Seattle City Council Briefing 9/19/22

meeting will come to order.

I'm council member Lisa Hurdle, serving as.

The president protests this afternoon.

Council President Juarez and council member.

So on our September pro Tem have excused absence.

The time is 2.01 PM.

Will the clerk please call the

Present.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Council President Pro Tem Herbold.

Present.

Seven present.

Thank you so much.

Next, we'll move on to the first item on the agenda, approval of the minutes.

There is no objection.

The minutes of September 12, 2022 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

moving on to item two for the President's Report, sharing Council President Juarez's President's Report.

I want to let folks know that today in the briefings meeting, we'll first have a presentation on federal affairs by our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, followed by each of our individual council member reports.

We do not have any proclamations or executive sessions today.

On tomorrow's agenda, I want to share with folks that the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills, as well as 14 appointments, five appointments recommended by the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee, one appointment recommended by the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee, and eight appointments recommended by the Neighborhoods, Education, Civil Rights, and Culture Committee.

We'll take one vote on all of these items that are on the consent calendar, unless a council member requests that an item be removed for consideration separately.

So in those cases, the item will be taken up at the end of the agenda.

And following the consent calendar, we have nine items on the full council agenda.

The first two items are regarding initiative 135, the social housing initiative, We've received a presentation by Amy Gore on initiative 135 at council briefing last week.

We expect to take action on it at the beginning of our agenda tomorrow.

Questions?

Please do feel free to contact Amy Gore on council central staff.

Item three on tomorrow's agenda is the appointment of Gino Betz, Jr. to be the Director of the Office of Police Accountability.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee confirmed this appointment, and I will speak to this item during my report later today.

Item four is the appointment of Dr. Faisal Kazan as Director of Public Health, King County, also sponsored by me.

Item five on tomorrow's agenda is the appointment of Kimberly Loving as Director of Seattle Department of Human Resources.

This was recommended by the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee.

Item number six on tomorrow's agenda will be regarding city light rates.

And item seven is regarding the creation of a film commission.

It's the report recommended by the Economic Development and Technology and City Light Committee.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

information on all these items is available on the online agenda.

And so that's just a real quick overview for tomorrow's full council meeting.

And as mentioned earlier, item three on today's agenda, signing of letters and proclamations.

There are no letters or proclamations for signature today.

So we'll move right along.

to the presentation from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'd like to invite our guests from OIR to join us.

We have Director Carlton.

We have Leslie Polner from the Federal Lobbyists from Holiday Night.

Welcome everybody.

I would love to just hand it off to you and we could start off with introductions or take your lead because I know you have a presentation for us.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much Council President Pro Tem Herbold and to all the council members.

Our federal affairs team has been working throughout this spring, summer and now into fall starting this week to make sure that our city departments and our mayor's office and our partners around the region are working to secure as much federal funding as we can to support the needs of our people and our communities around this city.

I just wanted to thank everybody in this city for the cooperation and partnering you have accomplished with our Federal Affairs Director, Michelle Nance, our Senior Government Affairs Program Manager, David Kim, and our Federal lobbyist Leslie Polner in bringing forward what I think is one of the first in the state coordinated efforts throughout the city to track and identify and pursue critical funding opportunities with our federal agencies.

And today's presentation seems to be long, but Leslie Polner is an expert at at reducing a lot of things going on in Congress to the minimum essential discussions.

And so Leslie and Michelle and David will each have a part in the presentation, but I'm gonna turn it over to Michelle to lead the team through our presentation today.

And we look forward to your questions and any kind of information we can provide to you today.

If we need to get back to people, and provide information as follow-up, we are more than happy to do that, of course.

But I'll turn it over to Michelle Nance, our Federal Affairs Director.

Thank you, Director Charlton.

Just a real quick question.

What is your preference as it relates to if there are questions?

Would you prefer that we hold them to the end?

Michelle, you're calling that.

That was our plan.

That was our plan, if that works for you all.

Absolutely.

Great.

Well, hi, everyone.

Thank you so much for taking the time.

My name is Michelle Nance.

I joined the City of Seattle as the Federal Affairs Director this past spring, and it's a real honor to serve you all in this role.

Today, you'll mainly be hearing from our federal lobbyist based in D.C., Leslie Polner, and also from David Kim, our Senior Government Affairs Program Manager based here in Seattle.

David, if you want to share the screen now, I can quickly run through what we'll be going through.

Okay.

In terms of the agenda.

So Leslie will start by sharing the legislative highlights from this year.

And as many of you are already aware, it's been a very productive year in Congress.

If you want to go to the second slide.

Thank you so much.

So she'll share that legislative highlights, then she'll turn to the congressional agenda and outlook, essentially what we expect to see for the rest of the year, and also what we expect to see in terms of the 2023 appropriation cycle.

She'll then dive deeper into the bipartisan infrastructure law.

I know a lot of you are really interested in hearing about that.

And you'll also hear from David Kim about what we're doing here on the ground in Seattle in response to this legislation.

Leslie will then touch on the Inflation Reduction Act and also the midterm election outlook.

And then I'll close by giving a quick update on our federal engagement here in Seattle.

And then open it up for any questions that you all might have.

And just one quick point before I turn it over to Leslie is that she'll actually be visiting us here in Seattle later this week.

So we're happy to continue these conversations in person as well.

With all that said, I'll pass it off to Leslie.

Wonderful, thank you so much, Michelle.

Thank you.

Director Tarleton and so nice to see so many of you and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone in person for the 1st time in almost 3 years, which is really shocking.

Next slide.

David.

So as Michelle alluded to, it has actually been the last 12 months a remarkably productive time in Washington, D.C. You know, kicking off with the signing of the bipartisan infrastructure law late last year, then turning to the FY22 omnibus, which was signed into law in March, which for the very first time brought back community project funding, formerly known as earmarks.

back into the process for the first time and Seattle was fortunate enough to get $400,000 for renewable energy home heating from Congressman Jayapal, $775,000 for HealthONE expansion from Congressman Smith.

You know, then turned this summer really a remarkable period of legislating the Safer Communities Act, bipartisan legislation, closing loopholes in firearms procurement, and making significant investments in mental health services.

The Chips and Science Act, which provides $52 billion in investment for semiconductor manufacturing and also authorizes a range of new workforce programs and STEM programs for the National Science Foundation.

And then, of course, the Inflation Reduction Act, which is this landmark reconciliation package that allocates billions towards clean energy and then also makes some significant changes to the tax code and allows for the negotiation of pricing of prescription drugs.

Next slide.

Next slide.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, David, do you mind just hopping one back?

We just jumped to four.

Thank you.

So we're in the we're in the end of a September work period.

And this is really going to be the last work period before the November elections.

Top of the list is getting government funding, a continuing resolution passed since Congress is not going to be able to negotiate a final FY23 omnibus package at this time.

The Biden administration has made some requests for additional funding to be included as part of the CR, including funding for Ukraine, additional funding for COVID and monkey pox.

So those negotiations are happening.

I don't think anybody thinks that we're going to have a government shutdown at this point, but I do think that they're going to come down to the wire in terms of negotiating the final terms of what this continuing resolution looks like.

Other items on the agenda that will continue to be on the agenda and probably will get worked out after the election and into December, the National Defense Authorization Act, the Respect for Marriage Act, which, as a note on that, the Senate came very close to addressing.

During this work period and they are now saying that they're going to push that to the end to after the election, but but enshrining protections for same sex marriage, the electoral count act making some voting voting reforms.

And then, of course, the annual tax extenders, which Senator Cantwell believes could be a potential vehicle for the expansion.

of the low-income housing tax credit.

And then there's some discussion of perhaps bipartisan mental health bill.

This is sort of going under the radar right now, but that our very own Senator Murray has been working very vigilantly on, could be something that goes forward in December as well.

Next slide, please.

So, a note on FY, 23 appropriations, you know, as I mentioned, lawmakers are continuing to to work to get to a final package that would pass in December.

Once again, these appropriations bills, this will be the 2nd time now included funding for earmarks.

And so that is sort of seen as.

you know, potentially greasing the wheels to getting to a final deal.

The other piece is, of course, you have on the Senate side, the two, the chair and the ranking member are both retiring.

So this is going to be their very last opportunity to have a play on appropriations.

But, you know, at this point, There is, you know, significant funding increases for HUD, for DOT, and, you know, one piece that we've been working in coalition with other cities is, you know, increasing, excuse me, waiving the CDBG public services cap, which provides additional flexibility to our departments to use CDBG towards services.

Next slide.

And so again, we are very fortunate.

We were able to successfully work with the departments who submitted fantastic projects for potential earmarks.

And we were able to so far secure two, one to the tune of $3.5 million for the Seattle Center Shelter Facilities Sustainable Emergency Power Project, and then also a million dollars for the El Barrio Small Business Development building renovations, both from Senator Murray and from Senator Cantwell.

Again, those will not be finalized until December, but kudos to our departments who all put forward some amazing opportunities and projects.

Next slide.

So on infrastructure law implementation, the administration has been working really hard to get money out the door as quickly as possible.

And as you know, this is a $1.2 trillion bill that provides both formula funding, so funding that goes by allocation out to the states and in many cases off to MPOs, and then also a series of competitive grant programs as well.

Next slide.

So, on the formula side, that's obviously easier for for agencies to for the administration to get out the door because those formulas already exist.

There's been a slew of program.

Mainly in the transportation area that have already gone out and have already been allocated to the states next slide.

And then on on the competitive grant side dot has really been working to get no photo notice of funding opportunities out the door and to make awards really, really quickly.

And we've been able to do this, in part, because the is really a combination of.

funding for existing programs like RAISE and Infra, the bus and bus facilities program, as well as some new programs.

As you can imagine, the newer programs have been a little slower to come out, but DOT is pushing them out really, really quickly.

Next slide.

And so, you know, safe streets for all, which is a brand new program funding vision 0 programs, the competitive bridge investment program.

Those new of those have already come out and have actually closed.

Uh, coming up next is going to be reconnecting communities, which is due in October as well as the railroad crossing elimination grant program.

And what I think you're partly seeing with this administration is that DOT has been well equipped to work with local governments to get this money out the door.

EPA also has been quick to get money out the door.

Department of Energy, this is newer for them as they're trying to work with local governments and having to stand up new programs.

And so it's taking them a little bit more time.

Next slide.

Again, familiar programs on the EPA side, Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund, Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund, those programs have already gone out the door as well.

Next slide.

Oops, excuse me.

And so then again, as I mentioned, a number of new programs coming out very, very quickly.

And I'm going to turn it to David in just a moment to talk to you about how the city is positioning itself to be as competitive as possible, really with a landmark coordination effort.

Next slide.

David.

Thank you, Leslie.

On this slide, I wanted to show that we're really looking at a two-year time horizon or longer for federal agencies to announce their notice of funding opportunities.

Currently, competitive funding opportunities are slowly starting to roll in and departments have applied to a handful of them.

with current deadlines coming up.

This process may take some time, but OIR, in coordination with our departments and CBR, are actively working with our local and federal partners to stay on top of these Notice of Funding Opportunities announcements and deadlines.

I think the main takeaway from my portion of this presentation will be that the city's efforts around the bipartisan infrastructure law have so far been entirely led and driven by city departments.

Departments have conducted their own assessments and priorities on which infrastructure grants to apply for.

And through OIR and CBO, the city set up an internal structure called the bill core team really to coordinate issues among departments arising from infrastructure law and keep the mayor's executive team and stakeholders, including city council, apprised of departmental efforts and priorities.

Select members of the core team report monthly as needed to the executive steering committee, comprised of the members you see on this slide, to update on the group's efforts and relay which grants departments are currently applying for.

And in discussion with central staff last week, we decided to establish a central staff liaison to the bill core teams executive working group to relay the council's priorities, questions and requests around the bipartisan infrastructure law.

And to expedite your questions and concerns, we would highly encourage each council office to coordinate and reach out to our central staff liaison.

Currently, that'll be Eden Sisich and alternatively, Calvin Chow.

And the goal of this working group will be to track each of your questions, concerns, and requests arising from your offices.

And this is just to show kind of the bottom up efforts that have been led by departments and each branch that you see here kind of arising up through on the left, the top left, the core team comprised of these members and up top, the executive steering committee.

And here I just wanted to show that funding is really dispersed through for four mechanisms, the state directly from federal agencies, MPOs, planning organizations and regional councils, and infrastructure authorities, such as transit authorities.

And so far, we have had ongoing discussions with at the federal level, the White House Implementation Coordinator, Mitch Landrieu, members of key members of Congress and key federal agencies.

At the local and regional level, we are doing regular check ins on bill implementation, with state departments such as the Department of Commerce and Transportation, a regional partner such as King County and the Puget Sound Regional Council, and then also other key players.

And currently our Washington State Coordinator is Dave Schumacher, and we have a liaison from that office as well.

The next four slides really list the grants departments currently have sent applications in for and are currently working on to apply for.

Most of the current grants have NOFO deadlines that have been announced, and all grants that departments are interested in applying for are listed in what we call our city's master tracker that departments update on a regular basis and present at the core team.

We will ensure that our central staff liaisons have access to this tracker and understand how it works and convey that message to city council.

So again, the next four slides here are the slides that applications that we're currently working on.

This will be available to you guys as well.

I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Mosqueda, I saw your hand before we moved to you.

I want to recognize that we have Ali from council central staff on the line with us and before we take questions, I was wondering whether or not Ali could speak a little bit to how the council's And now we're, oh good, you are here.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

I'm Allie Koenig of your central staff.

I just want to confirm what David was explaining is last year we had a productive meeting with the OIR and CBO team on how to coordinate this work.

So central staff will be meeting monthly with the executive team and as David said, we'll have access to the tracker.

We are still working out our internal systems of how to make sure we are both receiving input from all nine council members on your priorities and questions and reporting back to you.

But the goal is as much as possible to try to meet with you each to understand where your priorities are, bring that information to the working group to inform where there are opportunities to make choices on projects.

Although I would say in many cases, there won't be a lot of choices.

It's pretty dialed in grant applications.

And then also reporting back on when they are submitting applications and making sure you are staying up to speed on where they are in certain processes and where there are opportunities for the council to weigh in on specific applications.

So I don't have it all figured out yet, but we're in the room and working to develop some systems and you'll be hearing more from me in the next week on how to share your priorities with us so we can share it back to the group.

Thank you.

It does remind me that we have had this conversation before when I see the lists that we're scrolling through quickly without really getting into the nitty gritty here, but we can see that there's been a significant number of grants applied for already.

And as you mentioned, David, that is very departmentally driven.

And so I really think that to the extent that OIR and the federal team can facilitate council knowing more on the front end so that we are in a position of helping to drive priorities.

I think that is what the council has been hoping for, rather than, oh, we've already applied for most of these dollars.

we're going to be able to do that for some of the funds that we haven't already submitted.

Grants for with that, I want to turn it over.

I saw Councilmember Mosqueda's hand early on.

If we could hear from you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President Pro Tem.

And it's good to see all of you excited about the movement and the opportunity that the federal delegation is making possible.

And thanks for your representation on behalf of Seattle in D.C.

We continue to highlight the important ways that the ARPA funding specifically has been released into community and we have monthly reports and quarterly public hearings on those dollars so that the community can see when cities receive funding directly how important and impactful those dollars can be.

So thanks for your ongoing work and all that you've done in the past, especially during the COVID crisis.

My comment was going to be similar to the Council President Pro Tem's, and this is maybe more of a comment for our OIR team internally.

I still have a lot of questions about how a liaison role functions versus having someone in the room on behalf of Council to understand the deliberations and better understand when funding is available proactively versus having it just reported back to council.

So similar to what Councilmember Herbold was noting, we want to have early heads up before funding is applied for, but also in the moment that we are right now where the bipartisan infrastructure bill is available, really wanting to make sure that we're proactively working together on when to access those and not just having like a liaison back and forth.

I don't think that's exactly how it was described as like reporting out to us.

But in conjunction with Ali Panucci and our OIR team, I'd still like to do some follow up on that to make sure that there's a real time feedback loop on available dollars, especially as we head into budget next week.

we have a long-standing interest in this, but I want to just uplift the fact that focus with jurisdictions from all over the country on sort of best practices to make sure that there is public and community involvement in making these prioritization decisions around this new funding.

And so there are some great templates similar to what Councilmember Mosqueda piloted with the ARPA funding and the council passage of a resolution providing direction on what our priorities, but I know we would all be happy to share with you sort of the toolkit that we've received from the folks who are sort of on a federal level organizing with local jurisdictions all across the country about how to make sure that these dollars are getting to the places of our highest priorities.

So would be happy to share those toolkits with you.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much, President Pro Tem Herbold, and really excited about this discussion on the Inflation Reduction Act and the implications it could have for the city of Seattle.

This morning I announced and this afternoon we'll discuss in more detail some of the work we've been doing around the Metropolitan Park District and there are significant capital components to our Metropolitan Park District plan that I believe include priorities that are directly responsive to a number of funding opportunities in the Inflation Reduction Act.

And I guess what I want to ask is how we might have a strategy as a city here through our federal advocates and external affairs to pursue funding opportunities, for example, for climate conversion work for community centers to decarbonize, to allow opportunities for cooling improvements, HVAC improvements.

And we are going to put a significant amount of propose a significant investment in those kinds of improvements and community centers.

Figuring out opportunities for federal support and federal match is something I'm really interested in.

We will hopefully be in a position if we as a council adopt this investment plan to have a real stake in the game to pursue matches.

I just wanted to throw that out there and see what opportunities there are for those kinds of improvements and how I can be helpful in that process of trying to seek federal funding opportunities to build on the investments we are making.

Thank you so much, all of the council members who have described what could be happening as we proceed with the additional federal opportunities under the infrastructure law, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act.

And I think Leslie's next discussion of the Inflation Reduction Act will touch very directly on some of the issues that Council Member Lewis just raised.

Council Member Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold, we have not said it explicitly, but the federal agencies are under really important guidance to make sure that equity and inclusion are crucial ingredients in any competitive funding that is being pursued by anybody under the federal infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

And so it would be terrific to look at some best practices that are being explored around the country, and we'll look forward to following up with you on that.

Leslie, do you want to proceed with perhaps the addressing the community resilience opportunities that we see in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Yes.

Thank you.

I'm happy to.

So there is tremendous opportunity in the Inflation Reduction Act, $739 billion reconciliation package, almost half going to new climate and energy tax incentives, as you noted, Council Member Lewis.

Next slide.

I'm not going to touch on all of the programs, but I want to give you a sense of the scale and scope and a couple of key takeaways.

Here 1 is that for as opposed to the bipartisan infrastructure law, it's it's actually much less prescriptive.

Which is good news and bad news was very clear with kind of when departments had to get funding out, giving time limits.

you know, in terms of how fast they had to get notice of funding opportunities out, and even in some programs, how fast they had to make awards.

The IRA is much more, because it was a reconciliation package, it's just much broader, much more vague, which is both good and bad.

The departments are now going to have more time to roll this program out.

And I will also just note that they are also very stretched bandwidth wise because they are trying to, it's a good problem to have, but they're trying to get the money out for IIJA.

And in many cases, it's going to be the same staff that are having to work on both of these.

And so in having conversations actually with a number of the agencies, I think this is going to be a much slower process than you've seen with IIJA.

And in many cases, and Council Member Lewis, to your question, In many cases, they are going to be issuing requests for information as they try to figure out how to shape these programs.

And so this is where I think it's going to be really important for the city to provide written feedback and comment on some of the programs to give them ideas on how things can be shaped.

And also to make sure that they are actually shaped to benefit us.

and so that's something that we'll work really closely with the departments on, with the Seattle departments on, to help ensure that they're providing a response, obviously, with your feedback.

To Gail's earlier point on all of these programs being really equity and climate focused, we expect that to be very much a continued theme here with the IRA as well.

The other interesting thing to note that I think will continue with this, and that you've seen clearly with the bipartisan infrastructure law is really using this federal funding as a way to leverage investment in workforce.

That's become something that's really, really clear.

Because there was not dedicated funding provided for workforce investment, this administration is trying to be incredibly strategic about making sure that the investments that are being made at the local level are catalytic in that sense.

And so they're really looking for to be included as part of grant applications.

I want to flag that as well.

Councilmember Lewis, to your question earlier on parks, there is 1.5 billion for urban forestry.

There is also a brand-new program for There is also one area, as we all know, that did not get funding through the IIJA is funding for affordable housing.

While this is not direct funding for affordable housing, it's at least funding for energy efficiency in affordable housing projects to the tune of $1 billion.

There is also a program very closely connected to the Reconnecting Communities Program, which is the Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant Program.

I'll just mention also that one issue that a number of agencies, you know, Biden administration agencies are working on right now is, you know, for some of these programs, trying to figure out, do they combine them with bipartisan infrastructure law existing programs and try to do it as one notice of funding opportunity, or do they do them as separate?

So there's a number of administrative issues that they are really grappling with.

And so this is going to be on a slightly slower implementation timeframe.

Next slide.

And so just again, you know, you're seeing funding for building an energy code adoption, climate pollution reduction grants, really a whole host of items that are funded through this.

Next slide.

I'll just touch really briefly.

I know all of you are watching the election really carefully.

I think, as we know, there's a five seat margin in the House.

The Senate is 50-50.

It is extremely close right now.

Next slide, please.

you know, on the House side.

Next slide.

On the House side, you know, I think there's been some surprise at the fact that Democrats are doing better than they would have historically been expected.

That said, you know, as we're heading to November, races are definitely tightening up.

And given redistricting, given gerrymandering, I think the general speculation, at least here from DC, is that the House will probably flip to Republican control, despite the fact that it may not be the same kind of landslide that I think people thought they might see six months ago.

And so it'll be a much more narrowly Republican House.

Next slide.

On the Senate side, of course, we're at 50-50.

I think people are feeling much, Democrats in particular, are feeling much more confident about the Senate at this point.

Next slide.

You know, to use Mitch McConnell's phrasing, candidate quality matters.

And unfortunately for the Republicans, they have really picked some special people to run in a couple of key races.

And so, you know, at this point, I think there had been real hope on on Arizona it's looking increasingly like Arizona will stay in control of the Democrats.

I think Georgia is a little a little hard to predict at this point, but I think Democrats are feeling more confident.

I think, you know, obviously having divided government means that I think it's going to be harder to get things done next year if we have a divided Congress.

But, you know, given that we were able to get some bipartisan things over the finish line this year, there is hope.

So next slide.

Turn to Michelle.

Thank you so much, Leslie.

Before we end and continue with questions, I wanted to quickly update you all on some ways that we're engaging with our federal delegation here in Seattle.

As you're all aware, we have an amazing delegation representing us in DC and their staff have been so incredible to work with.

I have been having recurring meetings with our federal delegation staff.

Some of them have been weekly, others have been monthly, but those are just a chance for us to check in.

hear what their priorities are and how we can help at the city of Seattle and also share what we're working on as well.

And here at this slide, this slide shows some of the tours that we've been doing for our federal delegation staff.

Just wanted to give you a highlight, just a high level picture of some of the opportunities we're showing.

We wanted to showcase the work that the city is doing and our priorities.

And so these are some of the tours that we've been taking our federal delegation staff on to make sure that they're aware of the work that we're doing here at the city.

And thank you so much to our departments for working so hard on this and for taking the time for these tours.

Also, thank you to Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales for going on some of these.

We're continuing to plan more for the October recess and the rest of the year.

So please let us know if you're interested in these opportunities in the future.

Looking ahead to 2023, We're now kicking off the process of revising our 2022 federal goals.

So I'm looking at, I'm hoping to meet with all of you individually.

We're hoping to meet with you to hear what input you have over the next few weeks so that we can make sure to include that in the 2023 federal goals.

That is the end of our presentation.

So we'll open it up now for questions.

Thank you, sorry, and my bad earlier that I allowed for some questions.

I did not realize, I thought we were at the end, so my apologies.

Council Member Lewis, is that an old hand or a new hand?

It is a follow-up, and I apologize too for having a line of questioning that apparently was premature, but that's okay.

Can we go back to slide 24, please?

Okay.

Particularly, I'm interested in the environmental and climate justice block grants as a potential source of support for some of the work that we are doing around community centers to have them be potential sources of cooling to make to decarbonize them for them to be part of our summer smoke response strategy.

And we have a number of community centers located in communities where there's a very strong equitable component to that work and making sure there's access to those kinds of facilities and services.

And like I said, we have ample money to match.

And so I guess as a very practical question, I want to drill into this, these block grants here and ask if we have any indication on when there might be NOFAs, to what extent are we working with the parks department to be competitive to use resources in the MPD to seek matches and increased impact by using these funds.

And then I would similarly ask about the low emissions electricity program, the Maybe some more details on exactly what the zero building energy code adoption, what it means, the assistance of state and local governments to adopt updated building codes.

Is that to assist in the transition?

What exactly is it envisioned on that line item to pay for?

When can we expect being in a position again for any of these, for the city to be able to apply to seek this funding?

So we're happy to follow up and to send you more detailed information on each of those programs that you mentioned, and thank you very much for for flagging those as priorities in terms of timing.

You know, I think it's obviously going to be agency by agency, but it definitely seems like it's much more of a Q2 at the earliest, 2023, maybe late Q1.

But again, part of what they're going to have to do is get, they're going to have to do a request for information where they're basically asking key stakeholders you know, here's a list of questions that we have for you about how we're thinking about structuring this, and can you provide us with feedback?

And so that is an area that we're definitely going to want to engage.

But this is definitely a 2023 play at this point, not a 2022. And again, happy to send additional info on each of those programs.

Yes, please do.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Any other questions looking for raised hands and I'm not immediately seeing any here.

I'm just going through.

I do have two hopefully quick questions.

On the I don't know if this is in any of these new pots of money.

I think it's just generally a, although I guess the 500 million expanding service coordinators act.

sponsored by Representative Adam Smith.

I understand that might be a future source of funding.

I know that the Office of Housing has identified the need of providers who are not permanent supportive housing providers, but are low-income housing providers, and there is no source of funding for resident services in that setting.

Council has provided one-time funding for dollars.

So just, I guess the question for that is, am I right that the 500 Million Expanding Services Coordinators Act would be a good fit and status of that legislation.

And then secondly, wondering if you could speak to the prospects for the cannabis administration and Opportunity Act sponsored by Senator Murray.

In terms of the Congressman Smith legislation, I think both of these, you know, I think he's laying the groundwork for these.

And so I think it's going to take, I think it'll be a little bit hard to get done this year.

But I think he's laying the foundation and building support.

And that's something, you know, that we can also help with in terms of getting other cities to be aware of the program, getting their members to sign on.

So I'm happy, happy to work on that.

And I'm sorry, I didn't catch the I didn't catch the other.

Sure.

Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, co-sponsored by Senator Murray, to improve safety for cannabis business and modernize federal regulations so they don't have to be cash only.

Yeah, I mean, so this has been, you know, I mean, Ranging from from this to, you know, the Safe Banking Act, of course, has also been this is an area that I think it's it's really difficult without Democrats having a majority there.

There is some Republican support for it, but it is a tough path right now.

And so, you know, I think there have been various efforts to try to even pull out some pieces of the legislation to see if there's ways of putting it as part of an appropriations bill, different ways.

I think they are trying to be strategic.

It is really tough to get to get done as a standalone vehicle.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, can we on the, I'm just having a hard time, I'm sorry, seeing whether or not there are hands.

Take down the slides, David.

That'd be great.

Take down the slides.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions from my colleagues?

seeing any all right thank you so much folks and I really appreciate your making yourself available to have one-on-one meetings with council members while you're in town and appreciate you putting together this work and our ongoing collaboration and hoping that we have the legislative and all the groundwork laid for a successful next round of legislative outcomes.

Things, you're right, turned out much better than we were expecting for the last session.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council members and Council President Pro Tem.

We'll look forward to carrying on the conversations.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So next, we're moving into the fifth item on the agenda, preview of council actions, council and regional committees.

We'll get a preview of city council actions and the order of discussion, as we all know, is established by the rotated roll call for council meetings, designated alphabetically by last name and with the council president called last.

This week's roll call rotation begins with Councilmember Morales and is followed by Mosqueda, Nelson, Peterson, Straus, Lewis, and then myself.

And I understand Councilmember Straus will be delivering Council President Juarez's report.

Thank you.

So, Councilmember Morales, please begin.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks again to the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for all of that exciting information.

Um, let's see, the next committee, my next committee meeting for the neighborhoods education, civil rights and arts committee is this coming Friday, September 23 at 930, we have a very full agenda.

which will include several appointments to different commissions.

We have two presentations on participatory budgeting, one from King County.

They will present briefly on the launch of their project, which I had mentioned last week.

And we will also get an update from our Office of Civil Rights on their, they are preparing to launch our city PB effort.

So I'm looking forward to hearing from those two groups.

We will also have RSJI presentations from arts and Oh, maybe just one.

Sorry, I thought there were going to be two departments presenting their RSJI work, but it looks just arts.

And then we will also have a presentation from Department of Neighborhoods.

They're going to be updating us on the generational wealth building work that they've been doing, and it is very exciting.

So I'm looking forward to having them share with the committee some of the work that they've been doing.

We had our update this morning, and Lots of great things happening there.

So full agenda for Friday morning.

Last week, I met with OCR to get a status update on PB.

And as I mentioned, there will be a committee on Friday.

My staff attended the FEPP levy oversight committee last week to discuss proposals on using the FEPP levy underspend.

And we also attended last week, got a tour of Summer Bridge, which is Seattle College's orientation program designed to offer new students an introduction to college life and sort of the logistics of managing your way through your first quarter on campus.

Later today, I'll be speaking with the Community Involvement Commission about their work to increase civic engagement across the city.

And then I'm excited to announce, you may recall, colleagues, that we've been working with Mercy Corps and with the People's Economy Lab to study how a community investment trust could work here in Seattle.

So I'm excited to announce that the first cohort of the Community Investment Trust Seattle-King County Feasibility Study has been selected.

And the point of the trust is really to create a low-dollar, loss-protected investment opportunity for community members.

So through the CIT, investors can build equity in diverse commercial properties, and we're really looking forward to these different organizations working together to see how we might be able to create that kind of a model here.

The aim is really to help residents benefit from economic prosperity and to build community connection through financial inclusion in our different commercial entity processes.

So I want to thank Andrea Greenstein, the Economic Recovery Project Manager, and Ashton Allison, who's the Economic Development and Recovery Director from King County's Executive Office, as well as the people's economy lab at Mercy Corps for their all of their support in helping us get this project off the ground so that we can learn about some interesting models and how we can invest in community ownership models.

District updates, last week my staff attended the Beacon Hill Council meeting where we had updates on the air and noise pollution community action plan.

We also learned about their tree preservation campaigns and are still anticipating updates from SDOT on the North Beacon Hill bike trail.

We also took a tour, as our Office of Intergovernmental Relations team mentioned, toured Yessler Terrace with Congressman Smith's office and Representative Jayapal's office and the Seattle Housing Authority.

They've got about 2,500 units built.

And as Council Member Mosqueda mentioned last week when we were discussing the resolution, on track to having about 5,000 units in the next few years.

We also met with the Georgetown Community Development Authority Development Association to hear some updates on their goals for developing affordable housing and commercial space at the fourth and Lucille area, they're working in partnership with Mary's place to have 150 units.

of housing between 30 and 60 percent AMI, as well as some ground floor retail.

We're also trying to work with them to see how we might get a co-op or a grocery store in Georgetown, which is one of the few areas where there is there is deep insecurity, food insecurity.

Georgetown and South Park both lack grocery stores, and so they're very interested in figuring out how they might be able to get something there.

Tellridge, I know as well, longstanding issues in some neighborhoods in the city for sure.

Currently, it takes almost half a day on transit to get to a grocery store from Georgetown.

If you want to go up to Beacon Hill or go over to White Center, you have to plan for several hours of bus trip.

So we're eager to help them figure that out.

This week, in honor of Week Without Driving, I'll be doing my errands and coming to the office, going about the district on transit and my bike.

We were trying to get a meeting, a bike ride scheduled with Director Spatz for this week, but we're having a little bit of scheduling conflict.

He's very popular, as you all know.

And so we will be taking a tour with him next week.

And in the spirit of week without driving, knowing that for those who cannot drive, who have disabilities, every week is a week without driving, we'll be riding in and touring D2 with the Disability Mobility Initiative and Rainier Valley Greenways to continue the discussion on mobility for people in District 2. Our office will be attending the CID public safety community meeting tomorrow as we shift our focus.

We've been meeting every two weeks with Little Saigon's public safety work group.

We've been hosting that in partnership with Friends of Little Saigon for the past year.

They are interested in us moving these conversations to the broader CID public safety work group, so we'll be moving in that direction.

there's increasing community concern about safety in the neighborhood.

And we've been working to bring all of the stakeholders and our departments to the table so that there can be much greater transparency.

And so that we can actually support neighbors in engaging in decisions that are being made in the neighborhood.

So we'll be attending, also be attending a teach-in that's being hosted by ACRS, the CID coalition, and other community organizations.

And we will be having follow-up meetings with our county colleagues to tour the existing SOTO services hub that we have all been hearing about.

And then finally, we have two ribbon cuttings this weekend, Columbia City Theater.

I'm very excited about that.

And we will be having a grand opening for the Detective Cookie Chess Park.

I want to thank colleagues.

You'll recall that we worked some funding in for these two entities over the last couple of budget cycles.

And we're very excited to finally see the projects coming to fruition.

That is all I have.

If there are questions, Council Member Nelson?

Yeah, that is exciting news about Detective Cookie's chess facility.

But I had a question.

You mentioned the underspend for FEPP.

Do you have offhand how much that was?

So there's a proposals to, to spend.

I'm not going to get it quite right but I think like 4 million for the black girls mentorship program which is something that I've been advocating for for the last.

a few years, and another 5.7 million for the Seattle Promise.

We will be talking about that in committee, and we'll also be having those discussions through the budget process, but those conversations are starting through the Levy Oversight Committee now.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay, I will hand it over to Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Morales, and hello everyone.

As I mentioned in last week's briefing, there will not be a meeting of the public, excuse me, there will not be a finance and housing meeting scheduled for September 21st at 9 30. As has been previously noted, this meeting was canceled because We did not have sufficient items for an agenda.

I want to thank Councilmember Herbold, who is taking one of the items that has overlap with public safety in her committee, the last committee for the month.

So thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold.

With that, the next meeting that we will have will be our Select Budget Committee meeting.

And as a reminder, folks, about the memos from myself and Council President, we will be receiving the mayor's proposed budget.

The initial budget will be transmitted to Council.

on Tuesday, September 28th, and our first Select Budget Committee meeting will be on September 28th at 9.30 a.m.

I am excited that we have great graphics to share with you.

We will be sharing those around so that you can put those onto your newsletters or social media.

It will have clear indication of when the meetings will be over the next eight weeks so folks know exactly when our budget deliberations will take place and where we are at in the process.

It will also have updated graphics for you to share with members of the public about which meetings will have the opportunity for oral and written public comment.

At every meeting, I want to underscore every meeting, we will be happy to accept any written public comment.

However, due to the ongoing COVID pandemic, we are condensing public comment for each of the weeks of the We will have a select budget committee to one meeting that starts the initial week.

So you'll have public comment both in an oral and written format at the beginning of the week.

And then we will have written comments for the remainder of the week.

So there is still the same amount of opportunity to provide public testimony.

If you'll recall, last year, for example, if we had a four-day public I would take 20 minutes at the beginning of each public meeting to allow for public comment.

So instead, we're condensing it to at least an hour and a half of public comment at the beginning portion of that week so that we are trying to limit how many times staff members are coming into the office.

Again, we will share that information with you.

It is included in the materials you've already read, but in case you didn't see it, there's a little icon that has a voice box for the time that there is oral public comment, and then the other days have a little pen for written public comment.

Don't worry, it'll be super simple to see when you see the graphic.

Then also just want to underscore that there's three, in addition to our committee meetings, there are three public hearings solely dedicated to public comment.

I mentioned this at last week's meeting, but I want to again underscore October 11th, there is an evening public hearing that will be at 5 p.m.

November 8th, as we discussed with Council Member Herbold last week, then public hearing will now be on November 8th at 9.30 a.m.

So October 11th at 5 p.m., November 8th at 9.30 a.m.

for a morning public hearing that will go till 1 PM.

Then again, a evening hearing, November 15th at 5 PM.

Written public comment, again, always accepted at any of the meetings, but the oral public comment, certain days we will be sending that out.

Strongly encourage people to continue to dial in and provide virtual public comment.

We will make sure to get everyone who signs up, but we want to strongly encourage people to do virtual public comment.

If anybody is coming to chambers, strongly encourage everyone to wear an N95 mask, a KN95 mask, and to engage in social distancing when in chambers.

So all of that information is going to be up on our website here very soon.

Excited to jump into the budget and to receive the initial proposal from the mayor next Tuesday and to begin going through the department presentation starting next Wednesday.

In terms of department updates, I want to thank all of the folks who called in, excuse me, who were part of the initial process.

in working with FAS to make sure that the Crisis Pregnancy Center information was accurate.

I believe it was Council Member Morales and Council Member Herbold who sponsored the legislation.

FAS has noted that regarding the Crisis Pregnancy Centers, FAS Consumer Protection along with the Mayor's Office approval provided guidance to the Council's recently passed Crisis Pregnancy Center legislation prohibiting false and misleading advertising by Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

and FAS has been working to make sure that they fully understand the process and the tools needed to enforce this legislation.

I want to thank them for their work and participation with the council on that important legislation.

FAS also wanted to let the council know that their real estate services department, its leasing agency, and King County have fully executed the lease for the property on 128th Street.

King County will be using the land to operate a micro-module enhanced shelter operation in collaboration with HSD.

This was an announcement made by the King County Executive last week, which I'm fully supportive of and I want to thank FAS for working with King County and really thank King County and the Executive for the proactive work to make sure that we were thinking about every possible way to keep folks housed, provide critical services, and that we do so in conjunction with our regional partners every single chance we get.

This is a great example of the type of partnership we need in these moments to make sure that we're reaching out and caring and housing we're going to be able to make sure that those who are most vulnerable are most vulnerable.

And last week, Council President Pro Tem, I did have the chance to stand with workers at the Starbucks Workers United rally.

I mentioned that last week.

But I wanted to thank again the union sector support for workers who are organizing in non-organized sectors and wanted to specifically call out the various unions that I saw there.

To make sure that we had the chance to really thank them, I asked for a list of all of the represented unions because it was really a great example of how the labor movement is bringing together organized labor with those who are organizing to be represented labor.

Thanks to UFCW 3000, SEAU 775, SEAU 1199 Northwest, Teamsters 117, SEAU 6, And there was more.

I met the president of the bricklayers and so many more folks that were there.

excited about the ongoing show of support for folks who are organizing in non-organized sectors currently.

On Friday, I attended the opening of the West Seattle Bridge, was excited to be in D1 with Council Member Herbold, and she did an amazing job speaking about the importance of the date, so I will defer to her on those comments and just wanted to Again, say thanks to the folks at SDOT.

I know that Sam Zimbabwe got a number of shout outs, but he really spearheaded the majority of the 910 days that the bridge was closed and really initiated the work that has come to fruition now with making sure that the bridge was reopened in a safe way and in a way that ensured its safety.

for years to come.

Monty Anderson and Katie Garrow of course spoke on behalf of labor there, but Monty noted in his presentation on behalf of the Seattle Building and Construction Trades Council that the West Seattle Bridge created 67,000 work hours with community hire for local workers in our region so great example of community hire being deployed on public works projects and thanks again to Council Member Herbold for incredible representation and information provided from your news alerts on a bi-weekly basis that we have been able to read throughout this time and get great information out to the community.

Colleagues, I will be going to the cannabis bill signing.

The cannabis equity bill signing is happening today, this afternoon with Mayor Harrell and members of the community, including workers from UFCW 3000, along with business owners, including Black-owned business in Seattle, and coming together to celebrate this historic moment.

Thank you to Seattle City Council colleagues for your unanimous passage of the three bills.

Very excited that this is a first step that we will be commemorating today with the signing of the bills.

This Friday, I'll be attending the AWC Board of Directors meeting, and I'll be seeing you in a number of places at our parks meetings coming up.

Thank you, Council Members and Council President Pro Tem.

I don't see any additional hands, so I'll turn it over to Council Member Nelson.

Thanks.

Thank you very much, Council Member Mosqueda, and hello, everyone.

There are seven items on tomorrow's agenda that passed unanimously out of the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee last Wednesday.

Council Bill 120412, establishing the Seattle Film Commission.

Council Bill 120411, amending Seattle City Light rates in conformance with Resolution 32061, adopting City Light's integrated resource plan, no, strategic plan and rate path.

There will also be three reappointments to the Seattle City Light Review Panel and two reappointments to the Seattle Music Commission.

And there were a couple other items in committee that didn't have legislation associated with them.

One was a presentation from the Office of Economic Development on neighborhood recovery investments made possible by federal COVID relief dollars.

And another was a briefing on Seattle City Light's annual independent finance audit.

And I'm happy to say they passed with flying colors.

So that was committee last week.

And even though I've been really deep in the weeds on parks and film, I managed to do some other things.

So some highlights from last week include On September 12, staff and I met with Daniel Pak, representing Totem Star, which for the last two and a half years has been working with Station Place, which is a creative collective made up of five youth-serving cultural organizations to plan a youth-centered arts and cultural hub on the second floor of the King Street Station.

And the goal of Station Place is to empower creative youth to develop skills to access greater artistic expression, viable careers, and other opportunities through compassion, confidence building, and mentorship.

So check them out if you don't know about them already.

That was the first I had heard about them.

On September 12th, I met with UW Medical Center's CEO, Cindy Hecker, to discuss the expansion needs of their Northwest Hospital campus.

and get an update on the Behavioral Health Training Facility, which is under construction right now.

I think it's scheduled to open in 2024. On September 15th, my staff attended Youth Care's 36th Annual Luncheon at the Westin Hotel and had an opportunity to hear from their new CEO, Degayle Cooper.

And so I wanna extend congratulations to Seattle Kraken, the One Roof Foundation, and Climate Pledge Arena who are honored with Community Impact Awards for their efforts to end youth homelessness and connect young people with employment and job skills opportunities.

And then on the September 15th, Had my quarterly meeting with the Seattle Municipal Court.

This time it was with new presiding judge, Judge Eisenberg, and he did mention that as Seattle Municipal Court begins the process of resuming late fee collections, I really appreciate the direct outreach they're doing in community.

including an event this morning at Rainier Beach to bring together court services and social services for community members to get help with their SMC warrants and help setting up a payment plan for unpaid tickets and access to a range of other supportive services.

So I look forward to hearing how that went.

I haven't seen anything about that yet, but I'm sure it was a success and I appreciate them doing that.

And then on Saturday and I'm sure other council members are going to talk about this, so I'll be quick.

I attended the 2022 Salmon Homecoming celebration at Pier 62 with Council President Juarez and Council Members Lewis and Strauss.

Got a chance to meet leadership for the first time from the Muckleshoots, Quamish, and Lummi tribes and just see canoes come ashore in the annual ceremony that's been going on for over 35 years, and this is the first time it's been at the new Pier 62, and one of the components of the day's events was a blessing of the new pier.

So this week, besides hopefully passing the Film Commission legislation tomorrow, on Thursday, our office will be attending the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber's 140th luncheon, alongside our partners from City Light and we'll also be at the Sodo BIA's lunch event as well.

So that's it for me.

Are there any questions?

Not seeing any.

I will pass it to Council Member Peterson.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

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

Our next Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities is tomorrow, Tuesday morning, 9.30 a.m., September 20th.

As published last Friday and circulated early this morning, our agenda has 28 items, though 22 of the items are appointments.

At committee tomorrow we expect to vote on the 22 appointments all of which are to the various transportation advisory boards.

We also plan to vote on a council bill one 2, 0, 4, 1, 9, relating to the Western portion of the state route 5.20 bridge replacement and high occupancy vehicle project.

The bill is essentially an amendment that updates the general maintenance agreement between the city and state.

for that Portage Bay portion of the bridge.

If you have any questions on that, please ask Council Central staff or Calvin Chow.

Our committee will also vote on the solid waste rates that we already discussed during our September 6th meeting.

If you have any questions about that, Council Bill 120410, please ask Brian Goodnight on our Council Central staff.

When the solid waste rates are combined with SPU's other lines of business, we expect to see overall rates for customers increase at a lower percentage than what we most recently promised when approving our rate path for Seattle Public Utilities.

I really appreciate SPU doing everything they can to manage their costs and keep those rate increases to the minimum.

We also hope to vote on legislation from Seattle Public Utilities that will enable us to streamline how the city accepts the pass-through rates we are required to accept from King County relating to drainage and wastewater services.

Those charges appear on each customer's bill, but are pass-through rates that we're unable to change, unlike the control we have over solid waste rates and drinking water rates.

the council will vote on that.

the council bill for drainage can be voted on at committee tomorrow due to a technical drafting change needed for the bill title, the related wastewater council bills will be presented as a draft that we can discuss and vote on at full Council later.

if you have any questions about those items, please contact share transit stops, which builds off of lessons learned, and the goal here is to continue to make transit options available to as many people as possible.

We'll also discuss draft legislation on a more permanent program from Eston on how we allow restaurants to use our public sidewalks and streets.

We will be able to vote on that legislation during our first committee in December.

If you have any questions about that legislation, you can ask Council Central Staffer Calvin Chow or review his memo that he circulated.

regarding other transportation items.

I know many of us were thrilled with the successful reopening of the West Seattle High Bridge this past weekend.

I drove over the bridge last evening.

I know it's a relief to more than 100,000 Seattle residents while also improving the reliability of buses and freight for the region.

I really want to express my appreciation for the engineers, construction workers, and NSDOT staff, especially Heather Marks, the director of the West Seattle Bridge Safety Program who got the job done to restore and reopen the bridge.

I want to thank you all for joining us today.

I appreciate it.

As always, a close working relationship with our West Seattle Councilmember.

We will talk more about it during your presentation.

SDOT did complete this project under budget and I know we will discuss that more as we take a holistic approach to the entire SDOT budget during our review of the entire city budget in October and November.

committee.

Last week, I joined Seattle's chief librarian, Tom Faye, in District 4 for an event at the Northeast branch of Seattle Public Libraries, where the neighborhoods of Bryant and Wedgwood meet.

I fielded some tough questions from neighbors who are concerned about property tax increases, the need for greater public safety, and the need to close the digital divide.

They were happy to hear about City Council's efforts to push for Internet for All, and relieved that the Herald administration released the funds the council approved last November so we can finally make that city asset in the southwest branch of the library more resilient as a cooling center in the midst of climate change.

And that concludes my report.

Happy to answer any questions or turn it over to Council Member Strauss.

Okay.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Great to see you, everyone.

Last week in District 6, my staff and I continue to host our regular operational public safety and public space meetings with community leaders, social service agencies, the mayor's office, city departments, and city attorney's office.

as well as the King County Prosecutor's Office and SPD to move action plans forward at the Leary Triangle, addressing homelessness in the Bowery Industrial Area, and implementing the 22nd Avenue plan in downtown, as well as the D6 case conferencing meeting.

That's a lot.

Each of these teams is operational by design and is tasked each week on delivering next steps to improve public spaces and public safety in District 6. If you have issues you want addressed, please let me or my D6 District Director, Amy Enbiske, know and you can email her from my website or all of my newsletters also have her information in there.

This weekend we helped plan a pet adoption and volunteer foster event on 22nd Avenue.

It was hosted by the Seattle Animal Shelter.

All the best pet care, First Mate, Fur Fighters, Seattle Barkery, and Puddles Barkery were all part of this local event.

It was the first community event held at the front porch of the Ballard Library on 22nd Avenue, with more coming throughout this fall and winter.

As part of the 22nd Avenue work group, we're working with the Ballard Alliance and others to bring these activities to the front porch of the library.

This program is intended to help re-establish the habit of having events in downtown Ballard, and as soon as Ballard Commons Park is reopened, these events will be shifted directly into the park.

If you're interested in hosting a community event on 22nd Avenue, you can reach out to my district director and we'd love to get you on the calendar and participating upcoming events include Saturday, September 24 we have a workout from striving uplift focusing on mobility work, learn how to reduce pain and increase mobility.

On Sunday, October 9th, we have Illumination Learning Studio with free kids activities.

On Saturday, October 15th, we're going to have Striving Uplift back out there with a workout to help create better stability.

And on Sunday, November 9th, from 12 to 2 p.m., Illumination Learning Studios will be back with performances by Puget Sound and Paper Puppet Opera.

which is a good local Ballard favorite.

If you have an event or you'd like to participate, please do reach out to Amy Inbiske in my office.

My staff attended the Green Lake Community Council meeting last week, and last Thursday, I held my District 6 office hours.

Due to the Seattle Parks District Board meeting, we had to reschedule some of the meetings to outside standard times, and I was happy to meet with D6 residents, two from Loyal Heights, one from Fremont, eight from Green Lake, and one from Finney.

We discussed homelessness, vacant buildings, stay healthy streets, the Green Lake Community Center, and boards and commissioned opportunities in District 6. In addition to that meeting, I also met with about 40 D6 residents on Wednesday to discuss safety updates and improvement to Seaview Avenue.

They organized through three different condominium buildings on Seaview as there have been a number of traffic and pedestrian safety issues on Seaview Avenue Northwest.

This year we had a fatality of somebody on a bike.

We had a car, nearly 15 inches from hitting a building, about a month ago, and a number of the requests that this group has to s.r in process so I shared a status update of those requests.

And we also discussed other traffic improvements that could be made to get to Vision Zero.

Last Friday, my office hosted our second Ballard Avenue Design Charette in coordination with SDOT and the Ballard Alliance.

It was very exciting.

We gathered with Ballard Avenue small business owners, stakeholders, and residents to hear their feedback on how recent interim changes to Ballard Avenue are working, how they can be improved, what more needs to be done, and what needs to be changed.

This will lead us to clarify and finalize the final interim improvements, which will last until permanent changes are agreed upon.

This process will include one to two more design shreds so that we can really nail down the community's vision.

We're using Ballard Avenue as the pilot for citywide policy as it's not a through street.

Ballard Avenue ends at Market Street Northwest and at the Ballard Bridge.

So it really makes it a perfect incubator for citywide policy.

And we're also using the interim designs to inform how we create structures and elements of the Cafe Street to conform with historic district regulations.

More on that soon.

And I was just really excited with all the work that came out of the design threat, and the upcoming changes to Ballard Avenue.

Tomorrow on the Transportation Utilities Committee as Councilmember Peterson mentioned we will be briefed on my legislation to make outdoor dining a permanent feature of our city's fat fabric.

Estat launched a temporary Safe Starts program in summer 2020. Safe Starts permits were free and streamlined, allowing businesses to use the space outside their storefronts quickly during the pandemic.

And to date, Estat has issued over 300 Safe Starts permits across Seattle.

During their evaluation of the program, a survey went out and over 10,000 responses came into that 2020 the city.

The city has shown high levels of support from the program.

Every neighborhood in the city showed high levels of support and that came from both neighborhood residents, customers and business owners.

Even business owners not participating in the program expressed a high level of support.

As part of my pathway to And I really appreciate s dot for focusing their time at the outset of this program on getting permits out the door, rather than focusing on permanent regulations at the outset, so that we could have more business owners, being able to use these permits than if they just put their nose down and focused on policy.

This program is scheduled to sunset in 2023 as SDOT returns to the existing permit options, which are what is contained within this bill.

I really appreciate Councilmember Peterson being able to give us time in this committee and then in December so that we have time to really chew on what is being proposed.

SDOT is focused on setting new rules to maintain many of the popular aspects of the program.

As people are asking for more cafes, more street closures, more merchandise displays, and more vending opportunities.

And to do that, SDOT is centering on a few key aspects.

Equity, because we want these changes to work across the city, not just in a few neighborhoods.

Safety, as we move away from the initial phase of the pandemic, we need to ensure that these structures are safe for people dining, walking, rolling, and driving.

Access a stop wants to ensure work to maintain proper access making sure that there's plenty of room for deliveries for pickup for walking down the sidewalk for ride share this was actually one of the biggest discussions during the Ballard Avenue design sure at this last week.

And sustainability is the fourth pillar of the program needs to be financially sustainable for s dot so permit fees that cover s dot are coming back.

So we're not using general fund to supplant this work, what I can tell you is that the new fee schedule would be about $100 a month for a restaurant owner which is greatly reduced from the pre pandemic.

rates that were set on looking at next best use.

So if you wanted to use a parking space, you had to pay for the full parking, the revenue for all of that parking for a full year.

It just didn't work.

So I'm really excited with the new payment.

And SDOT is working to ensure that they have a new set of rules, adequate transition time for businesses, and options for year-round vibrancy for the use of our right-of-way.

So, as the schedule allows, briefing tomorrow, legislation vote in December, and implementation in January.

I'm very excited about this.

This coming week and D six I'm sorry colleagues that might break the 10 minute barrier this week and week without driving I took light rail to work the but I'll be taking the bus home.

The interesting connection will figure out is how I will get to my last kayak race of the season on a bike.

I'll be hosting my weekly office hours this Wednesday rather than Thursday because of the Special Land Use Committee meeting on Thursday.

On Thursday, my D6 district director will be touring the Green Lake Community Center.

On Friday, I'll be joining a few D6 residents to pick up trash in the neighborhood.

This was a request from a D6 resident I met while out and about in Ballard.

I'm looking forward to joining because I pick up trash every week in Ballard, so I'll be excited to have to join others this time around.

On Saturday, I'll be attending and speaking at the groundbreaking event at the Green Lake Boathouse.

This is a really big deal because the athletes have been working out in the structure underneath the stairs of the Aqua Theater for far too many years.

This community boathouse allows more types of craft and more craft so that the programming extends to more people who typically can't join either due to financial constraints or physical ability.

So I'm really excited for these big changes.

And this coming Saturday, the Fremont Arts Council celebrates the Autumnal Equinox with the Sweet Illuminating Lantern Parade around Green Lake.

The opening ceremony will be at 7.30 PM.

After the opening ceremony, follow the band around Green Lake and join in the illuminated parade.

There will be some art at the end of the parade if you want to join.

Last week, around City Hall and the city, I was thankful for being a guest at the Salmon Homecoming at Pier 62 on Saturday with the Muckleshoot and Suquamish tribes, including the canoe welcoming and blessing ceremony.

This marked the 30th anniversary of sharing the importance of protecting our salmon and our environment.

This year, it was dubbed 30 years of telling our story.

Protecting salmon has been a longtime priority of mine, as well as I'm always impressed with how fast these canoes travel.

I know I can make it from Ballard to Suquamish in 60 minutes via a single kayak, which is faster than a car, and I am only I'm very interested to know how fast a six to 10 person can you can make it there.

Business around the city I've had a sequence of meetings regarding the Metropolitan Parks District, which will continue this week I attended the AWC is housing solutions work group.

I'm hopeful we can find a way for certain cities to understand the importance of this work.

My team attended the King County Regional Policy Committee.

to hear about the state of our regional behavioral health crisis and how King County is working to address growing needs for services while losing facilities.

The good news is the crisis response programs like Mobile Crisis Team have been able to handle 140% increase in clients served in the last decade, but we've lost about a third of the residential beds that we need.

I also have held several meetings regarding improving the permitting process.

More on that soon.

This week in City Hall I'll be joining Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell and Budget Director Julie Dingley ahead of the Mayor's proposed budget transmission next week.

I'll also be holding my regular Land Use Directors Meeting with CM Morales.

OPCD's Director Karen Dongo and SDCI Director Torrelson.

On Wednesday, I'll attend the Chief Seattle Club Ceremony in recognition of the All All House, Chief Seattle's first ever affordable housing development, which I got to work on in my role with Sally Bagshaw.

Very excited to have this open.

I'll be meeting with OIR Director Gail Tarleton and her team to discuss the legislative session.

And I plan to attend the PSRC Executive Board meeting to be briefed on the Transportation Plan Work Program.

and Puget Sound data trends, as well as on Friday I'll be attending the Association Washington City's Director's Meeting.

The Land Use Committee, the next meeting of the Land Use Committee is a special meeting this Thursday, September 22nd.

There are seven items on the agenda.

Council Bill 120400, virtual hybrid meetings for land use permit process, Council Bill 120401, the land use code omnibus bill.

Council Bill 120405, the Crown Hill design guidelines.

Council Bill 120394, the townhouse development standards.

Clerk file 314447, which is with associated council bill for the Roosevelt contract rezone to design review board appointments.

All of which, except for the appointments, have been briefed in committee before, and we're looking to vote on these before budget.

This will be the last land-use committee before budget, and our next land-use committee will be held in December.

Colleagues, that is my report.

Any questions on that before I read Council President's script?

Not seeing any.

Sorry, I did go over 10 minutes today.

I'll do better next time.

So Council President did ask me to read her remarks because unfortunately she's unable to join our meeting today.

From the Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee.

Last week Governance, Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee unanimously recommended the appointment of Interim Director Kimberly Loving to become the Director of Seattle Department of Human Resources.

The Council will be voting on her confirmation on tomorrow's agenda.

The committee also unanimously recommended the appointment of Summer Hepburn to become the newest member of the Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee.

Finally, Council President Juarez received a Race and Social Justice Initiative update from the Office of Labor Standards.

Thank you to the OLS team who worked so hard on this year's RSJI presentation.

In Native communities, the D5 team attended seven weeks of action for seven generations, a national campaign led by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, now calling on Congressional leaders to pass the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding Schools Policy Act.

You can follow this work and the Healing Coalition Twitter or Facebook feed for more information on how you can help support the campaign.

On Saturday, the annual salmon homecoming on the waterfront welcomed numerous beautiful canoes and a great turnout.

Council President was honored to speak as part of the blessing of Pier 62. This week on Wednesday, she will be attending the AT&I Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Conference at Tulalip.

AT&I is a leading organization representing tribes in the Northwest, and it will be an honor to meet with tribal leadership.

Among other events, we will attend a workgroup meeting on funding for missing and murdered Indigenous persons programs.

Later this week, they will be joining the celebration of the opening of the Seattle Indian Health Board's new medical clinic in Lake City.

Everyone is welcome on Friday at 2 p.m.

in Lake City.

Please do reach out to Council President Juarez's office for more details.

Last week, Council President met with Representative Sharon Santos regarding the Sound Transit light rail expansion proposal and specifically its potential impacts for Chinatown International District.

She also met with former Speaker of the House Frank Chopp regarding affordable housing needs in Seattle.

As well, incoming SDOT Director Greg Spotts came out to D5 on Wednesday and walked the northern section of Aurora with transit and pedestrian advocates and D5 staff to see the safety impacts and challenges caused by the lack of sidewalks.

On Thursday, the three remaining chief of police candidates answered questions at a public forum, which is available to be viewed online.

Please do check out the Seattle Channel website to watch.

And on Friday, Council President's Office received a quarterly update from the new presiding judge, Adam Eisenberg, from Seattle Municipal Court, including discussion of the judicial branch's budget needs and plans for the upcoming year.

Upcoming this week on Thursday, the Sound Transit Board of Directors will be meeting to hear a presentation on the Soto Station Preferred Alternative, which is part of the West Seattle Ballard Link Extension.

The Sound Transit Board will also consider a motion that would establish a permanent virtual meeting option, except in rare circumstances.

As well on Friday, Council President will be in D5 visiting with the Refugee Artisan Initiative as a guest to a special sewing project in their location.

And that is Council President Juarez's full report.

Any questions on that?

Seeing none, I will now pass it off to Council Member Lewis.

And just for the colleagues, we've had the benefit of having City Grind open for a number of months.

And today, they are now serving lunch and breakfast.

So if you're hungry, City Grind has you covered.

Council Member Lewis, all you.

Thanks so much, Council Member Strauss.

And it's good to be here for our council briefing.

Happy to begin with just some updates from the committee.

There is going to be on this Wednesday for the meeting of the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee, a plan to vote on the Third Avenue resolution introduced two weeks ago.

That is going to be updated on the agenda, there will be a new draft of the resolution for consideration of council colleagues.

And this is a substitute after consultation with the mayor's office to narrow in and make more specific certain deliverables anticipated to be provided under the resolution.

To be specific, some of these changes are going to request from the executive an analysis of transit volume projections for downtown Seattle.

An assessment of scenarios put forward in the 3rd Avenue vision document promulgated by the downtown Seattle Association in terms of its impact on transit volume and other transit projects that are currently anticipated or underway to conduct a retail and return to office study for downtown and to use the technical data to inform the development of a work plan for a study of a preferred design concept.

And finally, to evaluate funding opportunities for design and construction of the preferred design concept.

I know Council Member Herbold had indicated potential changes within the scope and I look forward to consulting to see if those amendments are in accordance with some of the issues raised by Council Member Herbold and look forward to discussing with other colleagues as well as we get closer to that hearing and throughout that hearing this Wednesday.

Additionally, this morning, I announced, along with a group of community supporters, my proposed balancing package for the Metropolitan Park District.

We will be talking in more detail about that when we convene after briefing as a Metropolitan Park District Board, so I will not go into too much detail, but it was good to be joined by representatives from the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, Labor's International Union, the Seattle Parks Foundation, Friends of the Waterfront, the Downtown Seattle Association and the Alliance for Pioneer Square, as well as 350 Seattle in support of this package that has come together over several months of work done here with you board members as well as with the administration of Mayor Harrell and these community stakeholders who have provided extensive feedback on priorities in the community and in our parks.

I look forward to continuing to work with this broad coalition of nonprofits, labor, and business leaders to promote this Metropolitan Park District package over the course the next several days.

Just as a reminder, an e-mail that I sent last Friday confirmed an extension from talking to Council President Juarez's office as well as Mayor Harrell about the potential for a little bit more time for consideration of the investments in the Metropolitan Park District to move final consideration of that package to Tuesday, September 27, and I just want to confirm that an open session that that will be the new day for a final consideration of the Metropolitan Park District.

Amendments will be due by noon on Thursday, 22, and we will keep that Friday the 23rd meeting as a potential work session on amendments.

If there is not a significant volume of amendments, we may cancel that meeting on that afternoon and just have our session after full council on Tuesday the 27th to finalize the Metropolitan Park District plan.

So just wanted to confirm that timeline here during briefing, and we will talk more about the details of that proposal when we convene after this briefing session.

And Council Member Herbold, I do just want to indicate that we were joined by Jupiter and Houston, two dogs living in West Seattle this morning, who are excited about the inclusion of an off-leash area for West Seattle in the final Metropolitan Park District package.

And I do want to give a shout out to their owners, Paul and Alec, organizing with the West Seattle Off-Leash Area Coalition.

for their attendance this morning at the press conference.

It was good to see them and I'm excited to partner on that initiative.

With that, I will just give a final Clean City update for the period from September 5th to September 9th.

During that period, Clean Cities recovered 1,231 needles and 56,000 pounds of garbage from 52 locations.

There were no focus parks for this period of the Clean City Initiative, And as always, look forward to getting those updates and that accountability from the department on that important work.

Finally, I do want to acknowledge having a great initial day of the week without driving.

I'm very fortunate to be able to structure my daily commute to not include driving on a fairly regular basis and look forward to continuing that throughout this week.

And similarly to many of my colleagues, make some time to get together with our new transportation director, Greg Spotts, and look at a couple of priorities around District 7 for potential improvements to facilitate more people being allowed to make that choice and to make it more convenient for people who have no choice but to use alternatives to driving.

With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over, I believe, to Council President Pro Tem to close us out.

unless anyone has any questions.

Any questions on my briefing?

Seeing none, I will hand it over to the Council President Pro Tem.

Great, thank you so much.

Normally, I would just jump right in and say what's on tomorrow's agenda and what's up for committee, but I do wanna divert from my normal structure to just say hooray.

After two and a half years, the West Seattle Bridge is open.

Glad to hear my council colleagues are using the bridge, both West Seattle residents and otherwise.

I myself was able to drive across on a Sunday evening.

I was out of town this weekend, but it was fantastic that they were able to open the bridge on Saturday evening shortly after 9 p.m.

Officially makes it in the week of September 12th as they originally promised, so good on SDOT.

for the commitment to open up as soon as they possibly could.

On Friday, I really was so honored to be at a press conference to commemorate the opening of the bridge, joined by Mayor Harrell, Senator Cantwell, Representative Jayapal, and several others has been already mentioned, spoke, both representing labor, the community task force, and a number of other I want to reiterate a point I made on Friday.

to the Duwamish communities with funding for ReConnect West Seattle projects.

400 different projects to mitigate the detour route impacts.

Thank, as well, Council Member Peterson, Chair of the Transportation Committee for his leadership over this very challenging time.

Also want to announce that the nine bus routes that used the low bridge, the Spokane Street Bridge, has shifted back to the West Seattle Bridge, and that's the 21, the 21 Express, 50, the 55, the 56, 57, 120, 125, and that workhorse, the Rapid Ride C line.

And restrictions on the low bridge have also been removed.

I'm moving on to items that are on tomorrow's full council agenda.

As I mentioned earlier, we are moving forward the appointment of Gino Betz to the Director of Office of Police Accountability.

This appointment is to fill the vacancy in the position created when former Director Meyerberg resigned.

That appointment will go through the end of 2022, and the mayor is expected to send a reappointment for the subsequent four-year term.

No additional process is planned, and that appointment is intended to go directly to full Council.

And I just want to uplift Mr. Betz, who was here at the committee for the second time last week, where he answered a lot of the Council's questions.

Non-committee members might want to either check out that session on public safety and human services or check out the federal channel interview with Mr. Betz.

We also have on the full council agenda the appointment of Dr. Faisal Khan as Director of Public Health.

Dr. Khan is nominated by Mayor Harrell and King County Executive Constantine and his confirmation must be approved by both the Seattle Council and the King County Council.

Khan started his work at telehealth last week and he joined my Public Safety and Human Services Committee on Tuesday.

And his nomination is going directly to the Council for a vote.

Because of a technical issue at committee, we were unable to vote, but we did sort of a non-official voice support of his confirmation and all committee members voiced their support for his nomination.

a few departmental updates on the Seattle Police Department side of things.

Earlier today, I met with the Seattle Police Department and the Mayor's Office to go over the long-awaited Research Demand Management Study results.

We'll be getting a public briefing on those results next Tuesday in Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

And as the council president's update noted, the three finalists for the appointment of permanent chief took place last Thursday.

You can watch it on the Seattle Channel.

It's good watching.

We have an update from the Seattle Municipal Court.

Up until six o'clock tonight, community members can get help at the Rainier Beach Community Center, resolving municipal court warrants, setting up payment plans, we need service plans to address Seattle crickets.

Visitors can also begin steps to renew their vehicle registration tabs that may be held up because of unpaid tickets.

a whole lot of resources there also unrelated to warrants and tickets.

The community services that are available for navigation at these community resource center events out in the community are too long to list, but I really encourage folks to get the word out about this.

Again, it's on 6 o'clock tonight, and there'll be a presentation on site in Amarick, Mandarin, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

On the Seattle Fire Department side of things, I just want to highlight that some of you may be getting emails from District One constituents concerned about some changes to the services that we've been receiving while the bridge has been down.

We're getting letters asking that we preserve the Ladder Truck 37 and Medic Unit 26. I really appreciate that Chief Scoggins championed the safety of District 1 decisions when the bridge was closed and placed a ladder for the peninsula at Fire Station 37 in High Point and a metacutant at Fire Station 26 in South Park.

A lot of people are concerned that with the bridge opening, those are going away.

I have confirmed with the mayor's office that those to be able to do that.

And so we're going to continue to work with them to make sure that the resources were intended to only stay in place through the bridge opening.

We know, though, that that's not a sufficient commitment to the District 1, and so we'll be taking this up through the budget process.

The nearest MEDIC units are MEDIC 28 in Rainier Valley and MEDIC 30 in the junction that's really far away from the South Orange neighborhoods in South Park.

And there's only one other ladder station, so just...

In case you're wondering why you're getting those emails, there's a little bit of a thumbnail about that.

As far as what we're hearing from the Human Services Department, reminding us that this is National Falls Prevention Day, starts every year on September 22nd, highlighting the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults.

One out of five fatal falls result in a serious injury.

As far as regional committees, last week, the Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee met.

We approved three nominations for the implementation board.

We received an update from CEO Jones about RH's RHA's work to stand up a unified command model, otherwise known as the Housing Command Center.

I want to highlight how important this approach is.

This was a recommendation of our own city auditor, the Human Services Department, back in 2019 that was never implemented.

And I just think the RHA should be applauded for moving forward with this approach of doing the work and I'm really happy that they're receiving technical assistance from HUD to set up this approach.

Also, as mentioned, there was a Board of Health Committee meeting last Thursday, and moving, looking forward, This week, regional committees, I have the Link Legislative Subcommittee on Tuesday and their Steering Committee on Thursday.

I'm excited to attend the Regional Cafe Standing in the Gap event on Thursday during the day, and in the evening, I'll be participating in two evening events, Beer and Chocolate, benefiting Duwamish River Community Coalition, and Transitional Resources Annual Event.

And then finally, on Saturday, I'll be joining the Parks Department grand reopening of Loman Beach.

Do any council members have questions or comments on my report?

All right.

Not seeing any.

It is now 3.50 p.m.

This concludes the items of business on today's agenda.

Our next regularly scheduled Council briefing meeting is September 26, 2022 at 2 p.m.

Thank you so much.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.