

And then there was an amendment from Senator Frocked as well, which requires the Department of Health to consult with Seattle Children's, Mary Bridge, and Tacoma, and Sacred Heart in Spokane before developing recommendations on youth short-term residential intensive behavioral care and developmental disability services.

Great to get a wide breadth of input from across the state on that one as well.

So next I'm going to move to the bottom of page 14, This is page, oh, I guess it's the middle of page 14, sorry.

1870, which is the Affordable Care Act protections.

This would put several of the patient protections from the Affordable Care Act into state law.

The House version passed out of the Senate Health and Long-Term Care on the 20th, and the bill has been referred to Senate rules for further consideration, so it's moving right along.

And then on the top of page 15, Senate Bill 5432, this is the integration of behavioral health.

It relates to fully implementing the behavioral health integration and it eliminates behavioral health organizations and divides their responsibilities between behavioral health administrative service organizations to administer the crisis services and the non-medicated services.

and managed care organizations to provide behavioral health services to Medicaid enrollees.

It also establishes a work group to better determine how to manage access to adult long-term inpatient and voluntary care into the community and in state hospitals.

Great.

May I ask, just on the previous page, there is Substitute House Bill 1531 on the medical debt.

It strikes me that integrating the major pieces of legislation you just articulated and including this caring for the medical debt strikes me as being so important for the patients and particularly for people who don't have insurance.

What's startling, and I know we've talked about this before, is that If you don't have insurance, hospitals, doctors can charge you multiple times what the insurance has to pay.

And it's just so completely unfair.

And there was quite an article, quite a good article yesterday in Seattle Times, Sunday Times about that.

So, if you know anything about it, if you could speak today, if not, if you could just Tell me how it's going along.

I'm actually trying to go through Erin Jajic's notes right now because she is the expert on all things health care.

I can follow up with you though, too.

And rather than shuffling through papers, respecting all of our time.

Let Erin know if she wants to call.

That's fine.

I'm just interested to see how it, if it passes and what we can do to support it.

I'm sure she'd love to talk.

And thank you for sharing that article.

I'll have to go find it.

Dr. Herbold has a point she'd like to make.

Thank you.

A question about the bottom of page 14 there's reference it says opioid use disorder and it refers to 5380. Can you talk a little bit about that?

And also the last briefing I made a request around the implementation steps necessary under Ricky's law to bring on drug treatment beds and where we were on that because there are some requirements built into the state law that was passed a couple years ago that says we have to actually have a certain number of beds built.

And so I'm just really interested in knowing where we are in meeting that sort of baseline criteria before we can use the authority in that law.

I can speak to 5380. So that focuses on treatment and recovery, pregnant and parenting women, which is the typically underserved population on this, opioid overdose reversal medication, and people with opioid use disorder involved in the criminal justice system.

So it's a wide swath of people that this would be assisting with or assisting, excuse me, it had a hearing on the Health and the House Healthcare and Wellness Committee on March 19th, and it's scheduled for executive session on the 27th.

So it is moving right along.

I can get you an updated analysis.

That's focused on treatment dollars.

The question, thank you.

Yeah.

The question I have around the implementation of Ricky's law is about capital dollars to to build these facilities.

So I'm still looking to get a handle on where we're at.

That has been an ongoing question down there, too, with the mandate to have these beds and lack of capital to actually put these beds in order, too.

So I know that's an ongoing conversation, and especially having Representative Davis, who is the chief architect of Rikki's Law, in Olympia working on these types of issues.

It's definitely not been left by the wayside.

I think it's just one of those other bills that's competing for capital at this point.

And I think that we'll see a lot of that when the budgets are released.

How they'll be, how the different chambers will be prioritizing that.

So that's the answer to the question of what this year's budget has in it.

But I understand that from last year's budget there is there is some projected number of beds that are anticipated to be built this year from last year's budget.

So I just, it's a multi-year effort that has to happen before, again, we can implement the authority.

So I don't just wanna know what's in this year's budget, I wanna know what progress we've made from previous.

With the prior budget allocations, where we're at in terms of developing that capacity now.

I'm happy to follow up on that.

Thank you, Mr. President.

So I'm really excited about three bills that appear to still be alive.

I know there's actually a lot of health care bills this year, which is also very exciting.

Just wanted to say, you know, anything that we can do to underscore our support for 5822 which is the evaluation of the basically universal single-payer system.

I'm really excited to see that move forward and then companion bills 1523 and 5526 looking at additional ways to ensure that there's quality affordable health care in the individual market and some tools that we've been actually waiting to use for a very long time which we put in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the creation of the exchange.

Oh my god, when was that?

Now almost a decade ago.

These are some tools that we've been waiting to use to actually create greater stability.

So very excited to see that move forward and thank you for having it on our list.

But if there's anything else that we can do to help move it along or provide testimony, happy to do so.

We'll keep you posted.

And we're happy, you know Erin, so you can reach out to her and she might be able to steer you in the best direction on that too.

There probably are some members who could use a little bit of nudge.

And it is really exciting to see so many health care bills this far in session.

So we're making good progress.

Anyone else for health care?

All right, we're on to housing.

So on, let's see, on the bottom of page 17, well actually it's the bottom of 16 and the top of 17, this is the bill that we discussed last time, which would allow cities and counties to use REIT 2 for construction of affordable housing and rehabilitation of facilities for those experiencing homelessness.

It was heard in the Senate Housing Stability and Affordability Committee on the 20th, And it's scheduled for executive session today.

So it's clearly on a good path.

It's got a good amount of support.

We appreciate drawing our attention to the need for this right away.

And it seems like others are very much seeing the need as well.

So we're very excited about that.

And then I also wanted to touch base on our favorite bill, 1406, the local option bond bill.

We love it.

So it continues to be moving along.

It's actually scheduled for executive session today.

There was a great public hearing last week.

Emily Alvarado from the Office of Housing spoke.

A lot of support on this bill.

So we're very excited about it.

We're prepping for when it kind of reaches the Senate budget negotiation point of how we can continually express that this is a big issue for us, so.

Christina, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you anticipating also potential Republican support and committee on this bill?

Yes.

Well, I believe so.

It's always hard to tell.

They have those lovely caucuses right before they start, so you never know what could sway their opinion, but regardless, we have enough to pass out of this.

And then the last one I have for you is another one of our favorites, my personal favorite, is the SEPA exemption for homeless encampments and shelters.

So it's at the bottom of page 18, 5946, introduced by Senator Nguyen.

This is the bill that would exempt, under a state of emergency, a city to help put up projects without SEPA exemptions that would cite city-sanctioned shelters and encampments within city limits.

It came out of the Senate with a couple of problematic amendments.

We're working on addressing them.

One is about the space between these encampments and schools.

Right now we have, it came out of it, I believe, with an amendment by Senator King to have 1,000 feet between these and schools.

But schools also, not just your traditional notion of schools, but there's also early education facilities, daycares.

I don't know if my neighbor's running a daycare out of her house.

So it's hard for the city to make sure that we can actually find a viable place to put these with that 1,000 foot limit.

So we're working on language around that to bring that down to a more manageable.

And we do understand and respect why people want to have space, but having too much can really limit our ability to do what we're trying to do here, which is helping people.

I actually had an interesting conversation this week with someone who was saying, why are we only doing SEPA exemptions for homelessness?

My project's taken three years to get through the process.

And I said, because people are dying.

Sorry, that's going to trump everything.

So we have other cities who are going to sign in to support, who have signed in to support on that, excuse me.

And we have a hearing today.

We have quite a good lineup set up for this, too.

And we're literally right now still working on amendments for this.

Another one that was problematic was around drugs and alcohol.

So Senator Zeiger put this in on the Senate floor, and it would prevent these camps and shelters from allowing drugs or alcohol within them.

Right now, with the exception, that's pretty much how our shelter services run.

We're really concerned, though, about having that provision, There could be an instance like every 20 years, foot and a half of snow that happens, and this would force us to turn people away who really need shelter.

The whole point of this bill is to save lives, no matter what the individual's going through.

So we're working on removing that, and we feel we have the votes to do that, just in committee, to remove that, to actually be able to help people who need help, not just a certain section of people.

Quick thought on that.

Can we offer, and maybe they're not interested, but the statistics that have come out of 1811 Eastlake and how strong and supportive that has been, how the community has ultimately come around and saying, that's a good thing, getting people inside.

And also, if there's a distinction between using alcohol or drugs inside and selling, I want to make sure that that's really clear.

Because everybody that has operated the shelters have said that the power dynamic shifts if anybody is selling drugs inside the shelter.

And I want to make sure that there's a distinction between, no, that's not going to be allowed.

People are going to be booted.

But to allow what people need to do.

Yeah, I think the overall point with this is we know some people are coming to shelter not quite sober.

They're still trying to figure out if that's a choice they want to make for themselves or if it's a choice they have the ability to make for themselves without some medical assistance as well.

Not all of them have caseworkers.

We just want to be able to provide a safe place for people to sleep at night.

That's really important to us, especially when we have a snowstorm or if we have flooding somewhere.

We don't want to have to turn people away who are asking for our help.

That's the intent of this bill, and we're really lucky to have Senator Wynne as a champion on this.

He is all in on this, and he is a lobbying expert himself.

So we're very lucky to have him, and we're excited for the hearing today.

Good.

Thank you.

Any other questions on housing?

Please.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Are you done with the housing presentation?

Of course.

There's three bills that I'm really excited about as well.

And I want to applaud the city team, the city lobby team, and the executive for working with us.

And that is House Bill 1923, which is about greater density for cities around the state.

Thanks to Joe Fitzgibbon for sponsoring that.

And then companion bills 5812, which is Senator Palumbo and Mia Gregerson, 1797, on the ADU bills.

Just want to reiterate and confirm that the City of Seattle is supportive of these bills.

We are.

Excellent.

Okay, great.

And I hope that that clarifies the record for a confused representative, Jerry Paulette, who had indicated otherwise, both on his Facebook and in the Seattle Times.

I think that this is really important that we're very clear that especially on 1923, we have unified messages that are coming out of this city and a number of other cities.

We have Everett, we have Tacoma, we have a number of other friends across the state who are saying when it comes specifically to addressing the racist redlining history that is embedded in our zoning policies, we do need friends at the state legislative level who can help lift the floor.

And I think we've done this a number of times when it comes to working with our state partners on creating a new floor.

When it comes to labor standards, minimum wage, sick leave, these are issues that we never want to take away the responsibility and ability for cities to raise the bar above a new floor.

So we've allowed for states to do that with minimum wage and sick leave, for example.

We also protected safety for workers, right?

We're asking our state partners to step up and create a new floor here.

I brought up these two bills last time we met because they're getting a lot of attention as well from our national partners at the National League of Cities who've applauded the work that our state legislature is doing as a partner with cities because when it comes to trying to address the housing crisis that we've all been trying to do, with the tools that we have in hand at the city level, we're going to continue to have a patchwork-like approach when what we need to do is help raise the floor across the board.

So I want to just say thank you for all of your work on this.

and reiterate our strong support and appreciation for your work.

I just want to add quickly, also appreciate you flagging some communications with Representative Paulette and we'll continue to work with him as the chair of local government.

I think ongoing discussions and collaboration will be important to move forward.

He is very concerned around any preemptive language.

So we'll continue to monitor that and keep you all updated.

But I do think continuing to engage will be helpful moving forward.

Thank you so much.

If I may.

Please.

You brought up preemption, which is one of my favorite subjects in the world.

And I just want to be really clear that the city of Seattle continues to hold a position that, in general, preemption is not something we're willing to accept.

the state legislature on issues that are really important to us that may be getting legislated in the state legislature.

However, there are, I think, opportunities for us to evaluate, particularly within the context of land use policy, whether it is appropriate for us to support language in legislation that effectively sets a floor, which technically is preemption because it means that the city of Seattle could not go below that floor.

But again, I think in this context, in the suite of bills that have been described by Council Member Mosqueda, it is appropriate to consider a legislative approach that allows for a floor to be set, particularly in the area of construction of additional ADUs and other minimum density requirements.

I mean, the reality is that we are hoping to see more dollars coming out of the state in order to facilitate municipalities' abilities to be able to build more affordable housing within our communities.

The question for me is, who's going to do the building?

which cities are going to step up in our region to actually construct that affordable housing.

We continue to talk about this issue as a regional affordability housing issue, and yet it still falls on us at the City of Seattle to pick up the heavy burden of constructing the most number of of income-restricted units.

And so I think that this minimum density approach does provide us a path forward to saying we're all going to own this equally and have these minimum density requirements so that the dollars that are being allocated by the state are effectively being deployed within communities and actually being utilized to build affordable housing in places other than the city of Seattle.

And so again, on the topic of preemption, I understand Representative Paulette's concern with preemption.

I share those concerns.

I think the question is how can we approach this with a little bit more of a scalpel approach as opposed to just saying I will never have this conversation in a million years.

And I think understanding that nuance is something that is ongoing.

I do know that Representative Paulette has convened some other stakeholders, including Senator Palumbo, who is very interested in seeing a regional housing solution advance.

So we will understand this is a high priority for the council and we'll definitely keep you updated as that moves forward.

And I appreciate the willingness to have those conversations and to continue to collaborate on identifying what could be, I think, a really important, good, common-sense solution for our regional needs as it relates to the housing gaps.

Just a follow-up question, are we talking about 1923?

Is that the bill we're talking about right now?

I believe 1923 and Helpmakers 5812 1797.

And just to, I'll pass out for the council's benefit, that nuanced position and the understanding of the levers that the state legislature could help apply for cities that are trying to address density.

That is exactly the tone of the message that we sent to the good representative and colleagues in Olympia.

I will pass out that letter so folks have that as an example and Councilmember Herbold outlined some of the specifics in that bill as well.

So thank you once again.

And if there aren't any additional questions on housing, I'm going to go ahead and start in on our public safety section and highlight some of our major priorities that are continuing to advance.

On page 20, rape in the third degree sponsored by Representative Orwell would eliminate the requirement that a victim clearly express lack of consent in order to prove rape in the third degree.

That passed the House unanimously and made it out of Senate law and justice and has already moved to Senate rules.

So some exciting movement there.

Sexual assault kit notice, also on page 20, House Bill 1016, sponsored by Representative Caldier, would connect survivors to providers and put penalties in place for hospitals that don't comply with referral requirements.

There's been a lot of conversations here at the council level.

I know there may be some local movement around tighter restrictions as well, and that bill passed the House unanimously and was referred to Senate Health and Long-Term Care.

On the bottom of page 20, sexual assault, House Bill 1166, a representative, another representative Orwell proposal, this would address the backlog of untested sexual assault kits in Washington State, a phenomenal achievement by all of the advocates, and I know many of you work closely on that as well.

This would address all of the backlog of untested sexual assault kits in Washington State, I believe by the date of 2020, if they pass and fund this.

Domestic violence, law enforcement, House Bill 1225 on the top of, I think I might have the page number wrong, top of page 18. Middle of 21. Sorry, middle of 21, wrong page numbers, excuse me.

Representative Jenkins' proposal, this would require law enforcement to secure firearms when responding to domestic violence calls and that passed the House 60 to 38 on March 5th and has been referred to Senate Law and Justice.

And then Native American women on the lower part of page 22, House Bill 1713, would create training and liaison positions to improve best practices relating to missing and murdered indigenous women.

This is something Councilmember Juarez has been watching closely.

That has also seen forward movement since our last briefing.

It passed the House unanimously on March 5th, was exec out of Senate State Government and Tribal Relations, and it is now has made its way way, two ways and means.

If I can just make a few comments.

First of all, I want to thank you guys for working so hard on this and shepherding this.

And as you know, this missing murdered indigenous women, this issue has been going on for well over a decade.

And we started the conversations with First Nations and then the tribes.

A real big thank you to Representative Mosbacher.

I mean, she's done a phenomenal job of shepherding this through, as well as our newly elected Deborah Lekhanov, who I've worked with for many, many years.

But I think that we should pat ourselves a little bit on the backs.

The city of Seattle has moved forward.

We've had great conversations with Chief Best about what this means, but to have the state be cutting edge, First in the nation, I believe, to actually establish the positions to focus on the data of missing, murdered Indigenous women.

And I know that from our time in Washington, D.C.

in February when we met with Senator Warren, Senator Cantwell, and Senator Murray, that this was at the top of their list with Savannah's Act and the data collection.

And this council passed an ordinance last spring, I believe, to work with the SPD in focusing just exactly what this legislation is doing.

So I'm very proud of my state, I'm very proud of my county, and I'm very proud of my city, and I'm really happy that the tribes also worked with the state.

And I think this is why representation from Native communities is so important.

Not just about me, but Deborah Lekanoff, who's been working on this tirelessly, as well as many other elected Native women, not just in city and state government, but in their own governments from all across the nation.

So I want to thank you guys.

This is really near and dear to my heart, so I appreciate it.

Thank you for your work on that, and congratulations.

I haven't had a chance to read the actual language of the bill.

I've been following it just from the sort of conceptual perspective, but is there any language in the bill that talks about connection between the law enforcement agencies and county medical examiner offices?

I didn't see anything in my read of the bill around the medical examiner.

What I have here just in the summary that I wrote up, this would establish the liaison positions as we talked about within the state patrol for the purpose of that relationship building that we referenced earlier.

It would also require that WSP develop best practices protocol for law enforcement response, and then would require the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs to provide the State Patrol with government-to-government training.

So I don't know that that training has been developed, but we'd be happy to follow up and see if there is any coordination happening with the Medical Examiner's Office as well.

I would suggest that that would be a good, a good suggestion for us to consider making.

I haven't had an opportunity to talk to Council Member Juarez about this, but when I did a tour of the King County Medical Examiner's Office last year, I had an opportunity to enter into a a room with old remains in it, and many of them were unidentified.

And I think, you know, the medical examiner, at least in King County, has a lot of interest in reconnecting the family of deceased individuals in a really meaningful way.

And I had at the time suggested to him the efforts around murdered and missing indigenous women and wondered if there was an opportunity to create some sort connection there that would, you know, potentially allow for some of that peace to be found.

Excellent suggestion.

We'd be happy to follow up with the bill sponsor on that recommendation.

Thank you.

I'm gonna highlight under safety net and civil rights on the top of page 26 certificates of discharge representative Hanson's new Hope Act and conversations with many of you about ways that we could partner with the state around addressing barriers to housing and employment this seems like a really important policy to address that it would expand eligibility and to vacate certain non-violent criminal records, and that passed the House unanimously on March 1st and was heard in Senate Law and Justice on March 21st, so that continues to move right along.

Agency employees harassment, lowered down on page 27, that's House Bill 1692, would put disclosure protections in place for employees reporting sexual harassment.

That bill also passed unanimously.

We continue to see a trend of a lot of bipartisan support and a lot of unanimous votes on many of the public safety and victims advocacy legislative priorities.

And House Bill 1692 will be heard in Senate, State, Government, and Tribal Affairs was heard on the 22nd.

Wage and salary information, knowing many of you worked very hard on the Equal Pay Opportunity Act.

This is sponsored by Representative Dolan, House Bill 1696, and would expand on that last year's win on equal pay by prohibiting employers from asking about pay history that passed the House 56 to 40 and has been referred to Senate Labor.

LGBTQ Commission on the top of page 29. That's something Councilmember Juarez has also worked very closely on, would establish a commission within the governor's office.

That bill is still moving forward past the Senate 34 to 14 on March 6 and is scheduled for a hearing in, and was scheduled for a hearing in House State Government on the 20th.

Lastly I had a cop a chance to look at both bills this morning that I was concerned about and on this one I guess the only thing that I'm concerned about in looking at the bill in the language is that I'm always sub I'm always a little bit suspect when they say I'm looking at the new section section 3 on page 2 of the bill when they say subject to the availability of amounts of appropriate for the specific purpose and You are right to be suspicious of that.

Yeah, that basically means, well, unless we have money, we're not going to do it.

And I have a real problem with that, particularly since we have the tribal commission, the Asian, we have the African-American, and this has been a long time coming.

We've worked really hard on this.

So is there a way that I can go to Olympia and strike this?

I think we will continue to reinforce this as a high priority for you and the rest of the council.

I think in, you know, part of that conversation being continued pressure on the legislature for sustainable revenue sources, you know, a lot of those conversations will be moving forward as the budgets come out around We can't, regardless of the revenue forecast, a lot of those resources are going into our our McCleary obligations still and we need to look at sustainable progressive revenue sources so that we have the ability to fund the important policy that's moving forward.

If I can just arm you with some information and I'm sharing this with Councilmember Gonzalez's committee as well.

We've been working to tee up legislation citywide because we have seen statewide and certainly in this country that people are using their First Amendment right in order to deny health care to transgender and LGBTQ people.

And this isn't about surgery.

This is about I don't want to deliver your child or fix your arm or whatever.

The First Amendment has been weaponized and we've seen it everywhere, from the Janus case in labor to every other issue, and it's not going to end.

These cases are coming not only out of the South, but we had a couple cases in Bellingham, we had a case in Thurston County.

So my concern is this commission, if we've ever needed it before, we need it now because we need a group of people who are part of this community who can relate not only to the state, but also to the city.

What are the issues that we need to be teeing up to protect these human rights and how do we address this issue about whether or not, you know, this is, it's along the same lines of I don't want to bake somebody a cake because I don't agree to their quote unquote lifestyle.

Now we're seeing, I don't want to provide healthcare.

Now we've, without going into all the detail, we've been working on that and we're going to continue to work on that.

So for me, this isn't more just about a commission that happens to want to talk about, you know, Gay Pride Month.

These are real on-the-ground issues that are affecting people's health, housing, jobs, and that's what I'm getting concerned about.

And I don't see that fervor against this community in using the First Amendment.

I don't see that going away.

So I agree with you and we'll continue to monitor that closely and let you know about opportunities to engage as that moves forward.

But understand that's a very high priority.

You guys have, you have a, you have this Wednesday is public comment day, right?

Wednesday at 1.30 in the, let's see, 3.27, that it's going to be up for.

The executive session.

Oh, it's an executive session.

Yeah, so there won't be a public hearing attached to that, but hopefully they will advance it out of committee.

Okay, thank you.

We can also arrange to have, if you'd like to send emails to some of the committee members, if you'd like to do that.

I would love to do that.

Yeah, we could help or show up.

I don't know if showing up does any good.

Yeah, I think we would reserve your precious time for public hearings versus the executive sessions.

You kind of sit in the back and they're doing their business and moving forward with votes.

But, you know, if there's an opportunity, You know, potentially on the floor.

I would love an opportunity.

We will continue to look at ways for you to engage directly.

And even if that means hanging out with all the lobbyists who are lurking outside of the doors, maybe we'll drag you down there with us.

Won't be the first time I hung out with lobbyists, but I would absolutely welcome an opportunity to do that.

So thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And I think if there aren't any further questions, we'll move on to transportation.

Transportation.

On page 30, just want to highlight the motorized foot scooter bill and gross substitute house bill 1772. It did receive a public hearing last week.

We did sign an other for the legislation.

It says there's still some, we know that the council is very supportive of it, but we still have some identification language issues that we're working through with the mayor's office.

AWC signed in pro and Bird and Uber and the other stakeholders that have been involved.

So I think a lot of progress has been made.

The insurance industry did come forward noting that they had not seen some of the issues and they're currently evaluating the bill right now and looking to see if they might want to put forward an amendment on it.

So we'll keep you appraised of that.

And not listed here as a bill, our automated enforcement effort, though the legislation itself is dead, we are still looking at opportunities to advance the concept.

And we are very grateful for all the work that so many of the council members have done in the last week to help elevate that issue.

So still working on that and more to come in the coming weeks.

That's all.

And any additional questions?

I just remembered that I was looking at the sign-in sheets and I think I completed sign-in sheets.

So Everett and Tacoma that I mentioned earlier signed in pro on the scooter bill, correct?

Are we close on that language then?

I think there's some disagreement about whether or not the removal of the demonification language would be sufficient.

I feel like it's a battle between legal minds at this point.

So we're still working on that.

We're still trying to put forward suggestions.

I don't know if we're at a point that they feel they will take it, but I know that AWC thinks that it is sufficient, and we're working on our legal side to make that work.

Well, in this case, I'd like to thank the AWC for their continued position on this, and I think their analysis is accurate.

I also think that it's really critical, as we see today being the first day of Seattle Squeeze 2.0.

This is another good opportunity where we could have multi-modal transportation alternative added to our list of potentials to get folks out of their car and with the number of buses now on the surface streets helping to connect folks to those buses especially the last mile to light rail again you know I think it's a the bill has come a long way and I would love to see it continue to go forward I didn't say scoot but I wanted to thank you

That it okay.

Thank you very much for a great report again and go out there and do what you guys are doing so well Thank you so much No, I just want to comment thank you for organizing when I came down on Tuesday I was very impressed with just how the four of you interacted with our legislators Thank you for all your work in Olympia.

Thank you for coming down

I just want to start off to say as a quick report regarding the vacancy in council position for all of you on Thursday should have received sort of a description of an outline that takes a look at all of the historical practices and the ordinances and and procedures that we have in place for vacancy and tried to neatly lay out a schedule and I want to thank the clerk's office and central staff and Dana and HR for and many members of our department working so feverishly on this process and so I want to thank them as we continue to do that work.

It did go out to the public that same day on Thursday and as we speak today March 25th till April 5th we are looking at applications, taking applications, and if any of you have any questions in terms of what you can do, can you talk to people, can you recruit people, I would just suggest that either contact me or contact ethics and we will go through what the there's there's not a lot of specific language on that so that of course the the process is very public and very transparent but there's no prohibitions for you talking to people and that kind of thing I think that has been historically done as well so I hope that procedure works and if you have any questions or comments just feel free to to let us know.

Having said that Council Member Swann.

Thank you, President Harreld.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

There are no items on today's full council agenda from the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renters' Rights Committee.

The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for its regular time tomorrow, March 26th, at 2 p.m.

It will be a short meeting with two appointments to the Pacific Hospital PDA, Robert Cook and Doris Koo.

They will be at the table for confirmation, along with Jeff Nader, the current president of the PDA, who will introduce their work.

I also wanted to mention that on Saturday I was happy to join district community members and others around the city for the ribbon cutting ceremony of the Africatown Liberty Bank building, which is an important landmark affordable housing project with 87% African American tenancy.

And it's an example of the work that the Equitable Development Initiative can do.

The EDI is currently very underfunded, but the Liberty Bank building is an example of how many more community projects could be brought to fruition like this if it was adequately prioritized.

Thank you very much.

Council Member O'Brien.

Mr. President, may I ask?

Yes, Council Member Skidmore.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Sawant.

I'm not going to be able to join, but I had intended to want to be part of the conversation around the North Lot PDA.

Having been on the board, that creation of the North Lot housing and childcare and senior center is really important for me.

So if it's okay with you, Madam Chair, I'd like to submit a few questions that maybe could be asked about the appointees in my absence, since I'm not able to join you.

Okay, thank you so much.

I'll send that your way.

Thank you.

The Sustainability and Transportation Committee does not meet this week and there's nothing on this afternoon's agenda.

We did at a committee last week pass a resolution at a committee adopting the University District Mobility Plan but unfortunately we didn't get the paperwork ready to get that on the agenda this week so that'll be coming the following week.

We do have an elected leadership group meeting this weekend for Sound Transit 3, West Seattle and Ballard Alignment Project.

The meeting is from 9 to noon, so I know a number of you are on the elected leadership group.

And this meeting, to be clear, is exclusively focused on considerations for both the Chinatown International District Station and the Dell Ridge Station.

And so I'm sure that we will through all three hours of that talking through the options and understanding the trade-offs and hearing from the public a bit on that.

So I'm looking forward to that meeting.

The other thing I'll just mention, I'm circulating a letter I handed you all a draft copy of it, but I have the original here that I'll pass around to get signatures on.

This is a letter to the ACLU related to concerns on some bills in Olympia they have about using traffic enforcement cameras for broader surveillance.

I circulated this letter to you all yesterday, so I hope you had a chance to see it.

But it basically states the city's shared concerns with ACLU that our interest in traffic enforcement cameras is exclusively for traffic enforcement infractions and not for broader surveillance.

And the letter goes into a little bit of detail about positions on bills in Olympia that may be counter to that.

Pass that around.

That's all for me.

Thank you.

So does this letter provide a potential path to resurrect the bill that we do support allowing for automated traffic enforcement in black box areas and bus lanes?

If it were as simple and clean as that, that would be great.

What I can tell you is that our team that was just here is working aggressively to find a way to bring the bill that we were supporting back or some way to get some flexibility so that we can at least pilot those programs.

I have talked with folks at the ACLU, and they have a variety of concerns.

And I think this letter goes a long way to help address the city's position on those concerns.

And so I'm hoping that they will, this will help them.

But they have concerns about what's going to happen in Olympia too that's beyond the control of the people sitting at this table.

And those concerns, you know, no matter how eloquent a letter we write is never a guarantee that Olympia will do one thing or another.

So this is, I don't want to characterize this letter as once we sign this then we're good to go and we're on the same page because I don't know that that's the reality.

But I do think just from a policy perspective, at least for myself, this is what I think of surveillance and how I want to do and I want to make that clear.

And I think it's helpful for the ACLU to understand that that is the city's policy.

And so even if we restricted the bus lane and block the box legislation to only Seattle, the concern is even with our surveillance legislation, the other bill could override the protections that we've already put into practice here in Seattle around the use of surveillance.

So I'm going to I'm going to say at a high level here because I don't know the specifics of it.

I think the fear would be that if we are capturing surveillance data that we intend to use exclusively for traffic enforcement, that an Olympia bill could make that available for other uses beyond that.

And whether our surveillance ordinance would trump that or the other way around, not clear on.

I believe that we have a good relationship with ACLU around surveillance.

The city needs to continue to do our work to make sure that we're living up to our commitment.

But I think they have a different perspective on jurisdictions around the state.

So even while this bill may be a pilot for Seattle, I understand how that could grow into something else that would cause them concern.

At the same time, it's a really important bill for us.

There's a lot of safety concerns.

We know disability rights advocates, along with the city, have been advocating for this.

And we're just trying to say, we understand the trade-offs.

We really think it's appropriate to move forward, at least with the Seattle.

And let's continue to work the other issues.

I'm sorry.

So House Bill 1229, was that the bill we originally supported?

No, so there's, I don't have the bill number in front of us, but there was a bill that the city was advocating for, which would allow the city of Seattle to do the cameras.

There's a separate bill, which is 1229, which would, and again, I'm not the expert on 1229, but it would create an opening for those photographs to be used much more broadly.

That bill is dead.

Both of those bills are dead at the moment.

But, you know, things can come back and in future sessions.

And I felt it would be useful for us collectively to be on the record publicly and with the ACLU to say, you know, we will continue to keep an eye on bills like that this session and in the future to address our concerns.

Got you.

Thanks.

All right, thank you.

The Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee has no items on today's full council agenda.

We do have a committee meeting tomorrow, and on that agenda are a couple of appointments.

One appointment to the Museum Development Authority Governing Council, and another to the LGBTQ Commission.

We're also going to be receiving a briefing and project update on the Ship Canal Water Quality Project.

and we are going to be hearing more about the status of that project in preparation for an ordinance coming later this year to lift a budget proviso.

We also will be hearing an ordinance proposed by members of the People with Disabilities Commission related to televisions in areas of public accommodation and closed captioning and then finally we are going to receive an update on the plan to act on the council's previously passed resolution on potential solutions to address eviction harms identified in that resolution 31861. Just as a little bit of a reminder in resolution 31861 The council identified a number of problems that were identified in the losing home report and made a commitment on behalf of the council to explore solutions to those problems.

A number of those issues are being addressed in the state legislation that we've heard about.

over the course of the legislative session.

And so what we're gonna be having a conversation about is of the things that we've identified in the resolution that were also lifted up in the report, which of those items have not been addressed by the state legislative actions that are being deliberated right now and whether or not there are some things that the city still needs to do to fill in those gaps.

As far as regional committees, Councilmember O'Brien already mentioned the elected leadership group.

We also have a regional transit committee meeting this week.

I have office hours this Friday between 2 and 7 at the Southwest Customer Service Center.

And then as far as major events coming this week, well first of all I just want to mention last week there was the Arts Office opening at the King Street Station.

Councilmember Bag Show was there.

It is- As were you.

Yes, as was I.

Yes, thank you.

It was a fantastic celebration.

Sorry I missed you, but I was just about ready to make a plug for Raven.

That was my daughter and my niece.

My niece was a curator.

Yeah.

So yes, the arts exhibit was curated by three artists, Tracy Rector, Asia Tale, and sat pre-halon and I really urge people to go over and see the exhibit.

It was fantastic and we're just really happy to see that a many years long dream that the Arts Office has had to occupy that space both for their offices and also as a public gallery that has come to fruition.

It's something that they've been working on.

since probably about 2014. Also this week we have a launch, a community grocery launch.

Workers are beginning their bargaining process.

That launch is going to be on Thursday.

And then also the Washington Environmental Council Gala is on Saturday.

And I think that's all I've got for today.

We have nothing on the agenda this afternoon for the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee.

We were going to have one item and Council Member Gonzalez, this was the office space bill that you and I approved out of the committee on Friday.

But since there's a ratify and confirm clause in that document, Parks is going to be able to move forward with it and this will be in front of full council next Monday.

I'm not going to be here, so I will make sure that you've got some speaking points to that.

We'll ask everybody to sign it.

Our parks department is going to move about 115 people over to the new building over at Elliott, and this is replacing the space that they've had down near the ICE building for the last couple of decades.

So I do want just to acknowledge and say thanks to Randy Engstrom.

The art space, as you described, it's in King Street Station.

It's now on the upper floors, and it's quite stunning.

I'm very impressed at what happened there, and congratulations to your niece.

It was beautifully, and your daughter, beautifully curated.

Excellent.

Katzmarie Mosqueda.

Thank you, Mr. President.

There are a number of items on today's full council agenda from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee.

There's going to be four mayoral appointments to the Domestic Workers Standards Board and two mayoral appointments to the Seattle City Light Review Panel.

We also have a resolution.

I have the central staff memo.

Thanks to Eric McConaughey for drafting this for us.

And I want to make sure that folks have a chance to understand what this resolution is.

It's a resolution on the budget of the Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission, or the SEEC.

This is an agreement established between the province of British Columbia and the city of Seattle as a condition within the Ross Lake Seven Mile Reservoir Treaty between the United States and Canada signed in 1984. The treaty's terms run through 2064. The SCEC's mission is to ensure the preservation and protection of the natural and cultural resources and recreational opportunities of the Upper Skagit Watershed.

Seattle City Light's annual contribution to the funds is based on a fixed amount of power purchases.

This fixed amount of power purchase represents the amount of power foregone by not raising the level of the Seattle City Light High Ross Dam per the treaty.

The payment in the December 2018 amount was $136,583.

for December 2019, the payment is projected to be $139,500.

So I am passing out this memo because it is not an issue that we get a chance to talk about often.

In fact, one of the things that came from our committee discussion was a desire for committee members and the full council to actually get briefed on a regular basis.

I want to applaud our council colleagues for asking questions specifically about inclusion of the native community, both on the board and in terms of how the decisions are being made in the area, the impact that it has not only on natural resources, but on the, as directed, the cultural environment of the region and precious land that's been being used in that area.

So we are going to get additional information to respond to some of those questions, but are moving forward with a recommendation to support that here today.

Coming up in the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on April 4th at 930, we are going to have a conversation about Initiative 124. It's going to be an opportunity for us to hear from workers in the industry and the desire for us to be able to move forward with implementing the protections.

At a future point we're going to have opportunity here from the industry itself as well and I will make sure that for anybody who's not able to come to that committee that we hand out the central staff memo that's created as well as a briefing to make sure we all have a baseline understanding of that initiative.

This week, or I should say last week, I had the chance to wrap up our D3 tour with a really great tour from the Capitol Hill Eco-district where we walked through the neighborhood, looked at affordable housing, transit development.

What is it?

TOD.

Transit-oriented development opportunities that are happening in Capitol Hill.

And, you know, also heard about the shooting of an individual that I hadn't been aware of.

Almost it sounded like execution style.

So we're looking forward to working with the chair of safety as we think about how more folks are going to be walking around that neighborhood and ensure safety and access to the affordable housing there.

I am headed to New York this week where I'm going to have a chance to meet with folks at the Brennan Center, the Center for Popular Democracy, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, some of our colleagues who are in D.C.

like Councilmember Landers, SEIU 32BJ, and the Fast Food Justice Workers.

We're going to compare notes on labor priorities from coast to coast and really looking forward to bringing back some of those strategies.

I also want to make sure that folks have a chance to take a look at an early draft of both a memo that we're going to send to the legislative branch employees, management, and to our friends here on the second and third floor.

As folks know, we've been engaged in conversations at the city level.

Thanks to the leadership of this council and the mayor's office, we've created the Office of the Employee Ombuds.

We've created a new investigation unit for addressing harassment and intimidation.

And those are really outward looking at the various city departments.

One of the things that the state legislature did this last year was they passed a resolution creating a table to come up with standards internal for their legislative process, for their legislative branch to help protect legislative aides, to have standards for electeds, and to ensure that those who are working the halls as lobbyists or visitors also feel safe.

And I think that what they've accomplished with this year's resolution that they passed, which was Resolution 4401, one of the first bills passed this legislative session, was that they took the recommendations directly from frontline staff and they changed their personnel policies to ensure that the personnel policies were reflective of the table discussions.

This mirrors a process that, you know, if I had a magic wand, maybe I would have suggested doing last year, but I think it's a really great process for us to now pull together a table come up with recommendations and to identify changes that we would need internal to the legislative branch.

So it's a parallel complementary effort to what I think the executive is doing in the and what we're doing for our city departments.

But recognizing the legislative branch is a standalone branch that we have a chance to partner with frontline staff.

I want to thank Monica for your feedback on the letter.

And what we're hoping to do here is to get your feedback.

We will send out this letter and draft resolution and give folks two weeks to provide us with feedback.

And then the following week, we will begin discussing it, ideally in the Workers' Rights Committee.

This is, again, intended to be a really inclusive process to mirror what we saw at the state legislative level.

Excellent.

Was this shared with the hearing examiner's office as well?

Hearing examiner's office.

No, we did try to talk to Karen Jackson.

She's on leave right now, but we will be following up with her.

I can do that.

I'm sorry, Mr. President.

I think I committed to doing that with you, so I will follow up with them.

Excellent work.

Councilor Herbold.

Thank you.

Just a quick question about this.

I really appreciate your moving forward on this.

You have been a consistent voice for making sure that this department, the legislative department, is setting a high bar and leading.

My question is, as it relates to your reference to our independence, is Are the changes that are going through the office of the employee ombud and the new investigation unit, do they not cover our unit?

Or is the issue that you're interested in this department maybe going further and that investigations would still go through the ombud?

You want to add an extra layer?

There's two things.

One is that the Office of the Employee Ombud and the investigation unit that's been created, ideally as independent bodies, not under the purview of either the executive or the council, are not subject to undue political influence.

Those are absolutely available for anybody in our legislative branch to use.

When it comes to the personnel policies, if you remember personnel rule 1.1, which really guides our expectations for workers at the city, the personnel policies that we have at the legislative department mirror often what is put in place for all other employees.

So in effect, in our legislative branch, even though we're independent, we've often adapted the language that has been changed for personnel rule 1.1 and just mirrored it internal to the legislative branch.

The question that we're now asking is, do we, since those changes have yet to be made to personnel rule 1.1, hopefully as a result of the feedback that we get from the new ombud and the experiences that continue to come forward from workers in various departments, we will eventually have changes to personnel rule 1.1 external for all of the other city departments.

The question is, what if anything does the legislative team here, our frontline staff, what would they like to see in terms of changes for that personnel rule?

So it could parallel it, or we could also say, you know, hey, we're in a really unique situation here.

We got people coming in to have conversations all the time.

Here's where I would feel more safe if.

So that's the dual way in which it applies.

I appreciate that.

Council Member Bekshaw.

Great, thank you.

I omitted to say thank you to all of you for coming to our special committee last Friday.

We had a long meeting where we were able to talk with Jason Johnson.

If you have other questions, many of us have submitted additional questions to him, and he will come back on Friday the 12th to discuss that.

If there is an interest in having yet another opportunity to talk with him, I encourage you to have one-on-ones.

We also can schedule a third meeting on Thursday evening, April 11th, if that time is available.

So I just wanted to make sure that you all have plenty of time, that your questions are answered, that nobody feels rushed, and that you get back to me if there's any concerns that you have at this point.

Thank you.

And just to wrap up, Mr. President.

Yes, please.

No, that's perfect.

No, that's great.

I should also say thanks to the Council President for his feedback on this process that we've outlined here as well.

Thank you for your feedback on that.

And then one week from now will be the one-year mark of the 2020 Census count.

There's going to be a lot of activities across the nation.

We have the opportunity to partner with our King County partners, and there's going to be some events coming up.

So if you haven't yet heard about that, we'll make sure that that information gets sent around.

We want to make sure that everybody knows a year from April 1st is our deadline for hopefully creating an inclusive and trustworthy process for our community partners.

And we'll get some more information sent out about that.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Council Member Johnson.

Thanks.

One item on the introduction and referral calendar today, so the following brought to you by the law department.

Clerk file 314424 is an application of Mount Baker Housing to rezone approximately 11,000 square feet located at 2800 MLK Jr.

Way South.

from NC 140 to NC 175 with an M suffix.

That application is now pending for the purposes of the council's quasi-judicial rules.

Council members should avoid communications with either proponents or opponents of the project.

And if you have questions about our council quasi-judicial rules, please see Ketel Freeman of our council central staff.

This is one of those issues where we put it on the introduction and referral calendar, but it's not planning to come to us for several months, if not years.

We also have one item that's going to be on today's introduction and referral calendar for action this afternoon, and that's the honorary designation of a two-block section of University Way between 50th Street and Northeast 52nd Street.

to be known as Honorary Chris Curtis Way.

For those of you who may remember Chris, we celebrated her retirement from the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance last August.

This organization, the one that she founded in the early 90s, has been at this same location in the University District now for more than 25 years.

So it seemed appropriate to try to rename this one little two-block section Though it's listed as two blocks, it's really only one block because there's no 51st, as Chris Curtis Way.

So we'll have members of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance joining us this afternoon.

Although they want to try to keep it secret from Chris.

So let's keep it all between us and the hundreds who are in the audience and watching at home.

Does everyone get that at home?

Everybody gets that, right?

Yeah.

Don't tell Chris that we're going to keep it secret.

We're going to keep it secret.

That's the only item on today's full council agenda.

And since we've adequately covered Friday morning's Sound Transit elected leadership group meeting, I have nothing else to add.

Very good.

Councilman Gonzalez.

Good morning.

Okay, so nothing on this afternoon's agenda from the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.

We do, however, have a regularly scheduled committee meeting this Wednesday, March 27th at 9.30 a.m.

here in Council Chambers.

We will have one item on the committee agenda and that is our continuing conversation around the proposed implementation and evaluation plan for the Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy.

This will be our third committee discussion regarding the FEP implementation plan.

And just as a reminder, our final committee meeting on the levy's implementation plan will be on Thursday, April 18th at 2 p.m.

I want to make sure that you a copy of Council Central staff's memorandum, 12-page memorandum, on issues that we have begun to identify related to the implementation and evaluation plan.

There are eight issues that I have worked with central staff to identify thus far and we will continue to have discussions about these eight issues and again encourage all of my colleagues to the extent that you are interested and able to also provide us with any issues that you believe exist in the implementation and evaluation of plan for the FEPP levy.

So that is all I have to report.

Thank you Councilman Gonzalez.

Councilman Juarez.

Thank you.

I'm going to, if you will just indulge me for a moment.

I'm going to take a moment here to take a mom moment and an auntie moment.

First of all, Council Member Herbold, thank you very much for your leadership on the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture for the Yee Haw indigenous event that we had Saturday.

I wanted to share with you, though, what Yeho means.

It means together we lift the sky.

And in other words, this is a long story about when we lift the sky, we also lift each other.

This comes from Vi Hilbert.

She was an elder upper Skagit, and she was the last fluent speaker, which was her first language, of the Lesotho language.

And I knew Vi my whole life, and I've heard this story that she's done when we're talking about lifting the sky.

Vi was deemed a Washington State gem, if you will, in 1989, and she received the National Endowment for the Arts Award from President Clinton in 1994. I can't stress what a phenomenal woman Vi Hilbert was and all her work she did with the University of Washington.

So this art project that's going on is going to go from March 23rd to August 3rd, 2019. It was curated by my niece, Asia Tale, and Tracy Rector, and Sepat Calon, and also my daughter, Raven Wars Friedman.

She not only was an artist there, but she was also doing a huge project, a hands-on project, working with children and adults.

So I was very proud of her.

And I want to thank the mayor's office and the executive folks that showed up to kick off the event.

And I want to give a quick shout out to the 11 other organizations, including tribes, that made this possible.

There was the For Culture Arts Fund, the Chihuly Garden and Glass, the Muckleshoot Tribe, the Nisqually Tribe, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Potlatch Fund, Seattle Foundation, the Seattle Latino Film Festival, And, of course, the Seattle Public Library and the Nahali Ali Fund.

And the reason why I want to share that is this project, Nia Ha, has been a long time coming.

They've been curating and working on it for well over two years.

And I know that because my niece has been working on it when she was working for the Museum in Tacoma and now at the Seattle Art Museum.

So with that, I'll move on.

So for this afternoon's council agenda, the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee has four items.

First of all, the appointment of Colleen Echo Hawk to the Seattle Indian Health Board.

Second, an ordinance transferring partial jurisdiction of a portion of the West Ewing Mini Park from the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation to SPU, Seattle Public Utilities.

Third, an ordinance authorizing the superintendent of Parks and Recreation to execute and accept a waterway permit in Laurelhurst, and another ordinance with the same terms for a waterway permit in the Arboretum.

And finally, Council land use action clerk file that allows the installation of seven athletic field poles at the Soundview Playfield Park which basically reviewing we got the seven athletic fields going on and we have other there's like 10 other um wonderful um enhancements that they're doing at that park so i'm really happy about that oh they're tearing up the old turf and putting in the new turf council member johnson is happy about that because we've been working with this for well over a year, so it's finally going to happen.

And also, the next Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee will meet next Wednesday at 3 o'clock at 2, and I'll share more.

And then, of course, we have the Library Levy Committee coming up.

The mayor presented a new 2020 library levy for the City of Seattle last week.

The proposal allows for the successful services, programs, and amenities provided by the Seattle Public Library and the 2012 levy to continue to serve the people of Seattle.

I will be chairing the select committee along with Council Member Baxhaw.

As you know, the legislation has been transmitted.

It looks like the levy amount is about $213 million.

And so I'm going to be providing my colleagues with some preliminary material, history, a chronology of how we're moving forward on the levy, and of course the cost differential of what occurred in 2012 in which the levy was $123 million.

Now it's 213. There's a 90 million dollar difference and we're going to break down not just inflation costs, but what it's going to take for us to move forward with this levy.

It looks like this levy in 2019-20 is going to still focus on the same issues that we focused on in 2012, which is open hours and access, collections, technology, and maintenance.

And for the record, I want to share that I have not or have I ever not returned a library book.

I have always paid and never, ever, ever, ever have had or had a fine, so I do not need amnesty.

That was a joke, folks.

Thank you, Councilman Juarez.

MT's proud of me.

Before we move to our next and last agenda item, I did want to mention this Saturday I'm hosting a celebration of mentors and coaches in Seattle area, Rainier Beach's coach Mike.

This is in Columbia City, Saturday at 6, and you all are welcome, and I have tickets for you if you'd like to go.

Mike Bethea, Rainer Beach's coach, Joyce Walker from Garfield, John and Mike Yasutake, who were CAY and youth coaches for decades, Stephanie and Derek Wheeler were Cleveland High School's coaches, Al Hairston, Garfield coach and O'Day coach, and Al Roberts, a Garfield coach.

So a celebration of mentors and coaches throughout the community for years.

That's Saturday at six.

And then this Thursday, I'm hosting a technology seminar for the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, which is the first and oldest African-American fraternal organization in the country.

It started in 1906, so that'll take place this Thursday.

So all are welcome to come.

So having said that, let's have our next presenters up.

We're going to have Marcellus Turner, the executive director and chief librarian, and Stesha Brandon from the Seattle Public Library.

And we're excited to go through and share with our city our Seattle Reads

Our new book.

Project.

There's a lot of people.

Good morning, and thank you for having us here.

Before I quickly move forward with the presentation, I just wanted to acknowledge that I wasn't feeling very well, and I stepped out for a moment, and Mr. Teran, one of your security officers, came and checked on me, and so I was appreciative of that.

But I don't know who to send a thank you note to, so if any of you know who's over that department, I'd be happy to do so.

I see most of the security team when I move through the building coming to meetings, They recognize me and I recognize them, but for him to step out and check on me was really appreciated.

Oh, thanks for those comments.

We'll relay the feedback.

Yeah.

With that, we're happy to be here.

As you know, we're here to talk about Seattle Reads.

It is one of the opportunities that I'm most happy to do.

I don't get as much chance to go out and book talk.

as my colleague Sesha does, but we're happy to present to you this year's The Best We Could Do.

I think you asked me about it last week, Councilmember Bagshaw, and I will admit that the only title that kept running through my mind was The Best That You Could Do, the theme song from Author.

And so that's why I was hesitant to speak.

But we're happy to share this with you.

I think the team that Stesha leads to run Seattle Reads did a very good selection, not just in the topic and the content and the author's story, but the artwork is very beautiful in this year's book.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Stesha.

Thanks so much, MT. Hi, everybody.

So this year, as MT mentioned, the selection is The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui, and she will be visiting Seattle April 13th through 16th, so coming up pretty quickly.

The book is a graphic memoir which tells the story of Thi's family's journey from Vietnam after the Vietnam War, sort of in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

They came over in 1978 to America, And it is just a remarkable book.

It talks about their immigration experience, the refugee experience, the impact of war on intergenerational relationships.

And it also looks at mothers and daughters and parenting and just sort of those bigger themes that I think a lot of different folks can relate to.

It's won a lot of accolades.

It's been on a bunch of top ten lists, and it got a number of five-star reviews from a variety of media outlets.

It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the autobiography category.

And that's pretty unusual for them to nominate a graphic novel or a graphic memoir for that category.

And it was also a finalist for the Eisner Award, which is a comics award.

And Thi was born in Vietnam but came over to the U.S. in 1978 when she was about three years old and has lived, mostly she was living in New York and then she moved back to California.

You'll find out when you read the book about why she did that.

But she was a teacher, a founding teacher at Oakland International High School, which was the first public high school in California that was specifically for recent immigrants and English learners, and that's a passion project for her.

And then since 2015 she's taught at the MFA in Comics program at the California College of the Arts.

So we're really excited that she's going to be visiting in April.

The book is going to be discussed at all 28 of our library affiliated book groups throughout, it's been starting in March and then all the way through June and will be discussed.

And then T is coming April 13th through 16th.

She'll be doing a total of seven programs for us, five of which will be public and those will take place at library locations or at community locations.

We're working with ACRS and the El Centro de la Raza Centelia Cultural Center to host public programs with the author.

We'll also be doing two private programs for prioritized audiences.

She'll be going to the Vietnamese Senior Association, and she'll be talking with University of Washington's Vietnamese Student Association, and they've actually invited the Vietnamese Student Association from Seattle University to visit as well for that.

We have a lot of community partners this year.

I'm thrilled.

We've just had a lot of really positive response from the community.

So the Vietnamese Friendship Association has been a key partner in planning our programs.

We've also been working with the Wing Luke Museum, ACRS, short-run Seattle, which is a comics festival, Friends of Little Saigon, and our partners at Northwest African American Museum, who we've been working with the last several years.

And we've done some unusual things this year with the books.

You know, every year we have books available for informal lending, and this year we have distributed about 1,500 copies.

About 350 of those were set aside for prioritized community engagement, and we also decided to widen our distribution point for these copies to include non-library locations, and that's a little bit unusual.

We piloted that a few years ago with Northwest African American Museum, and that was very successful, bringing the book to where people are in their communities was a really excellent way to reach folks that had not been engaged with the program before.

So we have the book being distributed at ACRS, at the Wing Luke Museum, at Friends of Little Saigon, and the Northwest African American Museum this year, in addition to all 28 locations of the library.

We're doing a few additional unusual things this year.

For the first time since 2004, we are working to engage non-English speaking audiences in the program, and that came about as part of our community listening.

We convened community to talk about the program, and we were hearing that they wanted us to find a way to engage elders.

in the Vietnamese community in the program.

And so we work to have a portion of the book translated into Vietnamese, and we're creating another little discussion guide, essentially, with an interview with the author and a translation of an excerpt of the book for the community.

And we'll be distributing those through Club Bamboo and some other locations in the city.

We're also finding that this year's selection, because it's a graphic, has been a really great opportunity to engage youth in the program.

And Seattle Reads is an adult reading program, but we've heard from the community that they're interested in having us find ways to connect the generations.

And so this has been really great.

We've had an opportunity to work with the youth at the Seattle World School, at area Vietnamese language schools, Seattle University, University of Washington, South Seattle, and Seattle Colleges.

And we've also got the youth program at ACRS and Wing Luke are involved in programming with us around this program this year.

We always do an artistic element, and this year we're featuring the playwright Susan Liu, who recently had her opening, 140 Pounds, was a huge hit at Theater Off Jackson maybe a month or two ago.

She's gonna be adapting the book.

Yeah, yeah.

She's gonna be adapting a portion of the book for performance at two of the programs, and our friends at Booker Repertory Theater are working with Susan, and then Kathy Shea from day job, Office of Arts and Culture, but in her off time, she's a playwright and a director, and so she'll be directing the production.

So I'm super excited that that worked out.

And so there'll be two stage readings at two of the programs, so the kickoff on April 13th and at the finale, which will take place at ACRS on April 16th.

We're also continuing.

Do you know if Seattle Channel is covering any of those events?

You know, I haven't heard from them yet, but sometimes they wait a little while.

I might reach out to them.

That's a good reminder.

OK.

Yeah.

My hope, they usually cover at least one.

Right.

Yeah.

And then finally, we are continuing to spread the Seattle Reads Love past the author's visit.

And so we'll be doing a series of additional programs on themes from the book.

in through the summer, and those include a comic series that we are doing with a local comics artist, Mida Mahato.

She's going to be teaching comics workshops that show people how to tell their own stories through a graphic medium, and there'll be three of those programs around the city.

And then we're also working with Short Run Seattle to host book discussion and conversation about comics and graphic novels.

And then we'll be hosting Ocean Vong, who's another Vietnamese author who's very popular.

He has a new novel coming out and he'll be coming in June as associated programming.

So we're really excited.

I hope that some of you are able to attend some of the programs in April and enjoy the book if you haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Just a few thoughts, Sasha.

Number one is the Seattle REACH program is such a phenomenal success, and it doesn't seem like you're resting on your laurels at all.

You guys, you sort of, excuse the pun, sort of written the book on outreach and just phenomenal work.

So I'm hoping Seattle Channel 21, as they monitor this conversation, could think about how we could sort of showcase all of this outreach, the translation, every Vietnamese organization that I was thinking are they brought into the loop?

You sort of went right there and said, we've contacted them.

So it's really fine work, fine outreach.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I think this is going to be one of the best ones.

And so thanks for sharing with us.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

OK.

Anything else?

Thank you so much.

OK.

Well, I hope you feel better, Marcel.

OK.

And with that, we'll stand and adjourn.

Everyone have a great rest of the day.