Seattle City Council Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee 5/22/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

It is Thursday, May 22nd, and the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee will now come to order.

It is 2.03.

I'm Sarah Nelson, Chair of the Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Solomon.

Here.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Chair Nelson.

Present.

Five present.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us today, including council member Moore and council member Rink.

We have a really full agenda today, and we have to get through.

The first thing on our agenda is Resolution 32170, granting conceptual approval to the Downtown Seattle Association to install, maintain, and operate interactive kiosk downtown.

Next we'll have a presentation and discussion of the draft digital term permit council bill for those kiosks.

And then finally a possible vote on council member Moore's council bill 120978 relating to the code of ethics.

And there are five amendments to that legislation.

So I wanted to get through the first two items relatively quickly and leave the bulk of our meeting time to discuss the last item.

So just for how things will go during discussion, and I might repeat this again later, but when discussing the items on the agenda, I'll recognize non-committee members after standing committee members have had the opportunity to ask their questions and provide their comments with the exception of council member Moore when we're discussing the ethics legislation, because she's the author and one of the council bill.

And so that provides an opportunity to answer direct questions and comments about that piece of legislation.

And then if council members have follow-up comments or questions for our presenters, I ask that you raise your hand to be recognized instead of engaging in a back and forth with presenters.

With that, if there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now proceed to our hybrid public comment period.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, we have 49 in person and we have 15 remote.

Okay.

We'll give everybody one minute to speak.

My intention was to provide up to an hour of public comment.

That leaves an hour left at the end of our meeting.

Council Bill C-4 states that total public comment periods shall not exceed 20 minutes unless extended at the direction of the presiding officer.

It is...

common practice to extend that public comment.

But again, we do have a time.

This is a scheduled two hour meeting and we do have a time limit at the end of the meeting.

Some council members have to get to some other things.

So we will be, that is how we will be proceeding with public comment.

Again, just a reminder that disruptions during public comment or speaking beyond the allotted time just simply takes up time for other speakers to have the opportunity to make their comment.

All right, so do you have the list, clerk?

Ready to go?

We'll do alternating 10 in-person, 10 remote.

And the time is now 2.07, so public comment will continue for an hour until 3.07, unless we end earlier.

I'll call on speakers in the order they signed up, starting with in-person public commenters.

Speakers will have one minute.

When you hear the chime, you'll have 10 seconds left.

If you exceed that time, your microphone may be cut off so that we can move on to the next speaker.

If you're offering remote comment, please make sure to press star six to unmute yourself.

And then with that, can we get numbers one through 10 down to the dais or down to the front, please?

Thank you.

Yes, you are.

One minute, God bless America.

God bless Seattle.

One minute is better than 30 seconds.

Yeah, I know this.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I support Trump in MAGA.

I have...

60 days for trespasses, five times you prosecute me.

My question to you, consul, you know what does mean.

What does mean accountability?

I'm totally confused.

I come to this place for 30 years, 5,000 times.

So I cannot understand what does mean word accountability.

You give me 18 trespasses for my right, speak for two minutes or one minute.

But two days ago, couple dozen people totally destroy everything.

Constitution in everything.

In you, Consul Nelson, very quiet.

You never quiet when I speak.

What is good?

What is your choice of one kind's people different from another?

Because Consul Savant, same fascist like you.

Only in different directions.

Thank you.

You understand why you're talking?

Thank you very much.

Can we get numbers?

Good morning, Council President Nelson and members of Seattle City Council.

My name is Rachel Snell.

I'm testifying proudly against the proposal to roll back renters and ethics protections.

In a time where voters already feel divided from their elected officials, rolling back ethics protections will just make the vision worse and increase the lack of trust in your constituents.

You've heard hundreds of testimonies, have heard protests and chants demanding that you not go against the will of the people.

People that elected you to office to work for us.

Why change a system that's worked just fine for decades?

If U.S. elected officials disregard the needs of constituents, the voices will only increase and become louder beyond these chambers.

If you don't want people engaging in disruptive behavior at City Hall, they don't engage in disruptive behavior by rolling back ethics protections.

But if you do, then the joke's going to be on you.

When are we ready?

Go ahead, please.

Good afternoon.

My name is Eddie Lynn.

I'm a proud Beacon Hill resident.

Trust in government is at an all-time low.

We should be restoring trust in local government by strengthening, not weakening our ethics rules.

I've spoken with hundreds of District 2 residents and folks across the city recently.

Not a single one who has heard of this proposal supports it.

As we all know, our current system is designed to uphold status quo for the wealthy.

allowing council members who are landlords and business owners to vote on legislation and their own financial interests further disenfranchises renters, workers, and marginalized communities.

That's why we must maintain our current strong ethical standards.

Trump and his cronies are engaged in unprecedented corruption.

We should be holding the line, not making it easier for corruption to happen here too.

Please vote no on rolling back ethics rules and stay up for the people and good governance in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes are running attack.

What do we do?

Winter spikes

Next person, please.

Next person, come on down.

Number four, please.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Chris Johnston, and I'm a mid supervisor at Downtown Seattle Association Metropolitan Improvement District.

I'm here to voice strong support for bringing IKE digital kiosks to downtown Seattle.

These kiosks will dramatically improve wayfinding.

The interactive real-time info will be beneficial for all.

The 108,000 downtown residents, 335,000 downtown workers, and 9.72 million annual visitors.

In 2024, MID Ambassadors provided 50,000 concierge service interactions.

Kiosks will connect people to local businesses, events, and cultural spots, driving foot traffic and supporting the downtown economy.

I urge you to support the installation of IKE kiosks to support an even more welcoming and inviting city for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What do we do?

Go ahead, please.

Please begin.

Good afternoon.

I'm Kurt Painter, and I represent Local Vision Seattle.

We're a local digital signage business established in January 2024. We have tried unsuccessfully since April 2024 to enter our own proposal for digital signage kiosk in Seattle, despite being ignored by the downtown Seattle Association, the mayor's office, and your own offices, despite repeated attempts.

The overwhelming majority of Seattleites oppose this concept.

The technology is antiquated, to say the least.

Wayfinding transit maps and general city messaging is content that might have been relevant in 1999, but not 2025. I'm asking you to stop this in its tracks or at least pause the process so a competitive environment can take place.

If you are going to litter the streets and eyes of Seattle, why not use a truly local company and provide truly local benefit for something that will be here long after events like the World Cup?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Please begin.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

When are we ready?

Hi, my name is Austin Che, and I'm a renter in District 7, and I staunchly oppose proposed changes to the ethics code that will undermine the trust between the council and its constituents.

You argue that the purpose of the bill is to ensure residents of every district have representation, but passing this legislation without allowing us to vote on it does exactly the opposite.

The recent actions of the federal government have begun to erode the trust we have in our institutions.

We need to know that our city is with us, not against us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up.

Hi, Howard Gale, District 7. So this bill needs to be held back.

It should be voted down, but it absolutely has to be held back.

On March 5, 2025, the SEC said, there are numerous examples that showed Seattle's current ethics law is a bit out of an outlier.

That was simply false information.

87% of the people living on the West Coast live under a local or state system of recusal.

On a state level, the percentage is 100%.

It's in the Washington Constitution since 1879 that all state legislators need to recuse themselves, but yet Seattle wants a different rule.

Also, you were lied to when it was suggested by Director Barnett that East Coast cities or Massachusetts has some different kind of recusal laws.

In fact, Massachusetts has had recusal for all levels of government for decades.

So again, you were faced with a lot of misinformation.

The last amendment was just posted yesterday at 526. Thank you, sir.

You need to withdraw this legislation.

Thank you.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Michael Woody.

I'm the chief strategy officer at Visit Seattle.

I'm here to voice strong support for the resolution 32170 and the term permit ordinance, which together would advance the installation of interactive wayfinding kiosks in our downtown core and participating neighborhood business districts.

These kiosks are a dynamic tool to enhance the visitor experience and promote local businesses and support the broader economic recovery.

In 2024, we welcomed 40 million visitors who spent over $8.8 billion in King County and supported over 68,000 local jobs.

but our research shows that many visitors arrive without a detailed plan and they really book lodging ahead of time.

So this is an opportunity for really to get them around the community and to spend money in our local businesses.

We see these kiosks as an extension of our visitor information centers, bringing timely information to street level.

Thank you.

We encourage you to support the legislation.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

And then the last two, number nine and 10, and then we'll go to 10 remote.

Thank you.

Anitra Freeman, speaking in opposition to the proposed changes in the ethics code.

I am a member of the board of Wheel and of Share, besides being a participant.

I've also been a member of the board of directors of Real Change and of the Low Income Housing Institute.

All of those and every other nonprofit that I know of has a code of ethics which says if you have an interest, a conflict of interest, you have to declare it and recuse yourself.

The decisions of the city council affect more people than the decisions of any other nonprofit.

That is a reason for strengthening your ethics, not weakening them.

Thank you.

Touch the mic.

Alex, please sit down.

Number 10, please come up.

By chanting in between speakers, you're engaging in disruptive behavior and delaying the orderly progress and it is not in compliance with council rules.

Give them trespass.

Give them.

Number 10, come on down.

Elizabeth Stanton.

I want to thank the council for the opportunity to speak to this today and also to express that I have deep and long history of respect for Wayne Barnett.

You know, you look across the country and what we're facing today, the guardrails are gone.

Our citizens are being yanked off the street, people born here and sent out of the country to prisons.

We cannot let this guardrail go.

We need to keep the ethics rule in place.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now proceed to remote comment speakers.

Go ahead.

Now I'm going to go to 10 remote speakers.

First remote caller is going to be Peter Condit.

Please press star six to unmute yourself.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Peter Condit in District 6. First, I ask that you reject the resolution to privatize sidewalk space.

Don consensual ad kiosks on sidewalks that are already too narrow would steal our attention in the name of corporate profit and should be banned.

I also ask that you reject Bill 120978, which would allow council members to enrich themselves through their vote.

Disclosure without recusal is meaningless.

Telling us you're going to benefit financially from a vote and then proceeding to take that vote does not make your action ethical.

It makes your money grab more brazen.

I ask that you reject, in particular, Amendment 2B.

If and when landlords stand to benefit from an upcoming bill, Amendment 2B could require renters on council to refuse themselves, specifically because they are less financially impacted than other members of the same profession, i.e. most of council who own land.

This backwards amendment to a backwards bill would give wealthier council members even more power.

Shame on you, Kathy Moore.

I hope this committee rejects your unethical bill.

Thank you.

With the instructions because they can hear you.

Next remote speaker, we have Marshall Bender.

Hey, Marshall, please press star six to unmute yourself.

Thank you, Marshall.

Hello, my name is Marshall Bender and I am a renter in District 5. I'm talking to the council today to ask you all to disapprove of CM Moore's proposed change to CFS code and to vote down her bill as well as Councilmember Hollingsworth's proposals to change the legislation.

So lowering ethical standards to allow elected officials like yourselves to do their self-dealing brazenly is just a terrible idea and it's most likely unconstitutional in Washington state.

If this change passes, council members that own property, that our landlords, et cetera, will just be allowed to simply disclose their conflict of interest rather than recuse themselves from the vote.

And that means that all of you, you know, big money grabbers, whatever, will have all the power and everybody else in the city will continue to have less.

That's not going to spell out well for your political careers or for the trust that your constituents have in you.

So Council Member Moore, specifically because you're my representative, I'd just like to stress how disappointing this is that you would propose this.

and how shameful you are as a politician.

And I look forward to all of you losing your seats in your coming elections.

Thank you so much.

Why don't you read the next three speakers?

Okay, yes.

The next three remote speakers will be Coleman Miller, BJ Last, and Michael Stewart.

Coleman Miller, please press star six to unmute yourself.

Hi, my name is Coleman Miller.

I live in District 2. Thanks for the opportunity to speak today.

I'm here to demand that the City Council reject Councilmember Morris' changes to the Conflicts of Interest Rules.

Councilmember Morris says that this change would improve representation.

I respond that a City Council full of landlords and business owners is probably unrepresentative of our community.

If the Council really cared about true representation, they would pass campaign finance reforms to ensure that Seattleites from all background and income backers have a fair chance of running for office.

They would raise revenue to fund more frequent and robust community town halls with food interpreters and childcare available to make it easier for the marginalized to make their voices heard.

They would make it impossible for certain council members to circumvent direct democracy and engineer their own alternatives to valid, broadly popular ballot initiatives like I-137.

Instead, the conservative block of the city council has put forth this legislation, which only serves to grease the wheels of the revolving door of council members whose interests are already perfectly aligned with the donor class of landlords and billionaires.

Yale has a reputation as being a prospective bastion.

It's time for the city council to put its money where its mouth is, not the other way around.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, B.J. Last, can you please...

Hey, B.J. Last, can you please press star six to unmute yourself?

Thank you.

bj my apologies can you please press star six to meet yourself thank you my name is dj last i'm the ballard homeowner and i opposed to change the ethics code obviously since literally no one actually supports this other than apparently some council members i also opposed the resolution uh for the kiosks uh you all call them kiosks uh they're not they're billboards their primary function is to display ads That's what they do.

They are big, bright billboards that the downtown Seattle Association wants to put in the middle of our sidewalks.

They're going to make our sidewalks even more, cluttering them a lot, which is this is a nightmare for anyone that actually has mobility issues because our sidewalks are already really crowded and a pain to go and try to navigate.

So really way to make the city even less friendly and welcoming to people with mobility issues.

They're also really, really bright lights right at eye level.

So they're going to distract drivers because ads are actually meant to be eye-catching.

And this also creates issues for people that are sensitive to bright lights, making it harder for them to actually be outside in their own city.

And the Wi-Fi is not an actual benefit.

Wi-Fi that you have to stand outside the middle of the sidewalk to access isn't actually useful.

If you actually care about digital equity, you'll increase the number of Wi-Fi hotspots.

Next three, we'll have Michael Stewart.

What do we do?

You are continually engaging in disruptive behavior, but it's making us it very difficult for us to hear the people that are, that are speaking remotely.

Uh, next three, we have Michael Stewart, red, red and Alberto Alvarez.

Hey, Michael Stewart, can you please press star six to unmute yourself?

Thank you.

Okay.

My name is Michael Stewart, and I serve as the Executive Director of Boyer Children's Clinic, the largest provider of early support for infants and toddlers in Seattle.

I'm writing to express my strong support for continued and sustainable funding of the Bridge Program, a vital resource for young children with disabilities and developmental delays.

As you know, this program is currently funded by the Sweet and Beverage Tax.

However, I understand the Bridge Program is facing significant funding reduction.

It's been recommended by the SBT Community Advisory Board for transition to the family, education, preschool, and promise levy, which is up for currently for renewal.

I strongly urge the council to support this recommendation and ensure that early learning programs like bridge are incorporated into the next FEPP levy.

Doing so will help secure aiding long-term funding for this critical service.

Thank you so much for your consideration of this request and continued commitment to early learning in our community.

Thank you, Michael.

Next, we'll have Red Red, following Red Red, Alberto Alvarez, and then Eldon Ta.

Red Red, please press star six to unmute yourself.

Thank you.

Hello and good afternoon, Seattle voters.

CB120978 isn't just bad policy.

It's a Trump-style corruption, dismantling oversight, gutting ethics, and rewriting the rules to protect power.

This is political insider trading.

If a corporation did this, the SEC would be at their door.

But when politicians rig the system for themselves, they call it reform.

Who does this actually help?

Not voters drowning in unaffordable housing.

Not workers struggling to make ends meet.

Just the people in this room, insulating themselves from consequences.

If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't fear accountability.

Pushing this bill proves you do.

And let's be clear, history will remember this vote.

Will you be the counsel that stood for integrity or the one that legalized corruption?

Hill CB 120978. If you don't, the public will hold you accountable at the ballot box, in the courts and on the streets.

The choice is yours.

Next we have Alberto Alvarez.

Hey Alberto, can you please press star six to unmute yourself?

Thank you, Alberto.

Whenever you're ready, Alberto.

Council member Kathy Moore, you are not proud of this bill because you have not mentioned it at all in any of your newsletters.

Rolling back rules of ethics to allow for more corruption would undermine what little trust we have in this council.

Self-feeling, self-interest, and self-righteousness will inflict severe damage to the protections of public good we all depend on.

Harm and chaos by wealthy politicians is not hypothetical.

It is sub-fact.

No one on this council is immune to corruption.

This legislation goes far beyond allowing a small group of landlords to line their pockets.

God only knows what future city councils would do if given free reign to enrich themselves.

Legalized corruption is not something the public has ever voted for.

Council member Kathy Moore, take down your bill.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alberto.

Hey, next, can we get Eldon Ta?

Eldon, can you play a star six to unmute yourself?

Hey, Eldon, can you play a star six to unmute yourself?

Stop.

Hey, Eldon, do you mind pressing star six?

Yes, thank you so much.

My name is Eldon Ta.

I'm the COO at Trenton Watson Park.

Hello, my name is Elden Tam.

I'm the CEO of Friends of Waterfront Park.

Elden?

Delaying the orderly progress of this meeting.

We are only taking time away from subsequent speakers.

Hey, Elden.

Elden, my apologies.

Can you please press star six to unmute yourself?

My apologies.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

My name is Elvin Tam.

I'm the COO of Friends of Waterford Park.

I am calling to support the downtown digital kiosk proposal.

The digital kiosk will bring a multitude of benefits to downtown, including dynamic wayfinding for locals and visitors, increased public safety with 911 access to each kiosk, increased public amenities, including free Wi-Fi, support local businesses with a directory as a center of each location, support the active downtown activation by the arts and culture community with space reserved on these platforms for both the city nonprofit and the DSA to promote all of the wonderful downtown activities.

They are also self-funding with no city resources to maintain or operate them.

I think these are an essential part of the continued positive improvement in downtown and I strongly urge approval of this proposal.

Thank you.

Next, to finish the first 10 remote commenters, we'll have Josie Eubelhoer.

My apologies for mispronouncing her name.

Josie, please press star 620 yourself.

Hello, my name is Josie Eubelhoer.

I'm a social worker and a member of the Washington Federation of State Employees, Local 889, and a member of Workers Strike Back.

I've not only benefited from rental protections won by former city council members to want personally, but have seen firsthand how these protections have saved children from living on the street and kept families together.

It is so shameful that these so-called progressives are so obviously supporting this legislation for your own interests.

Almost, if not all, of the council members have received dollars from corporate PACs.

The National Association of Realtors has given a total of over $150,000 to council members Hollingsworth, Kettle, and Rivera.

It is clear you have no interest in supporting working people in this city and protecting people from evictions and homelessness.

Many of you were elected with the support of labor, but to call yourselves pro-labor while even entertaining this legislation is a lie, and any council member who votes yes on this legislation should lose all labor endorsements and never see a minute in this council chamber again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Please proceed with the, go ahead, just go ahead.

Can we get numbers 11 to 20 for public comment?

Former council member, you're engaging in disorderly conduct, which includes, according to council rule, 11D1B outbursts for members of the public who've not been recognized by the presiding officer for public comment.

And let's see, delaying the orderly conduct or progress of a public comment period.

Can we get numbers 11 to 20 for public commenters, please?

Number 11, 12, and all the way down to 20. Come on down, please.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Connor Nash, and I'm a renter in District 3, and I am against changes to the ethics codes.

It shows that you all are just corrupt by changing these ethics codes and fighting against renters' rights and all other conflicts of interest that you all have.

The city does not trust our city council, and this is more proof that why we should not trust any of you except for a select few of our council members on here.

You are no better than the fascist Trump administration who's flouting ethics rules in order to enrich themselves.

You're no better than Nancy Pelosi and Marjorie Taylor Greene who flout ethics rules to enrich themselves through stocks.

You are all terrible council members, and all of you should be thrown out for your terrible policies that you do.

You all actively ignore constituents and try to enrich themselves, and you all need to be thrown out.

And finally, I will use my last 15 minutes to say, when renters' rights are under attack, what do we do?

When renters' rights are under attack, what do we do?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Number 12.

Number 12. Come on down, please.

Thank you.

My name is Ellen Solid.

I'm a 35-year resident of the city of Seattle.

I'm here to oppose the digital kiosks.

I have a lead behind, which we'll go into more detail.

Your ordinance has a number of fatal flaws that if you're not aware of, you should be made aware of.

One, there's no pre-contact restrictions on advertising content or guidelines for content moderation, which means that the ads will be alcohol, soda, potentially marijuana, and beer.

These violate the kinds of things that we're trying to do in our public realm.

Second, there's no prohibition on video.

These used to be still images.

These kiosks now have the capacity for moving images, throws all of your driver detection stuff out the window.

There's no requirement for them to pay for electricity.

There's huge potential for litigation.

There are no provisions for the termination prior to the conclusion of the term for any reason.

No enforcement mechanism for maintenance.

No provisions for DSA and Ike to provide financial reporting.

And the next step is large advertising screens on buildings.

Thank you, Ellen.

And I have my letter to the editor that was published by this.

Thank you, Ellen.

Feel free to put it there.

Thank you.

We'll give it to the committee members.

Thank you.

Number 13, come on down.

Hi, I'm Paula Reese, and I've been a business owner here for 45 years.

I've had to deal with Ike for 15 years in other cities.

Please vote them down.

They're simply a toehold.

You need to understand who you're getting into a relationship with.

They do large digital building fronts and also structures 10 stories tall in Miami that's extremely contentious.

Like LA, we can say no upfront because we know we're going to get litigated against at great expense by all the large media companies from around the world.

And they rightfully should because they spent seven years with the city of Seattle pre-COVID looking at the same deal, which was way better deal.

And the people said no, just as they did in the Seattle Times article.

Over 2,300 people opposed this.

Thank you.

I'll leave visuals.

Please do.

Thank you.

Next, we have number 14. Come on down, please.

14. Thank you.

Whenever you're ready.

Hello, I'm here to support our ethics codes and to employ you all to not change, tinker with, water down or rewrite the ethics codes to benefit those on the council who will benefit because they're landlords.

Our ethics codes have been in place for 40 years and hold up to high standards like cities like Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Ethics codes help trust the votes made by the city council and to prevent corruption.

And in closing, I wanna say that there's unbridled corruption spewing from the White House like a poison and we don't want it here in our city.

I want you all to protect our ethics codes, no to corruption.

It's simple.

I want you all to do the right thing.

And I wanna say personally, I'm a retired early childhood education teacher.

I've never been able to own a house.

in this city and i will always be a renter and i want you to know there's a lot of hard-working people who can't afford the rent because the rents are too damn high thank you thank you whenever you're ready whenever you're ready

Whenever you're ready.

Whenever you're ready, go ahead.

My name is Dee Powers, and I am a renter in District 3. I object to any changes in the city's ethics code.

Seattle's ethics rules have stood for 45 years as a measure against corruption.

To dismantle them now, while our country is reeling from the corruption, chaos, and authoritarianism of Donald Trump, is not just irresponsible, it is a betrayal of the public trust.

This signals that this council may be more interested in consolidating power than in serving the people with integrity.

Even if you believe you can vote impartially, that's besides the point.

Trump also claimed to be above ethical scrutiny while stacking his administration with loyalists and profiting from public office.

This proposal opens the door to the same kind of self-serving behavior.

You are not the only people to have ever served on this council, and you will not be the last.

Gutting mandatory recusal removes one of the last meaningful protections against corruption.

Without it, there is no real way to prevent public officials from abusing their positions for personal gain.

Do not change the ethics code.

Thank you, D.

Whenever you're ready.

Whenever you're ready.

Number 16. Hello, my name is Jeff Paul.

I am a renter in District 3 and a public school employee in District 7. I'm here today to oppose the ethics code change.

As an employee with Seattle Public Schools, I'm subject to ethics code that I have to follow.

I'm not allowed to accept any gifts from parents above a certain amount.

And for a very simple reason, we don't think that our public servants should be profiting from their position.

Makes a lot of sense.

Keeps us from being corrupt in how we deal with different families, different parents.

People have more money bringing their kids to public schools.

I think it's quite shocking that you all want to have lower ethical standards than public school teachers.

and it's an absolute shame that you're not only doing this on its face, but the reasons why you're doing it are pretty unconscionable.

One of the tenant protections that is looking to be repealed because of this is eviction protections for school-aged families and school-aged children and public teachers.

I know families who have benefited from this.

I've also seen families before this was put in place get evicted, and I've watched kids go from making A's to making F's and failing out of their classes because they went from having housing stability to having no housing.

Shame on you, and this should be voted down.

You're delaying the ordinary conduct or process of the public comment period.

Winner, are you ready?

Number 17.

Gabriel Jones here to teach my ethics.

I want to share a fun fact I learned this week with the audience because the majority of the council has already fully tuned me out when they saw I was one speaking.

Did you know this council makes $65.32 an hour?

Raise your hand if you make over $65.32 an hour.

Wow, what a surprise.

And yet, they seek to enrich themselves off our backs.

They seek to make more money off people being thrown into the street by evicting kids into the street while they're in school so they can continue the cycle of poverty.

Sarah Nelson won't listen.

Time and time again, we show that they will not listen when we try to do things in a respectful way, the right way.

They won't listen.

We elect people who pass legislation, so we have ethics.

But whatever we do, Sarah Nelson will tear them down to enrich herself.

We aren't scared.

You know why?

Because we will vote you out.

Any of you who vote for this, we will vote you out.

This is very, very obvious.

We are a fight for our communities.

We will fight for our people.

And at the end of the day, if this is not clear before, we'll say it again.

When renters' rights are under attack, what do we do?

When renters' rights are under attack, what do we do?

When renters' rights are under attack, what do we do?

Thank you.

Alex, face it down.

Please sit down, Alex.

All right, please sit down.

Number 18, 19, and 20. Come on down, please.

Thank you.

Whenever you're ready.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Alan Francis.

We're entering district four.

I'm here to urge you to vote no on changing our city's ethics codes.

Seattle's ethics rules have stood for 45 years, weakened and now erodes public trust in our local leadership and makes us question whose interest this council truly serves.

While you trust in your fairness, altering these rules could open the door to the very self-serving behavior we've seen nationwide.

We can't be sure who will serve in the future.

and removing mandatory recusal takes away one of our strongest shields against conflicts of interest.

Without it, we're left reacting to ethical breaches instead of stopping them before they happen.

It is deeply concerning that the Seattle Ethics and Elections Committee has not yet completed its review, offered a formal stance, or voted to these proposed changes.

Proceeding without their thorough assessment shatters public confidence and suggests this council is evading independent scrutiny.

Clare, disclosure alone is not true accountability.

Real accountability means accepting limits on your power, even when it's inconvenient.

It's impossible to truly serve and be accountable to others if you alone determine when the rules apply to yourself.

Thank you, thank you.

Number 19 and number...

Clare to comply with the council rules is disrupted and delaying the orderly progress of this meeting.

Go ahead, please.

My name is Kate Rubin.

I'm the co-executive director of Be Seattle and a voter and renter living in District 2. I'm here today to urge you to reject this proposed change to Seattle's ethics code that would allow elected officials to vote on issues when they have a conflict of interest.

Changing the 45-year-old rules midterm, regardless of your attention, is a direct violation of public trust, especially now when we're facing unprecedented instability and corruption at a federal level.

We don't know who's going to be in your seats in the future.

This would remove the only meaningful safeguard that would prevent self-dealing.

Without requirements to step back from conflicts, corruption becomes a cleanup job instead of something that we prevent.

Elected officials should be held to higher ethical standards than the other city employees, not weaker ones.

Please vote no on this bill.

I also urge you to vote no on clogging up our sidewalks with ugly kiosks.

Thank you.

Quiet in the house.

Number 20, go ahead, whenever you're ready.

Hi, I'm Jordan Crawley, Chair of the 34th District Democrats.

Seattle's current code of ethics is clear.

Public officials must remain independent, impartial, and act in service of the public good.

Seattle's Democratic Party is standing loudly, proudly, and unanimously against the proposed rollbacks.

This isn't a difficult ethical question.

It's simply a question of why you're here.

City Council needs to retain its requirements to recuse, but you won't because you're here for power, not people.

Corruption, not community.

Democracy depends on trust.

Trust depends on clear, enforceable, and enforced ethical standards.

We are living in a time when cynicism about government is already dangerously high.

People are desperate for leaders who act with integrity, and support for this bill demonstrates that these leaders are in short supply at City Hall.

Seattle City Council needs to reject the proposed amendments.

We need more transparency, not less, more accountability, not loopholes, and public service, not self-service.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor President, would you...

I might have to go back to online, so...

and delaying the continuation of our public comment period.

Council President, would you like me to resume in-person or go back to the remaining three virtual comments?

How many more people are in line for in-person in this batch?

This last person ended the 11 to 20 queue.

Okay, go ahead and let's go ahead with the last person here and then we will proceed to the remote.

Okay.

Hi, council.

Thank you for having us today.

My name is Chris Mackay.

I'm the director of the West Seattle Junction BIA.

I'm here to testify in support of the Ike kiosk.

I'm pretty excited about them.

I know you've heard a lot about their amazing capabilities and wayfinding, searching, allowing our local people just walking down the street to even discover new shops as well as finding out about transportation options.

But what I'm really excited about is the ability to communicate to my community directly.

We have over 40 events a year in the West Seattle Junction and to be able to just communicate about those alone would really activate our area by bringing people into it and would benefit the local businesses.

I'm in support of these.

I'm excited about them.

I hope you are as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go from 21 to 30 after we finish remote public comment.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

With that, I'm gonna transition to the remaining four in remote public commenters.

Robert Marver, please press star six to unmute yourself, Robert.

Thank you.

Hey, we can hear you.

Hi, my name is Robert Marver.

I'm calling.

Oh, yeah.

Can you hear me?

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

My name is Robert Marver.

This is my first time calling to a city council meeting, and I'm speaking against Council Bill 120978. I think it's ridiculous that the council is trying to repeal the refusal requirement that is in place for 45 years.

Per Erica Barton's reporting in Publicola, The refusal requirement has only been used nine times in the last 25 years for city council.

So when I hear arguments that say that this change will increase democratic participation in the city's affairs, what I hear are lies being spread by people on this council.

And if I could speak to Chair Nielsen, you've already lost the endorsement of 46 district Democrats.

And if you vote yes to approve this change to ethics code, you will lose your seat in November.

Thank you.

Hey, next we got Jeannie Chun.

Hey Jeannie, if you can hear me, star six to unmute yourself.

Hey Jeannie, please press star six.

Hey Jeannie, please press star six to unmute yourself, Jeannie.

Jeannie Chun, please press star six, my apologies.

Hey Jeannie, if you can hear me, please, oh, there you go, thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

My name is Jeannie Chun, and I'm the co-founder and executive director of Seattle Residents United.

I want to thank the committee for the time to hear from concerned citizens.

I'm here to urge you to vote no on the ethics code resolution before you.

This resolution to change the ethics code is a blatant attempt to allow corruption from council members that are currently landlords and employers to personally benefit from their own votes.

The workers of small restaurants and bars deserve to live near where they work.

They deserve to have stable housing to survive and thrive in their communities.

They deserve the peace of mind knowing that they will not be evicted at a moment's notice.

I hope the rest of the committee sees that the attempt by Council Member Moore and Council President Nelson to change the ethics code will not only erode the trust of the entire council, but also the trust of city employees on the ground that work to serve our constituents on a daily basis.

We need a city council that centers working class people, not corporate landlords, that protects families by keeping them in homes, that keeps communities safe by not allowing evictions during winter months.

I hope that the council can find it within themselves to see the thinly veiled...

The time is up, thank you.

Thank you, Jeannie.

David Haynes, can you hear me?

Please have star six done in yourself whenever you want.

Thank you.

David, pre-press star six to unmute yourself.

Today, Seattle City Hall is a sacrilege to the democratic principles where greedy, untrustworthy, bad faith representatives are self-dealing and trying to change the ethics rules, working with the ethics commission, advising how to manipulate the rules to appease councils behind the scenes, lobbying and intimidation.

Council is conspiring to undermine the integrity of ethics so that they can get away with oppressing the working class, backstabbing the workers, and selling out a multitude of younger generations with all this upcoming legislation regarding landlord tenants, no restrictions on the comprehensive plan, and selfish, greedy, personal, and family-privileged investments.

The landlords are not a significant representation of the city's population, yet this council's amendments are doing their bidding, attempting to circumvent the integrity of rules, introducing legislation to change the conflicts of interest interpretation.

This is unforgivable.

May you be protested and civil disobediently interrupted throughout the rest of your political career.

No matter where you go, anyone who votes for this should resign, and any business that supports you should be boycotted in protest.

We're better off without your misleadership.

Give up this sacrilege to democracy and take away...

And the last remote speaker.

Adrian, can you please press star six?

Thank you.

Can you please press star six?

Thank you.

Adrian, whenever you're ready, please press star six to unmute yourself.

Hello, my name is Adrian.

I work.

I'm in city council in district two.

I'm calling to urge you all to vote no on the proposed ethics changes.

Recusals are in a nuisance.

They're a safeguard.

Removing this protection invites corruption and self-dealing.

Same on you, Kathy Moore, for being a front person for deep pockets and not for working class people.

Thank you.

And that concludes...

Number 21 to 30, you want to all come down?

Number 21 down to 30. Come on down, please.

21, all the way down.

And if you can please state your number as well.

21.

21.

Thank you.

Go ahead, 21. Thank you.

Members of the council, my name is Carl Nelson.

I'm a 16-year Seattle renter, District 4, small business owner, and a member of the Cedar Crossing Tenants Association.

I'm here again today to express my disapproval for the proposed changes to city ethics code.

The code has served the city well for over 40 years and helped to ensure public trust with the electorate, creating an unprecedented recusal exception for council members among city employees alone at a time of rapacious corruption on a national level will only serve to damage that trust and open the door to rampant self-dealing.

Seattle voters will remember this.

They will not remember self-congratulatory speeches about good governance or incredibly cynical excuses for why they changed the rules mid-game in service of stripping away worker and tenant protections.

In conclusion, Seattle voters are not stupid, and although we do make mistakes, we rarely make them twice.

I urge you, the council, to withdraw the proposed ethic changes.

Thank you.

Go ahead whenever you're ready.

My apologies.

Hello.

My name is Acacia Potschman, and I am a resident of District 4. Council member Rivera, in past committee meetings, you have said that as a district-specific council member, you are worried that the implementation of the ethics code might limit your ability to properly represent your constituents.

Well, I am your constituent.

And I'm here now with a very direct question for you, which is, if you are worried about this mysterious contingent of your constituents whose voices aren't being represented, why has nearly every fellow D4 resident that I've heard give public comment here on this issue been opposed to this flagrant rollback of very basic and common sense ethics rules?

Additionally, why has every neighbor that I have directly spoken to likewise been appalled by your tentative support for what amounts to legalize corruption?

If you are truly representing the will of these unseen constituents and not just the $57,000 you've received in PAC donations from the corporate real estate lobby, where are they?

As a previous commenter noted, disclosure without refusal is meaningless.

I encourage you to listen to the countless voices of your constituents who have been brave enough to show their faces in this chamber and to speak up.

Vote no on this rollback of important ethics rules.

Thank you.

No, no.

Again, your failure to comply with the council raises and delaying the orderly progress of this meeting.

When are we ready?

Go ahead.

Good afternoon.

My name is Charlie LaFamme.

I'm the communications director at MLK Labor.

MLK Labor represents more than 150 unions, 220,000 working people across Seattle and King County.

The Labor Council is vehemently opposed to the proposed rollback of Seattle's ethics rules.

Trust in government is at historic lows.

It's true from Washington, DC, all the way down to local governments across the country.

Instead of restoring confidence, this proposal does the opposite, allowing elected officials to vote on policies they stand to personally profit from.

I get it that these types of laws, they can slow down the act of governing.

They can be frustrating, but they are essential to a healthy democracy.

They create clear guardrails against conflicts of interest.

They ensure laws serve the people they're intended to serve.

The Seattle City Council has worked for ethics laws for decades and changing them now for political convenience is a betrayal of public trust.

Thank you.

Thank you.

whenever you're ready come on down hello my name is Katie and I just wanted to mention like everyone's already said such good stuff but I just want to say that the only reason I can be here is because I was actually laid off last week but most constituents can't make it to a 2 p.m.

on Thursday meeting so I think holding a meeting about rolling back the ethics code at 2 p.m.

on a Thursday is just low-key diabolical So anyway, I think it's terrible.

And also, the only reason I knew that this was even happening was because Ms. Alexis, sorry, Councilwoman Rink sent out an email about it.

But at a point when people are just so overwhelmed mentally with politics, they're having to disengage for their mental health.

And so I feel like choosing to do something like this with the ethics code when people are more disengaged just feels very sus.

It feels like taking advantage of people when they're not paying attention.

But I don't know.

I got laid off, so I am paying attention now.

And I hope other people are paying attention.

And I just don't support this.

And I think it's terrible.

So thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Seaton Grass.

I'm the CEO and founder of Surf Incubator.

We've been helping technology startups right downtown here in the Wells Fargo building for 16 years.

I see the kiosk as an interesting addition, but I also see a limitation of only having 80 locations.

And it doesn't address the needs of somebody having a pocket solution.

And I've actually been working for the last four months on a mobile app.

It's a web-based app, so it can work on any device.

the information that's already being listed in the kiosk as proposed.

Also, I've read through the documents about the various views opposing the application.

It often references a mobile app.

Well, I have one.

If you'd like to look at it, I'd be very delighted to show it to you.

It's easy, it's fast, and we can make it free.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Number 27 to 30. Come on down, please, whenever you're ready.

Yes, hi.

My name is Caroline Sayer, and I'm from Fremont District 6. Thank you for your time.

I'm here to oppose any changes to the ethics codes.

When trust in government is so low, this body has an opportunity to lead by example and reject personal gain over public service.

I'm relying on you to protect us all to commit yourself to public service and strong ethical standards.

The current 45-year-old code works and keeps our elected officials accountable.

To change the code is one way of betraying our trust and potentially harms the people of Seattle for all the wrong reasons.

Please reject changes to the code and maintain strong standards.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Whenever you're ready, thank you.

My name is Natalie.

I'm the organizer for Fairbilt Washington, a nonpartisan nonprofit working on democracy reform here in the state of Washington.

And like so many of the folks here, I'm also here again as a Seattle resident to express my opposition to the new proposal concerning the Seattle Ethics Code.

Democracy is about having our voices heard.

And so far, I have yet to hear a single voice in favor of this proposal.

And I know Hundreds of people have emailed the council in opposition.

Seattle should be continuing its leadership in modeling a just and transparent democracy, not rolling back protections, especially during times like this.

It harms transparency and democracy and erodes public trust.

These ethical standards are already working and have been working for decades, so please, Put democracy into practice, hear the voices of your constituents, and maintain the safeguards that are already in place and have already been working for Seattle voters.

Please withdraw this unnecessary proposal.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

We have four minutes left of our public comment period, which will end at 3.07.

So when we get to 3.07, we will end public comment.

Whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

All right.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Alex Olson.

I'm a renter in District 4, and I'm a member of Workers Strike Back.

I'm here again to speak in the strongest possible terms against this attempt to roll back the ethics code and attack renters' rights in Seattle.

If renters' rights are repealed, it is the most marginalized people who will suffer the most.

And can we trust council members Hollingsworth, Kettle, and Rivera, who have collectively received over $150,000 from the National Association of Realtors to support the working class of this city?

And can we trust anyone who has to repeal their own ethics code in order to carry out their agenda?

I don't think so.

We need to see these corrupt politicians for what they are and reject this crass and shameless attempt to enrich themselves at the cost of Seattle's most vulnerable communities.

We cannot let the landlords write our laws, and this attack will not be forgotten when you're up for re-election.

with workers strike back, and I urge you to come back and keep coming back until this attack is defeated.

Thank you.

Hands off renter's rights.

Thank you.

Hands off the ethics code.

Thank you.

When renter's rights are under attack, what do we do?

Stand up, fight back!

Stand up, fight back!

Stand up, fight back!

Can you tell me your number again?

My apologies.

Thank you.

Go ahead whenever you're ready.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Lila Shorey, and I'm a renter in District 4 and a member of Worker Strike Back.

You may remember that I spoke in support of renters' rights on Tuesday, so of course I'm back today to do the same thing.

I once again want to focus on the absolute absurdity of the situation.

What we are discussing here is the repealing a part of an ethics code.

You would think from that statement alone, it would be known that what city council members are trying to carry out is both unethical by their own standards and a blatant attack on renters.

But if we're being honest, it's no surprise why members of the city council are trying to attack renters' rights.

Multiple members of the city council are bought and paid for by landlords or even landlords themselves.

I'm looking at you council members, Hollingsworth, Moore, Kettle, Rivera, Nelson, and Sokka, who's not here.

Our city council Democrats are once again proving they are no friend of working people.

They are corporate shills that care more about lining their pockets than protecting their most vulnerable constituents.

We won't stop coming back here until you go from these attacks.

And you can rest assured that this betrayal won't be forgotten come election time.

When red church riots are under attack, what do we do?

What do I do?

Thank you.

We have time for one more public commenter.

Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Sett.

I live in Capitol Hill.

I want to thank Councilmember Mercedes Rink for holding the line.

Hopefully we can get you some allies soon.

And for the rest of you, I'm wondering where your humanity is.

We're all Seattleites.

We are watching people die in our streets every day.

And repealing eviction moratoriums in the dead of winter or for families is literally contributing to death in our streets.

So I really hope that you can find your humanity and your own ethics.

I'm rooting for you.

Yeah, that's all I have to say.

Thanks.

Thank you.

It is now 3.07.

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

The public comment period, we have reached the end of our public comment period, it is now 3.07.

And we've reached the end of our public comment period in order to get on with the rest of our agenda.

I apologize to those of you who did not, I know you cannot hear me, but I am going to keep on talking.

You can now be quiet.

Fortunately, the chanting in between speakers has prevented us from hearing as many people as signed up.

I apologize to those of you who did not get a chance yet to speak, and I ask that you please submit your written comments to the box in the front.

You are violating the rules of public comment, and order cannot be restored.

We will now take a 15 minute...

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

Let us speak!

who are preventing us from continuing with our...

I already gave an hour, and you proceeded to take time in between speakers.

We will now move on to our items of business.

I said that we would go until 3-7, and we're now past that time.

The public comment period is now over.

The clerk please read item one into the agenda.

Number one, resolution 3-2-0.

A resolution granting conceptual appeal to the Downtown Seattle Association to install, maintain, and...

People individuals are engaging in behavior that is out of order, and this meeting cannot proceed until order is restored.

The order will not be restored.

We have no choice but to go on.

The order has not been restored and pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act, RCW 4230, the council will recess until this meeting can continue remotely.

Members of the public may continue to observe this meeting in chambers.

We are now taking a recess to resume

Council President.

Council President.

Council President.

Council President.

Council President.

Who needs to be thrown out?

Can't be more.

President.

Who do the Landlord's love?

Can't be more.

Let us speak.

Council President.

Time constraints.

We must continue with the items of business.

We will now take a 15 minute recess and we will continue this meeting remotely.

It is now 3 11.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Council member Solomon?

Here.

Council member Hollingsworth?

Present.

Council member Kettle?

Here.

Thank you.

Chair Nelson?

Present.

By present.

Thank you very much.

Okay, would you please read item one into the record?

Yes.

Agenda item number one, resolution 32170, a resolution granting conceptual approval to the Downtown Seattle Association to install, maintain, and operate interactive media kiosks in public places located in the Metropolitan Improvement District and in participating business improvement areas.

For briefing discussion and possible vote.

All right, thank you very much.

So, colleagues, well, first of all, why is it possible to take the presentation off the main screen?

Or does it need to stay on there?

Thank you very much.

All right, colleagues, this is our second discussion of this legislation.

Again, this resolution grants conceptual approval of the Downtown Seattle Association to install, maintain, and operate digital kiosks in the right-of-way within the Metropolitan Improvement District.

We had a presentation and discussion at our May 8th meeting, and it's up for possible vote today.

As I noted before, I have been in I've been working in strong support of this initiative since basically taking office for many reasons, primarily because they elevate and provide the opportunity for people to know the the local small businesses that are around people that are living, working and visiting downtown.

There's a long list of public benefits and also because this will generate funds for the from our business improvement areas who provide essential services that make downtown and other parts of our city great, especially the neighborhoods in which there is a BIA and people are paying into a pot of money to provide trash pickup, graffiti removal, um events etc so i'm very pleased to uh to have this before us today we received a letter i just wanted to note that we received a letter today from about 23 signatories um representing various um entities and aspects of downtown including the downtown of seattle association friends of waterfront park seattle seattle kraken ywca the art museum, et cetera, and the list goes on.

And it says, we urge your approval of the proposed legislation to advance the Ike Digital Kiosk program in Seattle because it reflects years of community engagement, rigorous technical review, and a clear public-private partnerships that delivers broad public benefit at no cost to the city of Seattle.

Instead of me listing the public benefits, I'll just provide the list of things that they identify.

real-time wayfinding and information in 100 languages, broadcast public safety alerts and emergency messaging connected to FEMA's system, promote local businesses, cultural events, and public resources, includes features for ADA accessibility and emergency call buttons, and generates significant reinvestment in downtown and other neighborhood business districts.

So I the that is why I am excited to hopefully wrap up this piece of legislation today before we can move on to the actual accountability as it is that accompanies the resolution.

So with that, will the presenters please introduce themselves?

My name is Kara and I'm a senior policy advisor in the Wiers Office.

Hello, I'm Elise Wilson and I'm the Estat Street East Division Director.

my name is amy gray and i'm in the department of transportation council members calvin chowell council central staff i'm also

Thank you very much.

So we did have a presentation, a beautiful slide presentation last time and a discussion.

I think that what would be helpful here, we do have SDOT and our central staff analysts who produced a memo that we all received before the May 8th meeting.

Calvin, would you mind just summarizing the main components of that resolution, please?

And then we'll open it up for questions.

And then I will move the legislation.

Go ahead.

so at your request just to highlight my summary of the proposal that's before you this is the resolution it's the first part of the two-step process for council's approval of term permits this term permit is a little different from most term permits in that it is a programmatic permit and so the most of our term permits do focus on an individual location this one is for a a number of kiosks throughout downtown and in other business improvement areas My memo, which is dated May 5th, summarizes the proposal, which I think we discussed in quite some extent.

It highlights the anticipated public benefits, free public Wi-Fi, display public content, translation of displayed content, accessibility features, call button features, and financial support of the CTSA's mission.

It also identifies the anticipated public benefit mitigations which include a decluttering strategy for the block faces where the kiosks are located, as well as a public realm improvement strategy for those same block faces, as well as regular trash and debris removal at those locations.

um i'd note that the director's report does highlight a few issues that are related uh for your consideration as you consider this proposal one is that off-premises advertising is prohibited by the street use ordinance and the sign codes so this legislation would provide authorization uh superseding those restrictions It would also, as discussed in the last meeting, there was discussion around their surveillance and privacy portions of this program.

While IKE does offer secure video for public safety calls in their offering, that is not a proposal for the kiosks that are going to be part of this proposal for Seattle.

In addition, the director's report highlights a number of stakeholder feedback, both positive and negative.

And then it identifies the Seattle Design Commission's recommendations.

The Seattle Design Commission voted five for against recommended proposal, provided a number of feedback on conditions and public benefits that the council could consider as this proposal comes before you.

And then lastly, I'll just say that the draft ordinance that's attached to the agenda is waiting for counsel's introduction referral.

That's the second part of the term permit process.

It establishes the legal requirements for the term permit.

And in addition, the proposed legislation would authorize the mayor to sign an MLU with DSA that governs the kiosk programs, business programs, the revenue share, and sort of the operating expectations for the program.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go ahead and move the legislation because if I don't do it right now, I'll forget later.

So I will move it and then open it up for additional for questions and comments.

I move that the committee recommend adoption of Resolution 32170. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Resolution 32170. Now I will open it up to questions and comments.

Councilmember Hollingsworth, it's my impression.

Go ahead.

I see your hand up.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Just a heads up, colleagues, I'm going to be withdrawing my amendment.

I need to today for potential bringing it back to full council for the review of the language.

My intent is based off ensuring that all neighborhoods can receive some type of benefit, not just the neighborhoods that have BIA earmarked to receive revenue.

Um, I believe that neighborhood districts should benefit because we are all one city.

And so, um, I will continue to work with, um, I'll continue to work with central staff to make sure that, you know, the language is tight, but I just wanted to state my intentions on bringing this back to full council.

So I w but we'll be withdrawing this today.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

It is, um, I appreciate it.

And, uh, the um just wanting to make clear that this that is part of the uh the second phase of the of the installation of these um uh the benefits will accrue to neighborhood business districts or bias across the city in the second phase of installation of this um uh legislation or this program and i completely understand your reasons for wanting to spread the love a little bit where even if there is not a um an official business improvement area are there other council members on the committee that have questions or comments okay council member rink

Checking this microphone?

Okay, I'll be using this one.

Thank you for recognizing me, Chair.

I understand I'm joining this conversation today, primarily related to ethics, but wanted to engage a little bit on the matter of the legislation related to the kiosk since I'm here.

And this is a question for central staff.

My working understanding of just the sequencing of the approved resolution is intended to inform the subsequent ordinance and if that is the case is there a reason why we're bringing these two together in tandem a part of the same committee agenda for today um i think i would say that uh as a proposal this term permit is um

It's largely the same level of attention at the front end because it is programmatic, because the kiosks will require further permits to actually be implemented.

So issues like setting requirements and the like will come into it.

It is true that the draft that has been presented to you of the ordinance PRODUCED BEFORE THE COUNCIL HAS TAKEN FINAL ACTION ON THE RESOLUTION.

SO, YOU KNOW, THE FOLKS WHO HAVE DRAFTED THAT ORDINANCE ARE ON THIS CALL, CAN MAYBE SPEAK TO WHAT THEY'VE HEARD AND HOW THEY'VE TRIED TO ACCOMMODATE IT.

OTHER THAN THAT, IT IS AT THE COUNCIL'S DISCRETION TO MAKE MODIFICATIONS TO THE RESOLUTION OR THE ORDINANCE.

THANK YOU.

DOES ANYBODY FROM SDOT CARE TO RESPOND?

I think that what Calvin said is really a good summary that the programmatic term permit is really unique and while other term permits that we see and bring to you, there are significant structures that take a long time to build and so there's like a connectivity between the parts of the process for installation and and when we come to city council so usually with a significant structure it would already be an application and going through s doc review for technical consideration and it would be aligned more with the 60 percent design and then we're coming back with the ordinance when it's more close to complete design like 90 so this is just a really unique um proposal where it's something that we really want to make sure that the there's no installation permits and there won't be until this resolution phase but there's also kind of we need to get to the ordinance before we're really ready to to allow the permits to begin to come in for her installation review and the site specific analysis okay understood um that concludes my only question for today um and should this come before a full council i imagine i'll have some some follow-ups but thank you for allowing me to participate today chair

No problem.

And regarding the issue about the signed code, it is true that that is something that has been noted.

I do note that Article 5, Section 14 of the City Charter does authorize the Council to um approve uses in the right of way that um that would otherwise not conform to the signed code in as long as there are uh because of the public benefits that are associated with the um with the use so that is something that I just wanted to get on the record Councilmember Kettle

Thank you Council President.

I just wanted to echo that point really quick that I understand this is unique application and for me one centered on public safety first with the DSA mid and then even in phase two with the with the BIA which obviously are in support of improving the business districts but also serve a very important public safety function.

That said, I understand to Councilmember Hollingsworth's comments earlier that not every area of the city or district has BIAs.

So that's something that we should look at in terms of ensuring that various areas of the city are benefited from, not just certain areas.

So thank you, Council President.

Thank you, and I do believe that the fact that the business improvement areas are actual city entities is why they were chosen, but I'm sure that there can be something worked out or understood later that can be worked into the actual terms or the siding process as we go forward.

Are there any other questions or comments about this?

Well, I will simply say that I'm not even going to mention the fact that there are going to be hundreds of thousands of people in this town that are here for some big games coming forward.

This is something that I believe will, the meta benefit that I see is that on every single block face, as was alluded to in the letter that we received earlier today, there will be improvements to every block face where these are cited.

And we're talking about uh hanging plants or the cleanup of clutter and debris that's already on the sidewalk and so i see this as a catalyst for pedestrian improvement for street side improvements but especially for pedestrian and and people who um who require sidewalks to get around in their day-to-day lives.

And so that's an added benefit that it is not really brought out that much in some of the literature about this.

But I think that when you think about the number of these that will be installed downtown and how many blocks will have that improvement, that is the responsibility of the vendor that does add an added layer of intentional improvement at, without a cost to the city.

So, all right.

And people had an opportunity to try it out when it was in the basement or not the basement, but the, the first floor of city hall on the eighth, or I believe it was the seventh or the eighth of last month.

And so hopefully you got a chance to experience the, the many, um, applications of the kiosk when it was here on site.

So with that, I will ask one more time if there are any questions or comments before we proceed to a vote.

Yes, go ahead, Cal.

Council members, I just wanted to just clarify one thing that this is just the term term permit authorization.

So in terms of the use, the benefits, those types of issues, the specific issue that council member Hollingsworth was alluding to was revenues that would come from the separate agreement between the city and DSA for the that's outside of the permit.

So I just wanted to make a distinction between what is authorized in the permit and what is a separate, a separate MOU.

Yep.

This is approving the conceptual design and the main actors at play here.

All right.

I am not seeing any other comments.

I will also note that this has been a priority for Mayor Harrell as part of his downtown activation plan because it, well, it will activate.

And to me, Yes, we can get some of this information from our phones, but looking up and gathering around or having a place to go for this kind of information presented in a visually appealing way is a way to sort of, it forces looking up, gathering and gathering.

being part of the rest of downtown.

And so that is why I especially like the fact that these are going to be placed strategically in areas where it will encourage gathering and inquisition.

So in any case, go ahead, please.

If there are no other questions, please clerk call the roll call on the vote.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

Thank you all.

Will the clerk please read item two into our record?

The motion, let me say this.

The motion carries in the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted will be sent to the June 3rd City Council meeting.

Pardon me on that.

Can you please read item three into the record?

Item two, Council President?

Agenda item number two, draft digital kiosk programmatic term permit for briefing and discussion.

All right, we have some of the same presenters.

I don't know if there is anybody that's going to be presenting that has not yet spoken, but I will simply say that due to the timing, due to how the timing went of the legislation, of how when the legislation was transmitted to the council, we will be hearing a presentation on the draft ordinance relating to digital kiosk programmatic term permit.

And as I said before, we do have the same presenters at the table.

And we're also joined by representatives of Ike.

DSA was here.

I'm not sure if he is still here in the audience in case council members have any questions for folks that aren't presenting the presentation today.

So let's see, Cal, do you have anything to add before we move to the actual presentation?

No, I think we should turn this over to Esdod.

Thank you.

Okay.

Please go ahead, Esdod, with your presentation.

Sure.

If I could say a few introductory remarks, and thank you so much for having me.

To recap, the kiosk program, as you mentioned, is a part of the mayor's downtown activation plan to bring Vibrancy and technology, downtown in particular, in preparation for soccer coming to the city in 2026, and utilizing our downtown Seattle Association partner, along with VIAs in different parts of the city.

The mayor's office just wanted to acknowledge the years of late work that has been done by DSA and with, of course, the department.

This has been a comprehensive process, including community engagement, design commission engagement, and a thorough SEPA analysis, and ultimately will benefit from the deliberations of the council.

We very much appreciate the questions and comments that we've received from all stakeholders, including council members, which have helped improve this proposal.

And now I'll turn it to SDOT to give the presentation on the dropouts.

All right.

Is it all right if I share the screen now?

Yes.

All right.

But it'll just take me a minute.

Hopefully there was somebody who was helping us before.

So I think I can do it though.

Yeah.

All right.

I think I did it.

Yay.

yeah all right um hi everyone again it's elise nelson with uh s dodd street east division um i i'm on a slide 12 of our our slide deck that is with the agenda i'm kind of just like fast forwarding to talk about the ordinance now um so the boxes on the screen are kind of key elements that we address in our tournament ordinance and amy and i will be discussing several of these today but not in a huge little layer of detail you know but we're happy to kind of get into anything you have as far as questions um so again i'll start on a high level maybe we'll dig into a little bit more detail and then we'll see where where we're at the term permit establishes terms and conditions uh for the permittee which will be the downtown seattle association There are many protections that are required for the city, including but not limited to protection of existing utilities, requirements for the permittee and vendor to remove and restore kiosks where we require, requirements to keep the kiosks in good working order, and bonding and insurance requirements.

We also have worked to establish some specific requirements on where a kiosk can be located within the city, including prohibitions to make sure they're cited in locations that are adjacent to appropriate land uses, and signing requirements determined specifically for this use during our SDOT review and our SEPA analysis.

We have detailed annual reporting requirements to help us understand how the program is working and identify areas for improvement in partnership with the DSA and IEC.

Oh, sorry.

I didn't do this.

One more thing.

And have said prohibitions on data collection and retention.

And finally, we have worked on a public benefit mitigation that is a requirement of this term permit.

And we will be working closely with the DSA and the vendor, Ike, to develop that further during our kiosk installation phase.

So next I'm going to turn it to Amy, and she'll give us a few more details on the term permit.

Thank you, Elise.

So as you mentioned, the term permit ordinance goes into extensive detail on the conditions of the permit.

It sets the term and for this one, the first phase would be 16 and a half years and the second phase would be 13 and a half years.

The second phase would require city approval to move forward so that it's really up to the city to decide at that point in the future to move forward with this it prohibits certain locations like historic preservation and special review districts the waterfront and shoreline districts it includes standards to address driver's traction clearances for bus zones commercial zones truck loading zones zones zones etc there is language in the ordinance that protects street trees and no street tree will be removed to locate the kiosk details the extensive maintenance obligations for dsa and the vendor And there are maximum operation standards to address things like light and the brightness level from chaos.

They must be complimentary to the seamless Seattle signs in color, naming conventions, et cetera.

And there shall be no flashing or strobe effects.

Next slide.

Elise mentioned briefly the indemnification insurance and bond requirements.

These are in accordance to protect the city in any event of catastrophe or lawsuit, et cetera.

Insurance requirements and limits are determined by the city's risk manager.

The bond covers the cost if the city needs to remove the kiosks.

The S-Doc director is to allow to adjust the bond and insurance requirements if we determine the amounts are insufficient to protect the city.

As Lisa mentioned, there's an annual reporting requirement that includes physical conditions, descriptions of any damages and repairs made during the previous year, and a summary of all complaints that includes how the complaint was resolved and a timeframe to address the complaint.

And it also has a requirement to provide the status of all public benefits that have been installed.

There's notification and outreach requirements once Ike applies for the individual installation permits.

And as noted before, there's public benefit requirements, including removing broken or unusual benches and other street furniture and amenities to the street escape, such as bike racks, hanging baskets, murals, single box, part, et cetera.

And importantly, as Elise noted, it prohibits DSA or Ike from collecting any personally identifiable information from someone walking by.

And all these conditions are in the light of the promise.

Next slide.

Our recommendation is that City Council approve the kiosk term permit ordinance.

And if approved, DSA and IDB start installing the kiosk in the right-of-way after getting the installation permit.

And this slide shows the next steps.

As noted for earlier by Council President Nelson, the full council vote on the resolution for June 3rd.

we would like to come back to the July 12th council committee for briefing and potential vote.

And if that goes forward, we anticipate going full council vote on the ordinance on June 24th.

And we'll turn it backwards for weeks.

Thanks.

Well, that is beautiful.

There it is.

All right.

Well, that is our formal presentation.

Thank you for your time.

We hope that this presentation has been You scroll to kind of give you some information on the organs and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

Thank you for delivering it in an expeditious manner.

Are there any questions from council members or Kelvin, do you want to add any thoughts or comments?

I think the only comment I'd add is just a reminder that the proposed legislation will also give the mayor authority to sign the MOU, which is attached as attachment one to the draft.

So if you're looking also for details that go beyond term permit, it will be there.

Got it.

Council member questions.

Well, I have a question.

Could you please speak a little bit about the surveillance capability of this of these kiosks?

Yeah, I can answer that.

And then if we have more specifics, we can turn it over to the other folks here.

This was reviewed by the City IT's team that helps kind of be our subject matter experts for all things privacy.

There is no data collection allowed by the term permit ordinance itself.

There's a specific section in term permit.

Maybe Amy can look it up in case you want to take a look at it.

You know, I have works all over the United States, and so there are different ways that this technology operates in different cities, but for Seattle, there will be no collection of data, no retention of data, no photography or video of folks.

The only exception is the selfie cam.

That is something somebody's kind of, they have to sign up and accept that.

only use.

And like I said, it's been reviewed by IT.

I think the term for mental ordinance is section 25. So I'm happy to answer any questions or turn it over to other folks.

Okay.

I am advancing the audience members here to the council members.

I'm not seeing any hands raised from my colleagues.

Can you please explain if these are vandalized, spray paint, et cetera, who is responsible for removing that?

The permitting will be the downtown Seattle Association.

So ultimately they're responsible and they'll work closely with their vendor, like Smart City, to handle any damage.

And the term permit has specifics on kind of the application that they maintain them in good working order at all times.

Got it.

Thank you.

Opening it for questions or comments from colleagues.

OK, well, thank you very, very much.

We do have the draft.

The legislation was transmitted, and so we do have it before us.

And we'll be able to develop perhaps some more.

I think that Cal will be working on a memo once he's able to go through the precise legislation now that it's been transmitted.

And I just have to say that I have heard I respect some of the concerns that I've been receiving by email.

et cetera, I will also about the aesthetics or the fact that we're putting an object in the right of way.

But I will just note that Seattle is a city of innovation and we are a city of technology.

And in this case, we are inviting technology to provide a whole series of of public benefits that don't just benefit people that live and work here, but also the many visitors that will be coming to town in the not too distant future and all presented in many, many languages so that it does overcome language barriers.

And the members of the disability community have expressed support for some of the accessibility features that are also contained within the within the kiosk themselves.

So I look forward to digging into the actual legislation and continuing our discussion at the next meeting.

So thank you very, very much for this presentation.

And without further ado, we will move on to the next item on our agenda.

Thank you very, very much for being here.

And despite the disturbance earlier, thank you very much for hanging with.

And we'll see you next time.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay.

Will the clerks please read item three into the record?

Agenda item number three, an ordinance relating to the code of ethics defining elected official requiring elected officials to disclose any financial interest or conflict of interest prior to participating in legislative matters and amending section 4.16.030 and 4.16.070 of the Seattle municipal code for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

So colleagues, this is our second discussion of Councilmember Moore's legislation, which is being deliberated in this committee because the chair of governance, well, the governance committee oversees the Seattle Office of Ethics and Elections.

So that's why it's here before us today.

We have several amendments, as I noted before.

um i've asked uh i've asked director barnett to be here again to answer any questions that people might have as these amendments do uh are discussed and um for the record will our presenters just introduce themselves and then i will proceed with the uh sort of the run of show and how we're going to get through the amendments so please go ahead pen noble central staff director wayne barnett executive director seattle ethics and elections commission Thank you very much.

So let's see.

Before we place the bill before us and consider amendments as chair, I'm proposing the following process.

All right.

So after the bill has been moved in place before the committee, council member Moore as sponsor will address the bill and then council members will then move their amendments at the appropriate time.

And after receiving a second, central staff will provide an overview of that amendment.

And after central staff's overview, the sponsor will address the rationale for the amendment.

And then finally, the sponsor after that, after the sponsor of the amendment says their piece, will open it up for discussion before voting.

These steps will be repeated for each of the proposed amendments and the order of amendments will be considered in numerical order.

And please note that we do not have an amendment number four.

So unless there are any questions on the process, I'm not seeing any hands up.

Let me see.

I don't see any hands up on the process.

All right, so I move that the committee.

Council President, sorry.

Yes, go ahead.

I see that, Council Member Moore, you look like you had your hand up.

Yeah, thank you, Council President.

I just need to keep one minute.

My script is not correct on this, so if you could just give me one second.

Sure.

Council President, I'm sorry, I can't figure out where my hand is to raise here.

May I?

Here we go.

Okay.

Do you have...

Okay, go ahead, Council Member.

Rivette.

While Councilmember Moore is working on her remarks, I did have some questions overall about the legislation.

And since Executive Director Barnett and Director Noble are here, I wondered if this was the appropriate time to ask the question or to, I guess, make comments about the legislation.

Sure.

Let me move the legislation and then it's fine if you ask a question.

Is that okay with you?

Yes.

Okay.

I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120978. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 120978. And Councilmember, why don't If you, I would like to provide for council member more to introduce the, to say her piece about the legislation and then go ahead and open it up for questions before we get into the meat of the amendments.

I think that's a little bit more orderly.

Is that all right with you council member Rivera?

Of course.

Thank you, Council President.

Okay.

All right.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

Council Member Moore, as sponsor of the bill, you're recognized in order to address it before we proceed to general questions and then amendments.

Go ahead, please.

Okay.

thank you and thank you for your indulgence there so i did want to first say thank you to council president for allowing me to join the committee again today for further discussion and addressing my amendment and additional amendments i did want to open with some context for this legislation Again, for some background on the drafting of this legislation in November, our legal counsel forwarded an email to all council members from our Seattle Ethics and Elections Executive Director, Wayne Burnett, who's here with us today.

in which he outlined his thinking on a possible update to the Seattle Code of Ethics.

Certainly as a lawyer and former judge who was and is responsible for adhering to a proper recusal and disclosure protocol, I took special interest in this idea.

I too have shared, had many of the same concerns that we've heard from some of the public commenters throughout this process.

So, and certainly I think at first mention of removal of a recusal provision, that would certainly raise some bells for me and others.

So I certainly, I asked our legal counsel to look at other models for how other jurisdictions handle this.

and ultimately came to the same conclusion as Director Barnett that Seattle is somewhat of an outlier in how our ethics code is currently written.

So I think it's important to remember that when we heard at the last committee meeting from both Director Barnett and also from the chair of the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, that there is and as they stated there is no gold standard for how to do ethics and that there are different models and when you look at the different models throughout the states you'll see that there are a variety of models and they outline some of those models as well and really ultimately becomes a policy decision i think it's important to address some of the issues or potential concerns that were raised earlier in comments today.

Many people have said, well, why are we changing something out after 45 years of working so well?

And I think Wayne can speak to this as well, Director Barnett.

This actually has not worked so beautifully for 45 years.

And in fact, there have been significant changes made to the ethics code over the past 45 years, which are now or the reason that we have the code written as is, why we had to create an exemption for people to vote on taxes and levies, and also why we have the exemption for a substantial segment of the population.

So I say this because this is a work in progress.

It is an iterative process, and that is something that I think we need to keep in mind.

Nothing is cast in stone.

Additionally, I think the other thing that's important to note is the concern that somehow this will open the floodgates to corruption.

I want to be very clear that I certainly do not believe that, nor do I believe, THE DIRECTOR OF THE ETHICS AND ELECTIONS DEPARTMENT OR THE CHAIR OF THE ETHICS AND ELECTIONS COMMISSION BELIEVE THAT.

IT'S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT ALL OF OUR BEHAVIORS ARE ALSO STILL GOVERNED BY THE STATE CODE OF ETHICS AND THERE ARE AS OUTLINED IN Also, Lauren Henry's memo, there are four prohibited acts under the state statute.

Additionally, regardless of what we do here today, there are additional local prohibitions on the acceptance of things of value, improper use of an official position, And importantly, having an interest in a city contract.

That's often where we see corruption, if there's going to be corruption.

And this amendment that I'm bringing forth at the behest of the Director of Ethics and Elections hasn't...

has no effect on that particular provision, nor does it have any effect on the provision prohibiting us from participating in quasi-judicial matters if we have an interest in that.

So really what we're trying to look at here is a way to basically make some adjustment to the ethics law to allow it to work better.

It has not been working well, and we are attempting to make sure that it does not wind up becoming a politicized process that would in fact disenfranchise voices that are not always heard, not always popular.

And I think it's important to recognize that there are, as I said, many other states that approach this in a way that provides more guidance and also a broader, it's not quite so rigid.

So the other thing that I wanted to note is that I had thought about bringing an amendment because of the sense of people um feeling um that perhaps moving straight to disclosure is too big a step and that we ought to remain uh keep a recusal provision um but based on the amendments that uh colleague councilmember hollingsworth is bringing i did not feel the need to do so so that's why i'm only bringing forth my one particular amendment at this time thank you chair

Before proceeding to Councilmember Strauss, I asked you, Councilmember Rivera, to hold off until Councilmember Moore, the sponsor, could speak.

So please go ahead.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Executive Director Barnett, for being here.

I just want to say that I had the opportunity, Director Barnett, that you and I spoke earlier in the week.

I had originally reached out to you at the onset of the review of this legislation because I was trying to better understand the context behind your recommendation.

I wanna thank you for explaining the recommendation actually preceded this current council.

And that was actually, I think it's an important point because there's been a lot of discussion about this current council bringing this one.

In fact, your recommendation came up before this current council.

And it's really in part related to the advent of this New York council district model.

I think that had something to do with it and you can confirm.

And what seems to be more legislation, excuse me, and what seems to be legislation requiring disclosure to address this requiring of disclosure and questions about whether or not to recuse had come up and how and in what instances.

Again, all this stemming from the prior counsel, and I want to make sure that my colleagues also had the benefit of our conversation, and then also to make sure that I understood properly what you were communicating to me.

So is that correct, all of what I've laid out?

Yes, I believe it is.

I mean, it does come down to the interplay between the democratic process and the ethics code.

That's really why we're all here.

Because what's happened of late is the ethics code is being employed sometimes to attempt to frustrate a council majority.

If five of you are aligning one way on a vote, I'm hearing from people who are trying to pick off one or two of you to kind of frustrate that democratic process.

So that's where that's where my concerns arise from.

Yes.

Thank you.

And this stemming from the last council, not just this council.

And I say that because I did some research and it looks like you brought a similar piece of legislation in 2018. And basically that piece of legislation you brought in 2018 or tried to, that recommendation you brought is basically what stands with us today.

actually that's not true I'm sorry we weren't behind that in 2018 I think that took place without our office's involvement but it is I mean it does that was at a time where I believe we had the landlord tenant stuff and council member O'Brien telling him that as a landlord he shouldn't be voting so yes that was something that came up then and I I thought that it came up as a recommendation from you at least that's what I found online at the time

All right, so that's why I'm not sure it was, but so if it if it wasn't from you, that's what I read.

So you can clarify if it you know if so you're saying it didn't come from you.

It came from someone else or yes, it was not from us.

That wasn't we didn't recommend moving to a disclosure model then.

But as, like I said, I came, I've been in this line of work for 20 years here at the city and before that for five years at the state ethics commission in Massachusetts.

And to me, I never, I found the disclosure that we have there better in terms of kind of reinforcing the democratic process, making sure that democracy works and we elect people and you do what you're elected to do.

And then you go to the voters again and they turn you out or they keep you in office.

So I really think the role of the ethics code in kind of like frustrating the democratic process is a concern to me.

Which is why you brought the recommendation.

Yes.

And colleagues, I just want to say that I've worked at the city for a number of years now, and I want to also disclose that I know Wayne.

I've known Wayne for a long time now.

I've had the pleasure of working with Wayne.

As part of my work for the city, I've reached out to Wayne on many of occasions, and you can confirm that, Wayne.

Yes, I can confirm that.

And I always wanna be on the side of transparency and accountability and ethics.

And the reason why I reached out to you is because I cared about this recommendation that you made and I trust your recommendation.

It's important to me that this recommendation came from you.

And also it's important to me that we are really listening to the recommendation that you are making in particular because you are the person that the city designated with looking at the ethics and making decisions about these things, which is why I've always come to you.

So all that to say, I believe, you know, that this recommendation came from you after what I think to be a thoughtful consideration on your part.

Even if that one in 2018 wasn't you, I know it has come up.

And then your recommendation now, this is coming from your recommendation based on your experiences you've been here and all that you've done even before we came here.

Because as you and I talked about, this came up for you even before this council.

Yes.

Yeah, great.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Wayne, for being here and for clarifying for us like I said.

I rely on you and value your opinion the most on this.

And so, like I said, it was important to me that we heard directly from you about the reason why this recommendation was coming and that this is something that in your opinion, as you quoting you the other day, you know, I think this is a good idea.

Yes, I do think it's a good idea.

Thank you, Wayne.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council President, for the opportunity to just, like I said, I wanted to make sure you all had the benefit of our conversation because I think it was an important one.

And also just to say and highlight the tremendous work that Wayne does every day on behalf of the citizens of the city, well, the residents of the city, and making sure that he's keeping...

elected officials and city employees because in my work it was really related to city and the work that the departments are doing and the mayor's office for that matter.

You keep us in line with what is the ethics rules and values and it's something that I have highly value as a person who has a law degree.

It's something that is really valuable to me and something that I hold as my gold, you know, ethics is something that is the most important to me because as my dad said, he didn't have anything in his life.

He had his word and you only have your word.

That's what you're born with.

That's what you die with.

And so that is holding myself accountable and ethical is the most important to me above all else.

So anyway, thank you, Council President, for indulging me on those comments.

And thank you, Wayne, for making those clarifications that were important to me.

Thank you.

Well, while we're on that topic, I do have a further clarification, if I may.

Director Barnett, so whatever happened to that legislation?

Was that Councilmember O'Brien's legislation and then did it go to a full vote or?

I don't believe it was Councilmember O'Brien's legislation.

Ben, you may recall how that came up in 2018. I thought it might have been Council President at the time, Harold, who brought it forward, but I'm not sure.

I believe that council member Harold brought it forward, but perhaps on behalf of another council member, I think there was an issue related to the, I know there was an issue related to the waterfront at one point where there was a crucial requirement in the question about whether or not that was really fulfilling the overall goals of the, of the ethics legislation or not.

Okay.

Okay.

Council member Strauss.

Thank you, council president.

And just to clarify, are the chamber, I know it's been, it's been a little hard to track where this committee's meeting.

Are the council chambers in Seattle channel cameras on right now?

I don't know.

I'm sitting right here.

I'm not sure.

okay well i'll ask my questions and if the seattle channel cameras are on i'll go back out to chambers um yes this legislation has been before us before in 2016 and 2018 both of those councils rightly decided not to lower the ethical standards even after we established our council districts executive director burnett i believe i've heard you make the argument that The ethics change may be beneficial because of concerns with our districted council system.

For example.

If a district did council member.

Has a financial conflict of interest and has to recuse themselves.

The thought is that people in the council district have lost representation.

Is this an accurate portrayal?

Yes, that is accurate.

Okay.

Well, so first, we may be elected by district.

I want to be very clear.

We each represent the entire city.

You've all heard me say I'm elected by the people of Magnolia, Fremont, Finney, Green Lake, Greenwood, Crown Hill, Ballard, many other micro-neighborhoods, and I represent the entire city of Seattle.

When I do my job, I do it on behalf of the entire city, and I know that I'm taking actions in support of all Seattleites while I'm on this council.

Dave Kuntz, Second, I want to clear up and dig into what I perceived to be a misconception if a district council member has a financial conflict of interest, the residents in that district.

Dave Kuntz, are still in fact represented in votes, they are represented by two citywide council members, and I think that that gets lost sometimes.

Dave Kuntz, executive director if a district council member recuses themselves, are they still in fact represented by the citywide council members.

They are, but I would say that there's a slight difference there.

They don't have the person who they have elected to represent their district's views.

Have they not elected them?

they have but they haven't elected they're not the district they're not the person who's you in your ballard i mean i think that's you owe ballard your duties and i think in a way that council member nelson and council member rink they don't i'm sure they get calls from everywhere but i don't think they're paying as much attention to the it's not such attention people call from ballard as you are so

So that's where I disagree, and I disagree very strongly because, and let me share why.

When we are working in Ballard, for instance, I'm working on behalf of the entire city.

I'm using it as a pilot.

I use for colleagues the example of community safety ambassadors.

we have community safety ambassadors and a community safety coordinator in fallard and that program i have worked to scale to the chinatown international district and up next capitol hill in working with the council members from those areas so we've just seen the community safety ambassadors deployed in chinatown international district and council member hollingsworth also has a community safety coordinator in capitol hill which is the pre-step to the safety ambassadors so i strongly disagree because if i am just going to look after my own district then i'm not serving all seattleites and that's where i have a strong disagreement that i need to be just as concerned about the good and the bad things that are happening in the chinatown international district as i am for my own district i'll go on to say uh

Pardon me, please take a moment.

You missed my instructions when I opened the meeting.

I did say if council members have follow-up questions or additional questions or questions for our presenters, I ask that you raise your hand to be recognized to continue to speak instead of engaging in a back and forth.

And that is especially important.

And I did also say that I would be calling on my on committee members to speak first.

We are under a time constraint and we have five or six amendments to get through.

I would like you to finish your point and then I will go on to the next hand raised.

Thank you.

I'll also state that city residents are represented by the mayor who has the ability to veto or sign any legislation.

I'm also not sure that in 2013 when Seattle voters decided to create council districts that they intended for us to lower our ethical standards because of it.

When Mayor Harrell was on council in 2018, I'll quote from him, this is his quote from 2018 and saying, I'm looking at the federal government with our executive, with our current executive.

Lord knows what financial interests he has that are affected by the executive decisions he's making because there's very little disclosure from that person.

I look at how the state legislature, certain I think are taking some hits properly so because of their exemptions on the OPMA.

And I look at what we are trying to create as a city, as a model of transparency and a model of saying that there's no self-dealing, no financial gain, and that we're here to serve the public.

Even though we are by district, what trumps that is the fact that if we stand to gain financially, we should recuse ourselves.

So I know that there was some conversation about whether Mayor Harrell sponsored or was supporting this legislation a couple minutes ago.

His statement clearly was, that we should not vote if we stand to gain financially.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rivera, did you have your hand up?

Councilmember Rink.

I did.

Then go ahead.

I will pass.

You can come back to me.

Thank you.

And remember people, we have a lot of amendments to get through and council member has to leave it.

It has a hard stop.

So please go ahead, council member Rink.

Sorry, this is a clerk Dedman just jumping in to confirm that the chambers are on and Seattle channel is also on.

Well, hello from council chambers.

I wanted to at least take a moment to just respond to what Director Barnett has stated.

Speaking as one of the citywide council members, I represent the entire city.

We are engaged deeply in constituent matters across every district.

I was just in Magnolia last night discussing and listening to public comment alongside Councilmember Strauss related to the Fort Lawton project.

So whether it's turning streetlights back on in District 1 out in West Seattle, or doing neighborhood walks in madrona we throw up everywhere we serve everybody and so the notion that our city-wide council members votes or perspectives are are not potentially as as valuable or that our roles are are in some way like meaningfully different when it comes down to our votes i i just have to refute that notion i needed to state that for the record thank you thank you all right i don't see other council member rivera

I do, I just, I know folks have a lot of opinions about this.

I don't think anyone is saying that the at-large members are not valuable, and I don't think anyone is saying that council members don't all represent the interests of the entire city, but what folks are saying are that we, those of us that are district specific, are in our districts day in and day out, and we do owe a duty to our constituents in the district that they are relying on us on a daily basis in a different way and I will say that oftentimes constituents will reach out to me never having reached out to the at-large members and that makes sense because you know they feel very strongly you know that I'm responsible for you know they voted for me and And I directly answer to them.

So I don't think in this conversation it's helpful to disparage one or the other, but it is a fact that as a district specific, constituents do look at us.

And I don't want to disparage Director Barnett's comments because I didn't think his comments meant that somehow the district wise don't count as much.

And I do think that there is a difference between district specific and at large and still, you know, So really wanted to say that because I don't want to disparage one or the other, but I also don't want to disparage Director Barnett, who, again, works day in and day out to make sure that our ethics rules are being followed.

And I think he does an excellent job and has done so for many, many years.

And that particular issue about district representation had to do with a very district specific piece of legislation, which was the assessment for waterfront property owners for the waterfront park.

And I believe that the issue there was that Councilmember Bagshaw did own property in the very area in the neighborhood.

that was then going to be impacted by the legislation.

There was high interest in the legislation by her constituents and then was not able to vote either way.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council President.

I got the sense that we're about to go to amendments.

So I just wanted to make some general comments ahead of time and basically three parts.

First part is, you know, understanding the current situation.

I recognize that this difficult circumstances that we're in right now, as noted in the previous discussion, you know, there's the question of representation, you know, the whole district versus citywide piece.

Also, ethics is part of the baseline of democracy and the foundations of democracy.

So it's very important.

So I recognize that.

That adds to the difficult circumstances.

And then there can be some complex policy considerations.

I did sit down with our council and then separately with executive director of the commission, but also the chair of the commission itself, in addition to the executive director.

And it's also difficult because there's a lot of swirling and contradictory narratives and messaging and the like.

One of those is this idea that we're enriching ourselves, basically do our service on the council.

And contrary to assertions, at least I'm speaking for myself, by the way.

I'm not speaking on behalf of the council just for myself.

My net worth is really largely dependent on what the King County Assessor thinks my property is worth or what's happened with an inflated stock market.

Although I do would like to say that I'd like to think I have a good financial plan.

But those numbers and those circumstances are really related to that.

And I see the challenge that we're facing is primarily centered on those in real estate, obviously the landlord question, but also small business.

Um, and you know, there's different pieces that go to that.

And I think we should be having grace in this and civility, um, because of, we do have small business owners on the, uh, on the council and landlords, uh, as well.

And related to real estate, it's a little bit ironic, uh, given the new state law, um, related to rent increases and the like, um, and, you know, regarding these swirling narratives and messaging, one of the pieces that's missing, for example, is the financial state of the affordable housing providers given the recent past landlord-tenant loss.

And that's not being discussed at all.

And that's of concern.

And it goes to this idea of these contradictory narratives and messaging and the like.

And just for the record, I was a tenant until I was 47 years old, and I guess I was a landlord, but for a decade and nearly a half, but that was in Western New York and that ended years ago, seven or eight years ago.

So I just wanted to say that up front.

And regarding ethics, I just wanted to state again that it's extremely important for our democratic experiment, especially in the face of constant threats to democracy.

I understand what's happening in the other D.C.

I don't like tying what's happening here in Seattle to the other Washington.

I'm mindful of it, and I understand the point, but I like being centered on us.

I'm also mindful of the principle of passing an ethic law on ourselves, and that's an important consideration I think that we should be walking through.

I'm thinking of the fact of our pay, the fact that we cannot give ourselves a pay raise.

My pay, our pay is the same today as it was in January 2024, and it's going to be the same, at least for those that are elected and came into office in January 2024, as it would be in December 2027. And that's a consideration, and that's a principle that we have here in terms of passing legislation that's directly related to ourselves.

Ethics, again, in some ways difficult, but also somewhat simple too.

And this came out in discussions with the council and those representatives that I mentioned earlier.

And as I understand it, we have about three main options.

One is maintaining the bright line kind of approach, kind of what we have now, the adjudicative piece, and then also the disclosure, which this bill kind of goes to.

I think in a lot of ways, these can all pass the FAST test, the feasible, acceptable, suitable test in different parts around the county and the state and the country.

But the question is really, does it pass the test here in Seattle?

Um, ultimately for me, it's, you know, it's important too, is that it's not what, but also how and when, um, clearly the why in this is clear because of the foundational tenants of democracy, you know, rely on ethics.

But for me, it's the, you know, not so much the what in terms of the legislation, but the how and when.

And so the process I would be upfront and Frank, uh, has been a little bit frustrating, uh, for me, um, I would like to be able to discuss this issue with our colleagues and my colleagues in the CP and the idea of a blue ribbon panel.

that included the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission's executive director, the commissioners, not all necessarily, maybe academics from UW's Evans School or Seattle University, you know, with its Jesuit approach, local statesmen and women, former council members, you mentioned one earlier, council president, who have this experience of both serving citywide and district, you know, and being smart of that.

I think we should, you know, there's again swirling narratives, questions regarding ours versus other parts of the state, you know, in terms of like, you know, so what is happening truly at King County itself or the various jurisdictions in King County and the state and having this all laid out.

And I'm concerned that we would benefit from The concern is essentially an inside out approach versus an outside in.

And I like the idea of having a panel walk through these things in a very transparent way with all the various pieces being discussed again in that very transparent way here in 25. And then with the elections in November, basically had the council take it up in 2026. That's up front the way I would, my counsel would have been if I was asked about this, particularly early on in terms of, you know, way ahead of an approach.

Now we are where we are.

And so another approach, and I did have a draft amendment number seven, and I was thinking about doing as a walk on.

I think I may hold, because there are a number of amendments, and I would like to talk to the Council about those amendments, too, to essentially create an effective date of January 2028, going to the ideas and the points that I made within my remarks.

Again, I recognize the desire.

I recognize the important considerations and decision points and the policy points.

But for me, I just wanted to be upfront.

This is how I look at this topic.

And I say this with all respect to everyone involved, to include my colleague, Council Member Moore, Council President, but all my colleagues regarding this topic.

So, Council President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this topic ahead of the starting of the amendments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I see one more hand up and then we do have to get to the amendments.

So go ahead, council member Solomon.

Thank you very much.

Uh, council president, and I'm going to keep my remarks brief because we do have amendments to be voted on.

Um, and I don't want to delay on that.

Um, so actually just a couple of quick questions of, you know, well examples.

So getting to the issue of say landlord tennis stuff.

All right.

I'm a landlord.

I have a duplex.

I ran out the other side.

I live on one half and I ran out the other side.

If there's something that comes before council that has to move with landlord or tenant law that affects every landlord, not just me, would I have to recuse?

So I'm asking that you, Director Barnett.

Is the property in Seattle?

Yeah.

Yes.

Likely would, if it would have a, if you would have a financial interest in it, you would still have to recuse yourself.

Yes.

Okay.

Now say I'm a renter in Seattle.

Okay.

And there's a landlord tenant bill that comes before us, you know, as a renter, would I have to recuse?

no just because the number of renters is so much higher in the city the number of landlords renters qualify for that substantial segment exception okay and that's where i was trying to get at because yeah again if something is affecting you know this one duplex owner but it's affecting all duplex owners you know again is there an exception that because you know me as

guy living in one half the duplex is not going to benefit more than anybody else who's you know written out a duplex right yeah i think the problem is that there are so few landlords in the city we looked at it i think there were roughly three percent of the city were landlords when we looked at this maybe 10 years ago i can't imagine it's moved much but that's why you would still have to reduce yourself

Okay, got it.

Another example, I own a comic book store.

And there's legislation before us that's going to impact me, Golden Age, collectibles, Xenadu, and the whole bit.

In that case, what I have to recuse because I'm also owning a comic book store.

Yes, I think I would give you that advice tentatively right now.

I'd need to know a lot more about the business and all that, but yes, I believe you would have to refuse yourself.

So what I'm trying to get to is this.

Have you had a chance to read all the amendments that have been for the five amendments?

Yes, I have.

In your opinion, as the guy who we turn to, is what's being proposed via the amendments strengthen our ethics code or does it weaken it as a lot of the commentary that we heard, that's what folks were concerned about, that we're weakening ethics standards, that we're basically opening the door for corruption.

And I just want to get a clear sense.

Does this help us?

Does it hurt us?

As you look through those amendments, what's your take?

not really sure i can give you an ethics take on that to me i think it might help from a democratic standpoint again the democratic process you're all elected to make these decisions and to me the ethics code should really be treading carefully anytime it's telling an elected official that they can't vote on a matter so okay gotcha okay because again what i'm looking at is not either

Tim Jones, Disclosure or recusal of looking at both because I think both would lead to transparency, which will lead to trust and you know very specific guidelines as to when a council member needs to recuse and.

Tim Jones, I think it's very clear from your guidance as to.

when that would have to be you know is there a specific interest that benefits me versus anybody else in the city uh then yeah obviously so um again we have these amendments we're short on time thank you for indulging me madam president and uh let's you know let's get these amendments and right get going great

Will the clerk please call?

No, not the roll.

Let's see who is.

Amendment one.

Yep.

OK.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Rivera, would you like to address this amendment before recognizing Councilmember Moore as the author?

Yes.

Thank you.

At this time, since not since.

Sorry.

Thank you, Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 120978 as presented on Amendment 1.

Second.

Great.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 1. Council Central Staff, will you please walk us through the amendment and then the author will be able to speak to it.

Commuted.

Thank you for that.

So this amendment has two key components, both of which relate to transparency, and I think can be read as really trying to enhance the transparency and in some ways better fulfill the intent of the original bill.

So substantive, but specifically focused on transparency.

The first element has to do with non-legislative matters and the disclosure regarding non-legislative matters.

The way that the the bill before you was drafted um there had been a requirement that for non-legislative matters where there is um a conflict that that notification be by council members be provided to both this the director of the ethics commission and to the city clerk um the the um reporting to the city clerk was was lost in the in the current drafting so this amendment would restore that so again for non-legislative matters um elected officials will be required to disclose if there was a conflict of interest both to the executive director of the ethics commission and to the city clerk so again enhanced transparency The second, again, has to do with disclosure for legislative matters for which there is a financial interest or some other conflict of interest.

And just clarifying, again, as written, there's a requirement for a council member to Rob Frascaz, publicly state that that they that they have that conflict and that, but that could happen at the committee level.

Rob Frascaz, And not all Council members would necessarily would be.

Rob Frascaz, In attendance and then.

Then when the matter moves to the full council, there isn't specifically a requirement in the current bill that the disclosure about that conflict be repeated for the full council, and this amendment would add that additional transparency as well.

Again, if you think about how this would work, if your council member is not a member of the committee, they wouldn't have a reason at the committee to announce, to disclose that they had some conflict.

So that would naturally happen at the full council.

If you were a member of the committee, you would do it at the committee first.

But again, under this additional requirement, you would do it again at the full council.

So again, not changing the rules about when disclosure occurs, but rather enhancing the transparency, both for non-legislative matters and for legislative matters as well.

Okay, thank you very much for that explanation.

Councilmember Rivera, would you like to address this amendment for recognizing Councilmember Moore as the author, or you can just hand it over to Councilmember Moore.

I'm bringing it on her behalf since she doesn't sit on this committee, so really this is on behalf of Councilmember Moore.

Councilmember Moore.

uh thank you very much i think uh director noble has explained this very clearly and well uh it's really just to clean up a few things that were not clear or left that dropped to ensure that we are having maximum required disclosure thank you okay thank you very much i'm not seeing any hands raised all right no comments i'm seeing

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the role on the adoption of amendment one.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Five in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and amendment one is adopted.

Let's see.

Will the clerk please read item, go ahead and, not the clerk, but I reckon.

Yeah, go ahead.

Council Member Hawks, please go ahead.

I move to amend Council Bill 120978 as presented for amendment number two, version C.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 2, version C.

Council Central staff, will you please walk us through it?

Absolutely.

So I would candidly describe it as probably the most substantive amendment before you today.

And it seeks a technical point too.

There was an earlier version B.

This version C is identical in terms of the substance.

There's an additional recital that has been added to provide further clarity for the rationale and how sort of an expectation about how this would work.

Actually, in a moment, I think I'm going to read those recitals because I think they actually do a very good job of setting out the intent and the scope here.

What this fundamentally does is introduce a standard for recusal.

With this amendment, there would be recusal required in certain circumstances, notably more limited circumstances than under our current ethics code, but obviously somewhat more restrictive than the bill that is before you now for your consideration.

So, and in particular, and the issue that that this is trying to get at is trying to measure or to capture the depth and degree of the potential conflict, and in cases where that conflict is most direct and most significant, requiring recusal.

I would describe this as potentially sort of a middle ground between, again, the current code, which requires recusal if there's any financial interest, and what has been proposed which would clearly require disclosure in all cases, but not require recusal in most.

So, Let me, for a moment, actually read some of the language that's both of the recitals and what's specifically proposed, and then offer up a couple of examples that I've been working on with Lauren.

And I should add, actually, in all of this work, Lauren Henry is a primary author of all of these pieces here.

I've been working with her very closely on this, so I'm comfortable presenting them to you, but just to give credit where credit is due.

Again, just to motivate the amendment itself and doing so by reading these recitals.

While elected officials will be able to disclose their financial interest or conflict of interest on legislative matters.

I want to be very clear this applies to legislative matters.

when the elected official's financial interest is impacted to a greater or lesser extent than that of other members of the same profession, occupation classes, or groups that are affected.

So the idea is that you would look for situations where the elected official's interests are not in line with other people in the group.

So to use council member one of the examples earlier, if there was something specific about the duplex that was owned that made it very specific to that individual.

And I will use some other examples in a moment.

So again, and then reading the second research I think is also important.

When reviewing an elected official's financial interest in their participation in a legislative matter, the Ethics Commission and its executive director will determine, and this is the key language here then, whether the regulated matter produces a unique and direct gain or loss that is specific to the elected official, but not other persons or other entities regulated.

So again, this will require recusal in cases where there's something that is specific to the financial interest of the elected official.

That same language is repeated essentially in the code itself.

So if you look at the last page of the amendment, and then the added language.

However, if the elected official's financial interest is impacted, again, this is the binding language, is impacted to a greater or lesser extent than that of other members of the same professions, occupations, classes, or groups affected by the legislative matter, they would be required to recuse.

To offer up some examples, you know, and in sort of in the spirit of ones that Councilmember Solomon had described previously, imagine a situation where One or more council members is a small business owner, and the city is going to regulate the hours in which small businesses can operate, at least.

Entirely theoretical example.

You can't open your business before 9 a.m., and you have to close it by 11 p.m.

But some set of stakeholders come and lobby that for florist shops, it's really important to be open at 7 a.m.

versus 9 a.m.

And it turns out that one or more council members owns a florist shop.

In that case, that interest might be close enough to their own situation to argue for refusal.

And I would argue in this case, that would be an example.

The elections commission would be the ultimate arbiter of those kinds of situations.

But it's an example.

Another one might be, and again, this is a property example, Council members, two different council members have own residential properties.

One of them's in a historic neighborhood and there's legislation that would in some ways benefit or or penalize um uh from a financial perspective owning property in a historic district um again that is a relatively narrow situation the council member might be very specifically affected i mean obviously you know so rather than all homeowners it would be those specific to property in uh in a historic district and again and that would um uh in this situation In my example, I would think that would require recusal.

I do want to emphasize that, again, these all will be very fact-specific and ultimately could depend on the interpretation of the Ethics and Elections Commission.

And as you'll see, there's another amendment from Councilmember Hollingsworth that provides potentially a path to Councilmembers being able to sort out the situations and when this language would require recusal and when it would not.

And that's my summary, happy to answer questions, but Councilmember Hollingsworth might be well posed for that as well.

Okay, are there any comments to say about this?

Go ahead, Councilmember.

Sorry, I'll raise my hand.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Ben.

So let me first set the table.

I'm bringing forth a universe of amendments today.

from watching my experience of the ethics process and trying to figure out how to approve, how to improve those, um, regardless how we feel today about the ethics.

And, um, I think there's always room for improvement.

So here is my big stab at it and trying to, um, you know, bring forth some amendments that I think, um, can potentially make it better.

I know we've heard from the public on how important public trust and transparency is.

So whether we agree on the underlying bill or not, we can all agree on how we can improve some of the current processes.

So currently, Seattle Ethics Commission uses the exception that your interest can be shared with a substantial segment of the general population in Seattle.

But many legislation types don't actually meet this standard, which leaves a lot of ambiguous and subjective subject for our ethics commission.

So my intent with this amendment is to give ethics a clear, consistent, and transparent standard to measure our conflicts of interest The newest version also adds a recital from Council Member Moore's initial amendment and a whereas clause for seek to determine the conflicts of interest.

I also want to state that we also should still keep all the disclosure requirements in addition to the standards for this recusal as well.

And I'm more than happy to answer any questions as well.

Hey, I am not.

Are there any questions?

I am not seeing any council member more.

You're muted.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, it's not actually a question.

I wanted to provide some additional information, if I may, which is to say thank you very much, Council Member Hollingsworth, for bringing this.

I very much consider it to be very friendly.

And I also just wanted to point out There are, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, a variety of approaches.

This language is actually utilized in a variety of other jurisdictions, such as Minnesota, Connecticut, Montana, Oregon, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Utah, Rhode Island, Vermont, Iowa, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.

Additionally, Nebraska, Massachusetts, and Arkansas use standards, similarly standards.

There are quite a lot of other jurisdictions that attempt to, as so clearly said, try to straddle the middle between none or all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I will note that Washington State says, the state legislation ethics code says, a legislator does not have an interest which is in conflict with the proper discharge of legislative duty if no benefit or detriment accrues to the legislator as a member of a business, profession, occupation, or group to a greater extent than to any other member of such business, profession, occupation, or group.

So that seems to be the...

the spirit of that Councilmember Strauss I do see your hand up but unless there are other comments or questions from committee members I am going to go ahead and call for a vote because we've still got several amendments to get through yes that is I am going I I am going to proceed with a vote and unless you have a very short question about the specific amendment yes go ahead

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth for your set of amendments and Council Member Moore.

Also thank you for your work on this bill, even though we may not agree.

I do appreciate you calling the question.

Executive Director Barnett, has the Ethics and Elections Commission had time to review these amendments?

Not to my knowledge, no.

How is it that we are- The instructions at the beginning of the I've said the instructions twice and I'm not going to repeat them.

There is not to be engaged a back and forth.

You raise your hand to ask another question.

You will have one very short question and then we are proceeding.

Thank you, director Barnett.

How would we be able to receive feedback from the ethics and elections commission?

I do agree that we need a third party, whether it's a blue ribbon commission or the ethics and elections commission to provide us feedback.

I believe we're going to have to put the question of them at their next meeting, which is scheduled for June.

Thank you.

Yes.

You're welcome.

Councilmember Moore.

Just to be very brief and not to steal thunder here, but this is the exact language that I brought when I did my first draft of this bill many months ago and that I brought to the Ethics and Elections Commission for their feedback.

And it was the feedback on this bill that led me to ultimately conclude from Director Barnett, that trying to parse all these various categories was going to be difficult.

Not impossible, but difficult.

So I think that we can say that the Ethics and Elections Commission has had an opportunity to look specifically at this language and weigh in.

Again, the questions are, how do you draw the group?

How do you parse the interests?

And I do believe director Barnett, you said that you'd had a chance to briefly look at these amendments.

So.

Yes, I have, but the commission has.

Oh, I beg your pardon.

I misunderstood the question.

Thank you.

So just a little bit of additional context there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of amendment two version C.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council member Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Nelson?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries in amendment two, version C is adopted.

Council member Hollingsworth, it is my understanding that, are you proceeding with amendment two?

Go ahead.

Uh, colleagues, I apologize for amendment three.

I'm going to pull it.

Um, and I'll say why, um, I wanted to make clear that my intentions on this amendment was to ask our ethics commission to publish only the complaints that were deemed necessary to investigate, uh, including the justification for the, uh, investigation and outcomes.

My office has been in conversation with legal counsel.

And so I'm going to withdraw this amendment.

Um, and bring more a straightforward amendment.

Uh, this will increase the transparency process where, uh, we, it will be publicly posted on, uh, in terms of when there is a, um, when there is an investigation and there's deemed outcomes that are, um, where there's a conflict that, that will be posted, uh, to a website and shows the reasoning behind the conflict of interest right now.

That is, that does not happen.

And I think that needs to be a little bit more transparent, but I have to work on the language a little bit more.

So I'm gonna withdraw this amendment for today.

I apologize about that, but I will work on it with legal.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, moving on.

Council member Hollingsworth, you're recognized in order to move amendment five.

I move to amend number 5, Council Bill 120978, as presented on Amendment 5.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 5. Council Central Staff, will you please walk us through that amendment?

Yes, of course.

So again, this amendment is designed to encourage, I described as encourage engagement between elected officials and the ethics commission and the director.

And in particular, it sets an expectation Uh, on the commission and his director to provide, um, uh, advisory opinions on potential, um, ethical issues in a timely manner.

So, um, uh, and that's the, that's the underlying goal here.

Um, so again, just to actually, um.

Read the language, the elected officials are encouraged to seek informal opinions regarding the application of this and I'm going to paraphrase here to agree application of the relevant legal and ethical standards.

Um, and this is, I think, really, in some ways, the next sentence is the most important and operative here when an elected official seeks an informal written.

opinion of the executive director of the Ethics Commission, such an opinion shall be provided within five business days of the request.

So it's creating a very specific expectation on the Ethics Director to respond and to provide information and feedback to the elected officials seeking that input.

um and that's really that is its purpose so um and then uh if the commission more broadly wants to engage um the there's opportunity for that as well um and there's reference also to the city attorney um office being able to provide assistance um to elected officials again no specific time requirements there um but uh as that's the separately elected official but again that's that's the intent um and the specifics that are called out in the in the amendment okay councilmember hollingsworth

Thank you, Council President.

So colleagues, it's my it's my understanding that what I'm trying to do with this is to make sure that we can get timely responses from Ethics Commission within five business days to continue our business, just as like sometimes I know that they meet quarterly, if I'm not mistaken.

And so Just trying to get a quicker response from our ethics commission, which I think so we can continue to have public trust and providing elected officials the support of our ethics commission and city attorney's office to encourage ethical standards for legislative matters.

Because what we do oftentimes moves very quickly and getting a timely response is paramount to the work that we do.

Hey, is Council Member Rivera?

Yes, thank you.

I just wanted to clarify.

So it's not requiring the commission to do within five days.

Wayne, does the commission meet monthly?

Yes, the first Wednesday of every month.

But then if you're outside of that window, it makes it hard because then you have to wait till the following month.

So does this require, oh, go ahead, sorry.

Isn't it on me?

I think it's on the executive director of the commission who has to give advice in five days.

Isn't that my understanding, Council Member Hollingsworth?

That's the clarity I'm seeking because my experience with you is you get me timely information, but to be able to get something back from the commission itself who meets monthly, if you miss that window, you have to wait till the following month.

And I wanted to clarify.

i think i can go ahead remember hollingsworth sorry go ahead and i didn't mean to say quarterly i meant monthly my bad thank you oh no it's okay i i really just wanted to is it possible to get more timely information from the commission or ben are you trying to weigh in here sorry

Yeah, no, I moved over that a little bit quickly.

I can provide some very specific feedback there.

So for this language, the elected official, having heard from Wayne, can also request an opportunity to seek guidance from the commission itself.

And there's a reference to potentially using a special meeting to do that.

and that the sec then would have five days after that special meeting there is not language about the process to call a special meeting and um candidly i don't know how quickly that can happen on a regular basis the director might but but the idea was that there could be situations where you would want the commission's input it puts a five-day window on their response but as you have noted organizing a special meeting or the regular meeting would would be part of that timeline and it's more difficult to predict

that's very true Ben let me just say I am always trying to be very responsive I think I've talked to many of you on several occasions and I think I've always at least tried to be very responsive and if you do want to get it the opinion from the full Commission I'm always trying to get them together for a special meeting which we are generally able to do but I'm going to guarantee you that the Commission's going to be available for a special meeting and within a week but most times they are so

Thank you, Council President.

Thanks for the clarity, y'all.

I also, I know I'm not running the meeting, but I also wanna recognize, I think Council Member Strauss has his hand up.

I don't know if he has a question or not, but it's not my role to recognize him, but I just wanted to point it out.

I see that.

Do you have a short question on this amendment, Council Member Strauss?

Yes, thank you.

I will say that it is important for us to receive feedback from our commission about these amendments.

We lose nothing by taking time to get their feedback, but if we rush to pass a law lowering our own ethics standards without input from our ethics oversight body, we do risk permanently undermining people's trust in us and our process.

I think we need to take more time with these amendments and the underlying legislation so that we're able to receive their feedback.

And the question here, Council President, I know that you noted the you shared that there'd be no back and forth, that we needed to raise our hands after each question.

I haven't seen that happening with other council members.

I just want to see if that's a rule that applies to everyone.

My questions exactly.

Council member Rivera, go ahead.

Thank you.

I want to, for the record, state that Councilmember Strauss has said on a number of occasions now that we're lowering the standard, and I want the record to reflect it.

We are not lowering the standards.

There are still standards here for ethics.

We're making some clarifying amendments, and I feel really strongly that that needed to be stated because I don't want to be left on the table that we we apparently are going to agree to disagree on that council member stress, but we are not lowering the standard.

Thank you, council president.

Okay.

Are there any other questions from committee members on this?

We are now after five o'clock and a council member has a very hard stop.

I am trying to get it to a vote on this piece of legislation will The clerk please call the roll on the adoption of amendment five.

Council member Rivera?

Aye.

Council member Solomon?

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Council member Kettle?

Aye.

Chair Nelson?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

Okay, the motion carries and amendment five is adopted.

Council Member Hollingsworth, you're recognized in order to move Amendment 6.

I move to amend Council Bill 120978 as presented on Amendment 6.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on Amendment 6. Council Central Staff, will you please walk us through the amendment?

Absolutely.

So as described in the effect statement, this amendment is designed to include encourage and invite the ethics and election commission to continue to provide input in this space, if you will.

So in particular, it calls on the SEC to report annually to the city council on whether it has any recommendations for new ethics policy considerations.

And to quote, it authorizes and encourages the Elections Commission to review instances of recusal by elected officials, ethics complaints, requests for advisory opinions, and the like.

So to use the body of knowledge that they potentially will have gathered over the course of the previous year, and maybe even years before that, and to affirmatively make recommendations to counsel about potential modifications to the ethics rules and laws.

it um encourages that and affirmatively requires the commission to to respond to council on an annual basis that response in a given year could be we don't have any recommendations but either way the idea is that there would be an affirmative check-in um whether or not events in the previous years or their cumulative impact over time suggests that there's a need for some modification in the view of the ethics commission okay thank you council member hollingsworth

thank you uh council president um so this is just really a request of our ethics report annually on the state of ethics of the city um and recommendation how we can further build trust um as a lot of a lot of um uh There's a lot of changing of people.

There's a lot of different scenarios that come up.

There's a lot of different things that are moving fast.

And so it would just to be able to say, hey, here are some recommendations that we would like to help strengthen our our our laws.

so is this i have a question is this a um is there any kind of regularity with which we would ask for or request that input this would be annually um so we'd have an annual report on hey this is the state of ethics this is what we see conflicts of interest just to keep us abreast of um you know some stuff that might arise and how we can continue to strengthen our laws got it i would um uh

I think that would be a great report to have some at some point when council is in session so that we could consider and make those changes instead of it having to happen right before a long break or something like that.

But anyway, go ahead.

Are there any questions or comments from other people?

Council member Rivera.

Yes, as this is Councilmember Hollingsworth's last amendment, I just really want to thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for improving upon, you know, what Councilmember Moore brought.

And Councilmember Moore acknowledging you had many of these, and then based on some opinion you got, you know, went back and forth, but also say I appreciate you Councilmember Moore and you Councilmember Hollingsworth for the time and, you know, the due diligence and all you've done to really support and take Director Barnett's recommendation to update the ethics code.

with the thoughtfulness that you've put into it.

So really just wanted to thank you for that as we're looking at this last amendment.

And again, to underscore that, I know we did get a recommendation from someone I know to be the holder of the ethics work at the city and someone I really have trusted over the years.

And that is really important to me in all of this.

If Director Barnett had said differently, then I would have gone that different direction.

And so I really wanna underscore that this is not our...

you know, lowering our standards.

This is making some amendments as recommended by our ethics officer.

And then, of course, even putting more amendments to it to make it as robust of an ethics bill as it can be.

So thank you all.

Thank you.

Councilmember Cavill.

I didn't have a hand raised.

Oh, I thought that you had raised your hand.

Did you say anything about a walk on that?

Yes, I said that earlier.

And as I mentioned to you previously, well, earlier before the meeting, it was a possibility, but I will not bring Amendment 7 walk on amendment today.

Today.

Okay, Council Member Moore, I invite you to make some closing comments.

Point of information.

Yeah, please, go ahead.

We have not voted on Amendment 6, Council President.

Gosh, getting ahead of myself.

Clerk, would you please call the roll on Amendment 6?

Council Member Rivera?

Aye.

Council Member Kettle?

Aye.

Council Member Solomon?

Aye.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Chair Nelson?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Okay, the motion carries.

And the two hands just went up.

Just a second, let me say this because I have to.

The motion carries and amendment six is adopted.

Let's see, are there any final comments on the bill as amended before we vote on the bill?

Council member, I am going to call on.

Council member, are there any What time do we have a hard stop for this committee meeting?

Council member Nelson, if I may.

Go ahead.

Sorry, technical problems.

I have to be at an event honoring President Cowsett.

I know this is now at the end of our vote.

So if there's any way that we can vote for the full thing, I know there's some couple council member have questions, but I know they're non-voting members, so maybe is it possible?

I don't know if this is even possible to just take the vote and then you can get their questions.

I am fine with taking a vote and then leaving and not calling internment until council members can make comments on the end.

Council Member Kathy Moore, would you like to make closing comments before we come to a vote?

Council Member Hollingsworth has her hand up.

Council Member Hollingsworth, go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

So, really quick, I wanted to just state something for the record.

My intention and goal, number one, was to provide more structure to our ethics of what I have seen in my own personal experience behind the scenes to see what happens with certain you know with certain things and so just wanted to state that for the record so structure and more transparency as well um and so if someone and that's why i had brought amendment number three to the table but i know it needs to be worded uh better because from my experience if there is an ethical dilemma and someone wants to know about that they have to file a public disclosure request and that takes a long time and what forth And I think just putting that out there and being transparent about what findings were and if those findings were to be a conflict, that is the most transparent process you could possibly be from a government's perspective on someone's government website.

So I just wanted to say that for the record that I don't consider that lowering standards.

I consider that being honest and open.

um, instead of, uh, you know, uh, a tweet or a social media post or a gossip.

So I just wanted to state that, um, I consider that to be way more transparent than what is currently being done right now.

Um, and also to provide facts and data and information to people.

So with response, uh, responses within five days, um, and, and, um, Also getting an annual report about how we can improve our ethics, I think is incredibly important as well.

Having a structured report where we can analyze and understand and data and facts so we can get better as a council, I think is incredibly important.

So I wanted to state that.

I also tried my best to bring forth some amendments that I thought was a middle ground because I have seen extremes on both sides.

And in order for us to move forward, we have to have a common middle ground balance approach so we can move forward in whatever type of stuff we do.

And that's how I took to this ethics piece.

That's how I take to any type of legislation that we're doing.

I'm always trying to find a common ground so we can move forward to making sure that we can continue to have progress because that is the underlining piece to our city being progressive is progress okay so I just wanted to state that because I know that we can everyone has their own opinion I get it just trying to make progress here for a middle ground the other thing I would like to say is that the amendment three because i didn't have that in enough time i'm gonna have to abstain from the vote today until we get it correctly because i don't feel comfortable enough to vote on the underlining bill until we have this amendment where i think needs to be well so i just wanted to say that for the record my intentions um and thank you all for your time but i think we we um yeah so thank you so much thank you

Can you just remind me what was the topic of three I am not remembering?