Select Budget Committee Session II 7/1/20

and be in your email soon.

Okay, let's get started.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is July 1st, 2020. I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Seattle City Council's Selected Budget Committee.

The meeting will come to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Strauss?

Present.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Peterson.

Here.

Chair Mosqueda.

Here.

Six present.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk.

Thank you.

I'm here.

I'm sorry.

Welcome, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Madam Clerk, do you mind retelling that number for us?

Seven present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Council colleagues, that was a short recess that we took in our two-part session of our agenda for today, July 1st, 2020. The Select Budget Committee will continue now.

Just for purposes of clarification, we will have a half an hour for public testimony.

We are going to try and get as many people in as possible, and we did this morning do a 30-second time slot, so I'll try to see how many folks we can get in at 30 seconds, and you will have a few extra seconds to conclude your comments.

We appreciate people calling in and also for waiting as we reconvened here.

Also, just for the purposes of discussion amongst our council colleagues, a reminder that we are on item number two.

We will start that at 3.30 p.m., which is a high-level discussion of the spend plan with possible amendments for your consideration and vote.

This, again, is changing the spend plan to be high-level categories, so it will be all-inclusive of the upcoming discussion that we will then follow up with the detailed discussion on the 17th, and Ali will talk about that.

but that is for discussion and vote today.

Item number three is just for briefing.

This is on the COVID-19 2020 emergency relief efforts and we are going to have a briefing from Allie and again that will be discussed on the 15th and then potentially voted.

And item number four is the Department of Commerce bill, which will have a briefing and potential vote.

Thank you to central staff for providing that.

Again, as a reminder, the city budgets office has been so kind to offer time on the 8th, and we will get into the questions that folks asked last week in that presentation.

and if you have additional questions, they and we are very interested in helping to facilitate those.

Again, if you have questions for the city budget's office, you can direct those to Lisa on central staff and or through my office.

And before we get our committee discussion, I'm going to ask the vice chair and chair of public safety as well to chime in after we do public comment to talk a little bit more about what we can expect related to SPD processes as we move forward.

And I'll chime in on that as well.

At this point, I am going to open it up to public comment.

And before we do so, just a reminder to folks that we have a lot of people signed up.

I want to thank you again.

If you hear a chime, try and wrap up your comments so we can get as many people in as possible.

The first three people that we will call are going to be Nathaniel Thomas, Sarah Sose, and Tyler Baxter.

Welcome, Nathaniel.

Yes, I'm speaking to the to in support of the Amazon tax and in general the defunding of Seattle Police Department.

The funds that are the Amazon is destroying our community and gentrifying and pushing black and brown communities out and not paying any money into systems that are needed to support them.

In addition, we have a bloated police budget that is using that budget to attack and kill with impunity black and brown individuals.

And we need to stop and end that.

We need to fund our communities and fund human life, not Amazon and not our police.

Thank you so much.

The next person is Sarah Sos.

Hello, my name is Drea and I'm with Trauma Refugees Community Organization.

I support the jumpstart bill to raise new money for community services and a minimum of 10% dedicated to the Equitable Development Initiative.

Communities of color have been under threat from widespread displacement for many years, a result of skyrocketing rent and development that does not meet our needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of community resilience in the face of a public health economic crisis.

Our organization stands in support of the Just Start to Raise Permanent New Revenue with a recent.

Thank you so much Sarah.

And Tyler Baxter.

My name is Tyler Baxter.

Hi my name is Tyler Baxter.

I'm a resident of District 4 and a Washington State teacher and I'm addressing the Amazon tax.

As of February 2020, Amazon is a trillion-dollar company, and the $500 million tax is less than .005% of Amazon's net worth.

Honestly, it's not a big enough tax, but it is a bare minimum start.

Removing the sunset clause and raising the tax by $50 million per year to fund the Green New Deal is the least we can do to help reduce the impact of climate change and racist gentrification

Thank you so much.

Moving on to Paul Chapman, Karen Taylor, and Day Tabard.

Paul Chapman, welcome.

Hi, thank you.

34 days ago, a Seattle cop kneeled on one of our neighbors' necks.

Again today, a cop kneeled on a neighbor's neck.

I've emailed you the receipts.

Let's be honest with ourselves.

Mayor Durkan has proven she can't reform SPD.

She opposes defunding SPD.

She's opposed new progressive revenue.

Her 5% SPD haircut is an insult.

Mayor Durkin is an obstacle to a more just and equitable city.

She has willfully violated her duty to ensure safety.

Democrat leaders and thousands of residents want to know, when will you impeach her?

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next person is Day Tabard.

Hi, Day Tabard.

Hi, JTabit, District 6. I'm calling in support of the Amazon tax.

Glad that it passed.

Bad to see that it was rendered rather toothless in comparison to its original state.

Amazon is a massive corporation that subjugates hundreds of other corporations around the world and owns land in our city and makes it worse.

It's not that much to ask that they contribute back to us.

Next person is Laurel Schenmayer followed by Lila Burns and David Seba.

Council members I urge you not to let the pressure to return to business as usual drown out the momentum that we've built over the past two weeks.

Though our news stories and social media feeds are returning to quote normal systemic racism has not been eradicated overnight and the problem of police violence and underinvestment in communities of color has not been solved.

To that end I ask you to keep pushing for a 50 reduction in the police budget.

5 percent is a mere token gesture.

The people of Seattle are still watching and listening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Daniel.

Daniel Wang followed by Lila Burns and David.

Hi I'm a student in District 4. Volunteer with the Tax Amazon Movement and a member of Socialist Alternative.

To those.

Despite the watering down of the Amazon tax, I'm incredibly proud to be part of the movement that collected 27,000 signatures in a single month to show beyond a shadow of doubt that the people of Seattle are tired of this regressive tax system.

We are not done.

We are continuing to gather signatures so that if the city council were to betray us, we can take this tax to the ballot.

And we are continuing our struggle in solidarity with the BLM movement for our demands to be met.

Defund the SPD by 50%, reinvest in our communities, and release all arrested protesters.

And get Durkin out.

Thank you.

Lila?

Welcome.

Hi, my name is Lila Burns in D4.

I'm calling in support of taxing Amazon.

Vote it through today, not November.

I'd also like to raise my concerns regarding the illegal sweep of CHOP.

I can't help but notice the timing.

I think it's enormously suspect that the sweep of chop coincides with this meeting discussing taxing Amazon, not to mention it immediately follows a call by the mayor to investigate council members to want who has been vocally questioning Amazon's actions as well as Seattle's inherent loyalty to this company.

Amazon would sooner hire lobbyists than give a penny back to Seattle.

Vote this through.

David Seba, welcome.

I'm David Seib.

I'm in District 5 addressing the SPD budget discussion.

I'm calling to support a program called the Victim Support Team, which is a group of civilian volunteer domestic violence advocates embedded inside SPD, working with patrol to provide information and resources to people experiencing domestic violence.

Its continued functioning as part of SPD is important for our community's response to domestic violence.

You still have time.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Next we have Muffy Sunday.

Ellen Adas and Cyndia.

Muffy welcome.

My name is Muffy Sunday from Seattle Radical Women and I support cutting at least 50 percent off of the police budget.

and allocating the money to such much-needed social services as food, child care, health care, housing, and increased housing assistance, and paid community service professionals who can moderate and de-escalate disputes without involving any law enforcement, permanent public service positions, not outsourced NGOs.

If we had these kind of services, Charlene Lyles would be alive today.

Thank you.

Ellen welcome.

Hi my name is Ellen Eades and I am a board member of the Seattle 43rd District Democrats.

Mayor Durkin has proven that she has no interest in defunding SPD and investing in positive change.

She is allowing a bloated and lawless police department to wage war on citizens in defiance of council bans on pepper spray and rubber bullets.

And she is standing in the way of refunding libraries parks preschools and transit.

I urge you to support these necessary budget goals and to impeach Mayor Durkin for her lack of leadership in a crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Appreciate it.

Cyndia Stringer, followed by Teresa Homan and Peter Tracy.

Cynda.

Cynda Stenger, District 1. Number one, we need at least 20 more tiny house villages which can be funded from the Federal CARES Act.

Number two, feed the tiny house villages.

Please add 156K to the budget to feed the residents at the villages that have no food resources.

Number three, the central area needs 1,000 plus new affordable homes now.

Please stop gentrification of this historic neighborhood.

Please support the central area housing plan.

Number four, please reallocate funds meant for SPD to invest in housing, social services, and employment programs.

More than the 20% shift that the mayor has proposed That is inadequate, and we can do better.

Thank you, Cinda.

Teresa Homan.

Teresa, welcome.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Teresa Homan, and I'm with the Low Income Housing Institute.

Lehigh received two urgent requests from the mayor's staff to immediately shelter homeless people from CHOP.

And we could if we had more villages.

but most of our tiny houses are full and they're in high demand.

When we expanded Lake Union and opened up Lakefront Community House, we were able to move in 25 people from the Ballard Commons encampment.

Thank you for your support.

That was great.

Thank you, Teresa.

Peter, Tracy, welcome.

Hi, Peter Tracy from District 4. I'd just like to express my support for the TaxAmazon movement and also for defunding the SPD and reallocating those funds where they're needed most in order to shrink the role of police and give money to communities that really need it, which will reduce crime as a result.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Asaya Corbray, Ab Jonner, and Afomya Assefa.

Asaya, welcome.

Hi, Asaya Corbray, housing developer with the Low Income Housing Institute and District 6 resident.

I support reducing the SPD budget by 50% at least as they have failed to keep our communities of color safe and have failed to address the challenges in our communities in an equitable and ethical way.

This funding should be reallocated for community-based investments that empower communities of color and marginalized communities.

I support the Amazon tax and support the Central Area House by African-American faith leaders to fund 1,000 new affordable homes for residents displaced through gentrification.

I support the addition of 20 new tiny house villages at minimum.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ab welcome.

Ab or Abe.

Thank you.

and we, hi, I'm Ab Bonaire with Puget Sound SAGE, and we support a Jump Start Seattle spending plan that will bring new revenues to fund community-driven and accountable programs, such as the Equitable Development Initiative.

Thank you, Council Member Ruscata, for the leadership and openness to strengthen Jump Start and for your commitment to EDI.

We also recognize Council Member Morales for centering community priorities and advocating for Green New Year strategies.

We urge the Council to establish a Jump Start spending plan to create permanent funding for essential services, Green New Year priorities, and 10 percent for EDI.

The city needs to be bold in their strategies in building long-term community resiliency.

And we must do it now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have Afomya.

Welcome back.

Hi.

Hi.

My name's Afomya.

I'm a resident of District 4. I'm a Black woman calling regarding the movement for Black lives.

As we saw this morning SPD violated multiple laws trying to clear CHOP by threatening press with arrests covering badge numbers, neon protesters' necks, using respiratory irises during a pandemic, and much more.

This is a police department that cannot be reformed but needs to be abolished.

I would also add that officers from SPD has been known to follow and attend events by the man named David Grossman, who encourages cops to unleash violence on the public and other horrifying acts.

I'm also asking this council, when enough is enough, the movement has made a lot of

Thank you.

Bradford Gerber, Aaron Whitlatch, and Margaret Carey.

Bradford, welcome.

Hi, my name is Bradford Gerber.

I'm with the Low Income Housing Institute as a project manager working on the tiny house program.

And I'm here to advocate strongly for the addition of more tiny house villages in the city of Seattle.

There are nine programs in the city right now that are functioning incredibly successfully with very high rates of transition into permanent housing for folks.

And there are opportunities given federal and state funding opportunities to expand this program.

And I'm encouraging strongly that the city partner with the county and with the state to provide more locations.

We could create more than 2,000 places for people to stay.

Thank you very much, Bradford.

Erin, welcome.

Hi, my name is Aaron Whitlash, and I'm a member of District 6. I first wanted to voice my support in reducing SPD funding by at least 50%, reallocating those funds to marginalized and underserved communities, including safe housing, youth programming, and restorative justice.

But really, I want to focus on the fact that, you know, it's going to be harder to continue to show support from the community at large, especially with the closing down of CHOP and phase two coming into play.

So I just want to put it on you all to keep this movement going.

Thank you.

Margaret Cary, welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Margaret Cary and I'm with the Working Families Party.

We need a people's budget that reflects this historic moment.

The tax Amazon campaign has indeed brought out thousands of people to support a strong tax on corporations, and the vote today reflects that momentum.

I support the tax Amazon legislation and funds for the CD housing to reverse gentrification and reduce the police budget by 50 percent.

How the city spends its money is a moral choice, and we must see the people's priorities.

Thank you.

Thank you, Margaret.

Michelle Montgomery, Marina Garrett, and Stacey Johnson.

Michelle, welcome.

Hello.

Unfortunately, Michelle Montgomery could not speak today and has asked me to take her place.

I am Hattie Rhodes, formerly of Georgetown Tiger House Village.

Speaking of personal experience, Tiger House Villages are a safe and dignified shelter for those experiencing homelessness.

I urge you to do more.

Once people are here, they are able to go from being in a day-to-day survival mode to being able to focus on their future and begin rebuilding their lives.

Please support Council Member Herbold's amendment to the Council Bill 119816 for stable food for the villages.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for filling in and please pass on our apologies for the delay and appreciate you being there, Hattie.

Marina, welcome.

Hi, my name is Marina Garrett, and I'm proud to live in Councilmember Swann's district.

I would like to address 2020 city budget rebalancing efforts, particularly in light of the mayor's emergency order and violent militarized police response to the Capitol Hill organized protest this morning.

As you work to rebalance the budget, I ask you to consider your priorities.

What is more important?

dumping hundreds of millions of dollars of funding into a reactionary police force whose only tools are to arrest and to criminalize, or directly addressing the conditions that lead to addiction, crime, and poverty in the first place.

Please defund the police by 50% and put that money into housing, health and human services, and economic assistance for Black and Indigenous communities.

Thank you very much.

Stacey Johnson?

Hi, I'm Stacey.

I'm Stacey Johnson, tiny house Village resident in Georgetown and kitchen coordinator.

Not to flog a long dead equine but I can't stress enough the importance of continuing to fund the Operation Sack Lunch program and the impact it's had since the COVID-19 rode in on its tail horse.

We were panicked at first but the hoarding and bickering over food abated.

People became less worried about getting fed in the village's hall was calmer than it was at the onset.

The program allows us to stay close to Georgetown and food seeking food far afield.

I continue to.

We ask that the City Council continue to fund Operation Sack Lunch for the rest of the year.

Thank you so much.

We're in it.

Thank you, Operation Sack Lunch.

We appreciate you.

Chris McDaniels, followed by Lola Anderson and Felicia Turner.

Chris.

Hi, Chris.

Go ahead.

Hello.

Hi.

I'm Chris McDaniel.

I live at the Georgetown County House Village.

I'm one of the leaders there.

I can't begin to tell you how vital the Shack Lunch program has been to us.

We have no resources available down here, even in normal times.

There's not a grocery store within two miles.

Please fund our Councilman Herbold's amendment.

Thank you.

Hey, thank you so much.

Lola, welcome.

I'm Lola.

I'm with the...

Hey, Lola, go ahead.

Hi, I'm with the tiny village on 23rd and Cherry.

And I was lucky enough to be one of the first ones going in.

And so I got VIP'd in one of the first little shacks.

And I'm so happy that I can feel safe every day and night because I have that.

And then there's a kitchen with hot running water.

It's just awesome for me to be able to be part of that.

And the food that's delivered is everything we need.

All of us, we need that food every day.

And I appreciate that so much.

Thank you, Lola.

Appreciate your time as well.

Tell Sean, Turner, Nicole Gomez, and David.

Welcome.

We'll come back to you.

Can you hear us OK?

We'll come back to you.

just tell me where to go.

Let's move on to Nicole Gomez and we'll come back to tell Shawn.

Nicole are you with us?

Hi I'm Nicole Gomez, Chair of the 36th District Democrats, a grassroots organization with about 360 community members living in the 5th, 6th, and 7th council districts including 176 PCOs.

I'm also a homeowner living in District 6. At our June meeting, we had about 220 individuals who voted to pass a resolution opposing budget cuts and supporting taxing the rich by an overwhelming majority.

We hope this council will work in concert with all levels of government to address the budget shortfalls and forwarded that resolution as well as one that also passed on meaningful police accountability.

Awesome.

Thank you so much, Nicole.

Abdi Youssef.

David Crum and Talshan Turner.

Abdi are you with us.

Hi yes I am here.

Good afternoon Council Members.

My name is Abdi Yusuf.

I am with Granted Community Action Team and South Core South Core.

We are in support of the challenge to build and raise new money for the community services and a minimum of 10 percent dedicated to the Equal Employment Initiative.

Our communities have been under threat from a wide scale of displacement for years.

A result of skyrocketing rent and development that does not meet our needs.

We need the City of Seattle to provide essential services to provide our community.

Thank you very much.

David welcome.

Thank you.

I am, thank you.

I'm a member of Camp Second Chance and Lisa Herbold is my council person.

I saw the request for more food funding and I decided that I would chime in with my thinking.

And my thinking is that this pandemic is not going away anytime soon.

Camp Second Chance can always use fresh fruit, vegetables and fresh meat.

And I appreciate, Lisa doing that for us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Going back one more time to tell Sean Turner.

Hi, my name is Kill Sean Turner.

I'm a member of Local 242, the Laborers Union, and I'm supporting taxing Amazon and defunding the SPD.

So Friday, June 26th showed me that SPD has way too much money and way too much power that they inflict on their citizens.

I'm a victim of their brutality as of Friday, June 26. I'm a victim of this statistic as of Friday, June 26. And Amazon has racially gentrified the Central District, and we need our communities back.

So defund SPD by 50% at least.

Impact Amazon and put that money back into black communities.

Not communities, black communities, and restore them.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for waiting to speak.

Appreciate it.

Christina?

Nylander Colin Holmes and Amy Gallagher.

Christina, welcome.

Hi, my name is Christina Nylander, and I'm on the board of the MLK County Working Families Party.

And I'm also a renter in District 3. First and foremost, I'm calling to support the demands of the Movement for Black Lives to defund SPD by at least 50%, which can begin with purging all officers that have ever had a complaint of brutality against them.

And all of that money should get reinvested in the black community at their direction.

I also support the Jumpstart Tax Amazon initiative as well, especially the 50 million anti-gentrification amendment that I heard you all vote no against.

Thank you.

Colin Holmes.

Hi, my name is Colin Holmes.

I'm a renter in District 3. I had some prepared remarks, but right now I'm watching a video from this morning.

One of our fine Seattle Police Department officers kneeling on someone's neck.

It was likely a peaceful protester.

exercising their First Amendment rights, it's far too late to defund the police.

At this point, I urge you to abolish the police.

Thank you very much, Colin.

Amy Gallagher, Aidan Carroll, and Eva Patryk.

Amy, welcome.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Amy Gallagher, and I live in Seattle District 3, right next to the SPD East Precinct, and I'm calling in support of defunding SPD by at least 50%.

The Seattle community, particularly the Black community, has been burned time and time again by the SPD, who reacts with violence and racism towards them.

Protesters in Capitol Hill today were met with police violence and silencing, including knees on people's necks, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and threats of arrested journalists.

I would also call on other city council members to support council members to want a call to impeach Mayor Durkan, who has failed time and time again to adequately respond to community demands.

Thank you.

Aiden, welcome.

Thank you.

As the previous speaker noted, pepper spray and rubber bullets were among the munitions used this morning.

and those two things among others i'd believe we're banned by unanimous vote not two weeks ago to the city council and clearly does not have a complete control over the police department and this is this is a really important thing to the other reason that we need to defund the police by leaping percent and reinvest that money and it is a good thing because there's a lot of things that need support at this critical time the green new deal homelessness the affordability emergency uh...

and uh...

Thank you.

Eva Patryk.

Current president of Second Chance.

I just wanted to show my support for your continuous funding in regards to our food supply which we noticed shortly and we really do appreciate your support.

And thank you for letting me speak.

Just checking.

Do we have Sean with us?

Okay.

Let's move on.

We will have Jonna Bitton.

Sean is on the line right now.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

Sean Dunn.

Welcome.

Sorry, Sean.

You might be on mute.

Okay.

We'll come back to you before we wrap up.

We have just a few more speakers.

Johna Bitton, are you there?

Do you guys hear me?

Yes, we can.

Thanks, Johna.

Hello.

Hi.

Do you guys hear me right now?

Yes, we can.

Okay.

Hi, I'm from District 7. I'm Johanna Bitton, and I'm calling to defund the police by at least 50% and investing that money into Black communities.

Also, I am advocating for amnesty for all protesters that were arrested today in the violent, like, takeover of CHOP today by the police.

This is not okay.

I'm also calling for Jenny Durkin to resign.

Her excessive use of force on CHOP is abhorrent.

Her retaliative actions on SAWANT are childish, and she does not deserve to be the mayor of our city.

I yield my time.

Okay, thank you.

And then the last three speakers, Kelsey Breston, Kiara Milkoff, and Sujata Romney, let's see.

Please go ahead.

Hello Kelsey, please go ahead.

Hey Kelsey, can you hear me?

If you can speak now.

OK, we will come back to Kelsey.

Kiara Milkoff.

Hello.

Hello.

Hi I'm.

Hi I'm Kiara Milkoff and I'm a student at UW Seattle.

I'm voicing my support for the immediate cutting of S.P.E. budget by a minimum of 50 percent and investing the funds in Black communities with the eventual goal of abolishing the police state that terrorizes and murders BIPOC communities rather than protects them.

The police which started as slave catchers cannot be reformed and must be rethought from the ground up.

Racism is a public health issue, and we must confront racial inequities at the source by funding communities of color.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Sujatha, welcome.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sujatha, and I speak on behalf of the Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans.

We strongly support and follow the lead of the King County Equity Now Coalition.

I call upon the council to impeach Mayor Durkan and fire Police Chief Best.

There were cops kneeling and unarmed protesters today.

Violence was used to clear chalk and on unarmed protesters again.

This has got to stop and it will not stop until Durkan and Best continue to run the police department.

We urge you to meet the demands of King County equity now in addition to this.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to give one more try to Sean Dunn and Kelsey Briston.

Sean, are you with us?

Hi, this is Sean.

I'm here.

Excellent.

Hi, Sean.

We couldn't hear you before.

Apologies.

Go ahead, please.

I would like to speak to the Amazon tax.

Earlier, I was heard by several council members saying that they wanted the citizens of Seattle to be able to vote on it.

I believe that waiting until November is too late to Currently I'm unemployed because of COVID and I'm paying 10% sales tax which I feel is a greater burden on me than Amazon which is a billion dollar worldwide company.

I would also like to speak to defunding SPD.

Mayor Durkin has proposed a small cut that would have happened anyway.

I think that that is wrong and that SPD should be cut to save the people of Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Kelsey.

Going once, twice.

Okay, folks, that is everybody who has signed up to testify that is here today.

We really appreciate you calling in and waiting to speak.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your ongoing public testimony.

And with that, Madam Clerk, will you please read item number two into the record?

Agenda item two, establishing a spending plan for proposed use of the proceeds generated from the payroll expense tax.

Authorized by the ordinance introduced as capital one one nine eight ten Establishing an oversight committee and adding a new section three point thirty five point one hundred.

Yeah, I'm a so-called for briefing discussion a possible vote Thank You madam clerk, we appreciate that I want to thank Allie a panucci as well and others from central staff who have held on to do this presentation for us on items number two and three and Just as a reminder for folks, item number two that we are discussing is the high-level categories of the spend plan that correlates with the revenue proposal Jump Start Seattle that we just passed in our morning session.

Item number three is for briefing only.

This includes the conversation around immediate COVID relief, and I just wanted to flag for folks that those items on today's agenda are carried over from session one.

And then we will have item number four, which will conclude our agenda for today, which is a presentation from central staff on the Commerce Bill in front of us.

And we have, again, expressed our appreciation to Director Ben Noble for coming back to meet with us on the 8th.

So just a quick overview, and Ali, I will turn it over to you to provide more in-depth overview of what these two items are, starting with Council Bill 119811, which is item number two on our agenda today, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Good afternoon, council members.

Today, the committee will consider a substitute version of Council Bill 119811 and two potential amendments to that substitute.

Before jumping in to describe the substitute, I'll just briefly describe the two pieces of legislation that Chair Mosqueda just mentioned that comprise the Jumpstart Spending Package, just to avoid questions or confusion I've been feeling today.

So first is Council Bill 119811. This is the Jumpstart Seattle Spending Plan that describes how the council intends to spend the proceeds from the payroll tax beginning in 2021. The second bill, Council Bill 119812, the COVID Relief Bill, would amend the 2020 adopted budget to authorize spending from the Emergency Fund and Revenue Stabilization Fund to support the programs and services that address the economic impacts caused by the COVID-19 epidemic.

For the next few minutes, I'll focus just on the first bill, which is the Jumpstart Seattle Spending Plan beginning in year 2021. To date, there appears to be general consensus on the broad spending categories proposed for use of the proceeds from the payroll tax.

But there are a variety of ideas about how to allocate funds across those categories and about the specific programmatic details for each of those investments.

such as the specific types of housing programs that will be supported under the housing and services funding category.

The purpose of the proposed substitute is to adopt legislation confirming the council's intent to use proceeds from the payroll tax revenue to continue to provide critical city services and to extend COVID relief programs in 2021, and then in 2022 and beyond, expand investments in affordable housing, economic revitalization, the equitable development initiative, and implementation of Seattle's Green New Deal.

Following adoption of this legislation to establish the spending categories and the adoption of the tax bill that you considered at the morning session that confirms the estimate of the annual tax revenue, the council will consider by resolution details for spending by year and program area.

This central staff memo attached to the agenda describes some of the proposals for some of the details that will be included in that resolution, either at introduction or through amendments when the committee considers that resolution on July 15th.

So unless there are questions, I'll turn to specifically to describe the substitute version of the bill listed as attachment one to the central staff memo.

Seeing no questions, thanks for continuing.

So the substitute version of the jumpstart spending plan describes the broad spending categories that I just mentioned, and maintains the portions of the bill as introduced that require that the executive submits an implementation plan for the proposed spending in 2022 and beyond by June 30, 2021, and establishes a payroll tax oversight committee.

The changes included in the proposed substitute would remove attachment one to Council Bill 119811 that outlines specific allocation of funds for each spending category, amend section two of the bill to remove any references to such attachment, remove all references to specific dollar amounts or the percent of funds allocated to each spending category, and adds language confirming the council's intent to adopt by resolution the spending plan details by year and program area.

In addition, there are some technical and clarifying cleanups that you'll see in a few locations in the proposed substitute.

That briefly describes the substitute.

I think I'll leave it at that level and turn it to the chair.

Thank you very much, Allie, and I really appreciate you providing the edits that you did to the spend plan so that we can have these categories reflected as we consider the revenue proposal on Monday as well.

Council colleagues, I'm going to again move item two to have it before us and that will allow for us to have the discussion and any additional questions and comments on the bill in front of us.

I move the committee recommends passage of council bill 119811. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 119811. Council members, the bill is now before us.

I'm going to ask if anybody has additional questions for Ali or any of the other council members, I suppose, as we think about what the spend plan includes.

how it has been slightly amended to make sure that the principles of the spend plan, both as introduced and the concepts that have been discussed as possible amendments, as you can see, are reflected in the draft council bill as amended in front of us.

And then we will talk through the next steps.

I see Council Member Herbold's hand.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

I just want to thank central staff for adding some language that preserves the ability to later bring forward a home ownership investment amendment.

And then also really appreciate that rental assistance programs is added as a new use of funds for 2022 in the housing and services bucket.

Excellent points.

I will echo that appreciation.

Any additional comments or questions on the underlying bill?

Okay, Allie.

You are great.

That means everybody got their questions answered ahead of time or have such a clear document in front of us that we don't have any additional questions.

Would we like to now discuss the possible amendments?

I believe, Chair Mosqueda, you need to move the substitute and vote on that, and then we can discuss the amendments to that substitute.

Hey, thank you so much for the parliamentary assistance there.

So it's been moved and seconded that we recommend passage of Council Bill 119811. I'd like to now move that we, I'd like to move the Council Bill I'm sorry, I'd like to move to amend Council Bill 119811 by substituting version B for version 1A.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Now we have the substitute that Allie described in front of us.

Before we move to any possible amendments, any additional questions?

Hearing none.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Peterson, I'm aware of two amendments possibly for our consideration today that are from you.

Would you like Allie to speak to those first, and then I can turn to you?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Allie, why don't you go ahead, and then we'll have Councilmember Peterson move his potential amendment.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

First, if I could just ask for a point of clarification from our deputy city clerk, or did I miss the vote on the substitute?

Apologies.

Hi, this is Amelia.

At this point, the substitute is before the committee.

And if you could also clarify whether or not those two amendments that Council Member Peterson has, if those are for an amendment to the substitute or if they're standalone amendments.

They are amendments to the substitute.

Was there...

So I can move on to describe the two amendments, Amelia?

Yes.

Thank you so much.

OK.

Great.

Sorry.

Sorry for the confusion.

OK.

So there are two proposed amendments to the substitute bill sponsored by Council Member Peterson.

The first amendment that's included is attachment 2 to the central staff memo would add language to include the cost of evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed investments as an authorized use of funds and adds language to ensure that the implementation plan includes an evaluation to measure the results of the programs and services proposed or funded by the payroll tax revenue.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to that or should I move on to the second amendment first?

Describe both?

Sure, you can move on to the second one, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

The second amendment, also sponsored by Council Member Peterson, would modify the section of the bill that establishes the Payroll Tax Oversight Committee.

Specifically, the amendment would reduce the number of members of the committee that is associated with an entity that receives or competes for funding from five members to two members.

This change is in alignment proportionally with the number of members on the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy Oversight Committee that are associated with an entity that receives or competes for FEPP levy funding.

In addition, this amendment clarifies that what is already in the bill that it would allow compensation to committee members that can be provided if participating on the committee presents a financial hardship.

It clarifies that such compensation must first be approved by the Director of Neighborhoods prior to such a payment being made.

Okay, Council Member Peterson, would you like to move your first amendment?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Yes, I move to amend Council Bill 119811 with amendment number one.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to speak to this amendment?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

So as Allie was saying, it's adding language to authorize city staff to make sure that they're looking at the positive outcomes that we want to achieve with the spending plan.

It makes sure the city government agencies are able to track results and report back on the effectiveness of the legislation with their implementation plans.

And again, the language just authorizes that use.

And this does not impact the COVID relief programs.

This is just for the programs that we might be creating with the spending plan starting in 2022.

Are there comments or questions on this amendment?

Council Member Peterson, I will start with one question.

Can you tell us a little bit more about what you're thinking behind this amendment?

What types of additional reporting are you assuming we can expect to see from this amendment, and are there specifics that you would like to see?

I know that oversight is a key element of why we want to have an oversight board, so I think a little additional information there would be helpful.

Thank you.

The way the current legislation is written is it's talking about just administering the program.

So this adds the additional language saying to administer and evaluate the effectiveness of the programs.

So within those administration dollars, it gives the ability for city agencies to look more deeply at how things are going.

Are we actually achieving the outcomes that we're hoping to achieve?

Are we tracking or even tracking the outcomes?

And the Oversight Committee, which is a, which we'll get to in the next amendment, that is, that language is not as, it's not focused on tracking the progress along the way.

So this is just tightening up the language to say that city agencies are going to track progress and report to us every time they're coming in with an implementation plan.

are these programs achieving the positive outcomes that we want?

How are things going?

Are there any suggestions for improvements?

And Ali, would you add anything else in terms of what is already in the context of the bill and how this would be additive?

Sure.

So as Council Member Peterson says, it makes it more explicit that the funding provided for administration can include supporting the work to evaluate the programs.

the effectiveness of the programs.

And I'll also note that the language specifically says to evaluate the effectiveness, at least those investments.

And then it's pointing to the investment areas that are newer investment areas, recognizing that the city is already reporting on investments in our affordable housing programs, for example, and the equitable development initiative has a evaluation framework already.

And so what this is doing is saying that the expectation is that the other program investments will similarly be evaluated and reported on for effectiveness, and that that responsibility will fall to the city staff to report and work with the Oversight Board, but not necessarily to just be the responsibility of the Oversight Committee.

And please correct me if I'm misrepresenting your intent, Council Member Peterson.

You're correct.

Thank you.

Well said.

Any other questions on this piece?

Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I am wondering how we are defining effectiveness under this particular amendment.

So I don't see that being I'm just curious as to what effective means to the sponsor of this proposed amendment.

achieve goals, then it is basically just tracking progress against those goals.

That's how effectiveness would, that's one way of measuring effectiveness.

How are we doing compared to the goals?

Okay, but this ordinance and this legislation doesn't define the goals.

So are you saying that this, like who in your mind would be, um, would be designing those goals?

Is that the oversight body that would be defining the goals and then there'd be a requirement to evaluate the effectiveness of those goals that were identified and crafted and created and implemented by the oversight body?

So it would be a combination.

So the authorizing legislation that we will eventually pass on the spending plan will say what types of programs we're trying to fund and what we want to achieve with those dollars.

So it'll really start with that authorizing legislation from the city council via the spending plan.

Then the city agencies will come to us with their implementation plans to get more into the details.

the city departments will be coming back with that information.

I'm envisioning the oversight committee will help to track that and report back to us on how things are going.

Thank you.

I'm going to just flag Councilmember Peterson.

One of the questions that I had was about how do we track the effectiveness of certain programs and services that potentially are in the near term and out years.

Are you talking about more like the out years, 2022 and beyond, or would this be also applied to 2021?

Thank you for the question.

It would just be 2022 and beyond.

It would not be the immediate programs where we need to get money out the door.

We already know what we want to do there.

Also, as Ali was pointing out, it's really for any new program that we create.

It's not for existing programs that already have the goals clearly stated and the outcomes tracked.

Ali, would you add anything else to that about new programs versus existing programs, or is that clearly stated in there?

I believe that it is, well, in my mind, it's clearly stated in the amendment, but I helped draft it.

So I think that is accurate, that it is really focusing on the new programs as Council Member Peterson described.

And I'll just note here that this is, you know, I can't speak to the specific measures of effectiveness or every, I would say this is similar to how I would describe a narrowing approach to setting the expectation in the authorizing ordinance and following that with more details through adoption of the implementation plan.

I always, uh, families education, preschool and promise levy implement implementation and evaluation plan.

They get, uh, into a much more granular, granular level of detail on sort of the monitoring performance, how they will manage that, the process for evaluation and what the outcomes they are tracking.

And so I think, um, the idea here is that this sets the expectation and then more of that would be worked out through the implementation plan that would be adopted by the council.

Okay, thank you.

I wonder if I might be able to ask our Council President, I know as a champion of FEPP, you may have grappled with this question of oversight and effectiveness too.

Is there any additional context that you'd like to provide on how this compares?

I haven't been able to spend a lot of time I'm doing a line-by-line comparison.

Allie did work with me on the FEPP levy and identifying these sort of parameters.

I think that on balance, it's probably fine.

This proposed amendment is probably fine.

I do think that it's, that I'd like to spend time between now and the time we take final action on the full spending plan, making sure that I have a full understanding of the crosswalk between this language and the FEPP implementation and evaluation plan.

I will say that in the FEPP levy context, there is, there are significant amount of resources allocated to evaluation.

of the programs that are funded through that levy.

This is a little different because it's a little, this is a revenue mechanism that generates funding that then goes to specific departments.

to either stand up new programming or supplement additional programming.

So some of those effectiveness standards, if you will, are already set in other places applicable specific to individual programs that this revenue would be funding.

So I So I think there needs to be a little bit of reconciliation around sort of how we address the existing expectation of evaluation of some of those other programs that would be supplemented through the revenue being produced by this payroll tax and would like to spend some time getting a better understanding of that.

Again, on balance, I'm not convinced it takes away from what we are currently doing.

or what the desired outcome of this evaluation would be, is it that if there is an evaluation of the effectiveness that says that it's not effective, that then that would provide the evidence in the record to overturn the payroll tax or repeal the payroll tax?

Or is it really just intended to be focused on the effectiveness of the things we're funding?

Thank you, Council President.

It's the latter, to focus on the effectiveness of the things we're funding.

I believe that this proposal strengthens the whole package.

I believe that if we're going to collect $214 million a year, then it helps to have this language in there to assure folks that, and we're signaling to everybody in the city departments, on the oversight committee, We want them to measure the effectiveness of the programs and report to us on how it's tracking against the outcomes that we have in the authorizing legislation and in the implementation plans.

That's really helpful.

I think it's similar enough to what we have seen in other levies and levy evaluation.

I think the one thing that I would want to just get a better understanding is that crosswalk in terms of how does this interplay with evaluation requirements that already exist for particular programs that this funding might supplement.

That makes sense.

Council Member Herbold and Council Member Peterson, did you have a response or do you want to?

I don't mean to cut you off.

Did you want to chime?

I'm good.

Thank you.

Councilmember Herbold.

I think I lost track here.

This evaluation component would not interfere with the evaluation of programs that are being already funded.

I'm sorry, I lost track.

I'm trying to think of new funding priorities, new activities that aren't already subject to evaluation.

Is my understanding correct?

I think the intent is understood.

Thank you.

I know we've been really explicit in talking about any new proposed revenue at the City of Seattle, having clear oversight board, which is something we've done previous, and continue to pull from other levies and efforts to make sure that people know how the dollars are going out the door, knowing that these are some programs that are already in existence and wanting to make sure that we're not adding additional administrative burden, but being able to see how those programs I think it's important to make sure that the programs that are being implemented and used throughout the city makes a lot of sense, but I think that trying to find that right balance between not layering on additional administrative hurdles for those who are wanting to benefit from the program is what I think I hear the goal is.

So with that, it sounds like some potential cleanup before Monday, but your intent was understood and appreciated, so thank you for that.

Hearing none, Council Member Peterson, would you like to say anything else in closing?

No, thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Hearing that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on adoption of amendment number one?

Straus.

Straus.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much Councilmember Peterson and thanks as well to Council President Gonzales for the questions as well so that we can really get to the heart of the intent here and appreciate your ongoing work to potentially crosswalk that with other efforts such as the FEPP levy.

We have another amendment that you would like to bring forward for our consideration.

Council Member Peterson, would you like to move amendment number two?

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I move to amend Council Bill 119811 with amendment number two about the Oversight Committee.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the substitute as presented on the agenda and described by central staff.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there additional comments or questions on amendment number two?

And Council Member Peterson, do you mind speaking to that amendment one more time just so that we can hear from you the perspective and the intent behind it?

Yes, thank you.

The way it was currently written was to have about, it would enable about half, over half of the members to have a conflict of interest.

And so this is written in a way to make it more proportional to, similar to the Families and Education Levy Oversight Committee, where only about, you know, between 20 and 30% of the people are allowed to have a conflict of interest.

Sometimes it's hard to find people to serve on these committees, you know, because they're involved in these organizations that are also getting money from.

So they have the knowledge, but they're also getting money from it.

So to provide the public with an ironclad feeling that this Oversight Committee is as independent as possible, it would reduce the number of people who can have a conflict of interest to two out of the total number, which gets it more in line proportionally with Families Education Preschool Promise Program Oversight Committee.

full mouth.

Thank you so much.

Um, Ali, is there anything else that you would add to that?

No, Chairman Skate, I don't have anything to add.

Okay.

Thank you.

Did I see Councilmember Herbold's hand?

No.

Okay.

Any additional comments or questions?

I do have one question, Councilmember Peterson, just looking to see if anybody else had any.

Okay.

Um, Do you mind describing the process as you envision it from Department of Neighborhoods' ability to approve payments?

So that, I'm less concerned about that particular provision.

We can strike that.

I think what was happening is I was just reading your legislation and just making edits to it as I was going along and thought, oh, you before money was given out, I thought that there'd have to be some approval by the city government to hand it out.

It was, and I don't mean to be, so I don't mean to be flippant about that.

I just, I literally was just thinking maybe that was the intent was to have the director approve it before the money was sent out the door.

But I don't feel strongly about that.

If you feel like that would be a hurdle for certain folks to not get paid before it's approved,

Holly, is there any comments that you would provide knowing maybe how the approval process has worked in the past and whether that would add an additional administrative hurdle?

I am not familiar with the specific process.

There are very few committees that or boards and commissions that have an opportunity for compensation for the committee members in the city.

But I will just note that ultimately the director or who the director would delegate the sort of process to would include sort of how those decisions would be made because they would have to determine how they're going to confirm or decide who it presents a financial hardship for.

So ultimately, the director would have to just decide to allocate those funds, whether it is stated explicitly here or not.

Okay, and Council Member Juarez, did I see you pop off mute?

Yeah, just briefly to the issue on the conflict of interest.

My only concern is that when we came up with this same issue, I'm not going to go into the last tax bill, but when we were putting together the Seattle Center Community Fund, which there will be hundreds of thousands of dollars that will be handed out, and we, the former council, explicitly voted that people that are going to be receiving these funds could not be on the community council for the specific reason that it wouldn't be fair to other organizations that are not sitting on a board to make decisions where they could fund their own community organization or group where other groups wouldn't have that access and would not be eligible or be able to have that influence.

So this is just your basic concern I have and that we address, as I said in the former Council, on conflict of interest, or self-dealing, or organizations, or access.

So I'm inclined to support Councilmember Lewis's issue about, I believe you're looking at the mayoral appointments, reducing that from three to one, and the council appointments from two to one.

I was just hoping that if there was anyone else that, if there's something else, maybe central staff, Regarding that section 335-100 subsection B-5 that reads position 9 shall represent communities that will benefit from the proposed spending.

What did we envision whom or what an example of who that would be.

If I may just ask that question.

I think I would defer to the bill sponsor, Tara Mosqueda.

But I believe that my understanding is that that would be a representing community who might, for example, benefit from investments in affordable housing, be part of a project that provides a opportunity for providing a child care business in an equitable development initiative project or those types of things.

But I'll turn it to the sponsor.

I think that that's a great answer.

And just to sort of be clear, I don't have any major concerns with the amendment as is.

I think that it was helpful to hear whether or not there was a process that the sponsor, Council Member Peterson, had in mind.

Obviously, there will definitely be a process from DON, so I don't think that the language is necessarily problematic.

But if it signals that there will definitely be a process, that's helpful.

And then on the reduction or the composition of the board, I don't have a concern there either.

I think the major ideas that we had were making sure that low-wage workers were really able to participate, and given the ways in which we can incentivize or maybe disincentivize people to participate, one way to make sure that there's active participation by those affected is to really be overt about getting those folks on the board and making it possible for them.

But as it relates to the underlying amendment here, no major concerns.

councilmembers, any additional comments or questions?

Councilmember Peterson, anything in closing?

No, thank you, Chair.

Okay, thank you so much.

Appreciate the questions and the feedback.

If folks have more questions about this piece, they know where to find you after today's meeting, and perhaps there will be some follow-up questions and additional clarification that we'll seek from central staff as well.

on this amendment and the previous amendment, but at this point, let's go ahead and call the question.

Council Clerk, Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll on amendment number two?

Drouse?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Well, thank you, Council Member Peterson, for your thorough review of the bills and for your thoughtful amendments here today in that presentation.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Are there any additional amendments?

Okay.

Council Member Juarez, was there anything from you?

Oh, no.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

So, in front of us, we have the bill as amended.

Are there any additional comments before we do a final roll call?

Council Member Mosqueda, this is Amelia Sanchez.

Yes.

Hi, Amelia.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

At this point, we still have the substitute as amended that needs to be voted on.

Excellent.

Okay, so let me give this a shot.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the substitute as amended?

Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Gonzales.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Morris.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Sharon Mosqueda.

Aye.

Nine in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the substitute is adopted and version 2B is before the committee.

Now are there any additional comments on the substitute as amended.

Hearing and seeing none.

Will the clerk call the roll on the recommendation that the bill pass as amended.

Straus.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Peterson.

Abstain.

Abstain.

Sawant.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Sorry.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you so much for that unanimous vote.

We will have this item on our agenda on July 6th.

The motion has carried and the bill as amended will be up for discussion again on July 6th at the full Seattle City Council meeting for final consideration.

I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you for your engagement on this process.

Specifically, thank you from central staff for this elegant approach as I heard our council colleagues have been referring to this approach.

We really appreciate your thoughtful analysis for how to fold in the conversations we have been having about amendments and to I think that is a great concept.

Thank you for crafting the substitute and all of your hard work on that.

Councilmember Pedersen.

I did want to compliment you on your original spending plan.

I know that we're stripping out those details now, but I thought it was very thoughtful what you have put in there for both 2021 and 2022 and beyond.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And as we wrap up item number two on our meeting, again, reminder that The substitute bill as amended will be on the July 6th full council meeting, and we are hoping for this bill and the revenue bill that we just discussed to be voted out that day.

But council colleagues, just as a reminder, the text that we are referring to, the text of the original bill will be reintroduced as a resolution for our amendments and discussion and possible vote that will happen again in this committee, the Select Budget Committee on July 15th.

Process-wise, anything else to add, Ali?

Okay.

and then no other processes to add.

Again, thank you for both your vote today on this high-level spend plan categories bill and the bill earlier that put all of our amendments into the revenue proposal as amended.

Those both will be on the July 6th full council meeting.

We have one more item related to revenue and that is the I would like to ask the clerk to please read the title of item number three into the record.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we have in front of us.

Council Bill 119812, which is item number three.

Allie, thank you so much for walking us through.

This, again, is a briefing and discussion, folks, not a possible vote today.

We will tie these two items together for a possible vote on the 15th of July.

So just a reminder of that.

And the timing on the process has been sent around to you on the updated calendar that was also shared with your offices on Monday this week.

So Allie, please take it away.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Council Bill 119812, the COVID relief bill, authorizes spending $66.3 million from the City's Emergency Fund and $19.5 million from the Revenue Stabilization Fund in 2020. The funding would support programs and services that address the economic impacts caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, including small businesses, low-income and low-wage individuals and families, and immigrants and refugee communities.

A discussion and potential vote is scheduled for the committee meeting on July 15. This will provide time for the committee to understand how this proposal fits into the broader 2020 budget rebalancing package and the mayor's proposed investments in COVID relief programs.

The central staff memo attached to the agenda describes potential amendments that have been identified to date for consideration on July 15. Given the time of day, I will stop there unless the chair would like me to walk through those amendments individually.

Thank you, Allie.

I appreciate that.

And given the time of day, we know you've also been with us from the very beginning, so we appreciate that.

Council colleagues, just as a reminder, this will be on our agenda again for the 15th.

This was really a primer to encourage folks to take a look at that, recognizing the urgency in which we need to pass this.

This will ideally be voted on on the 15th.

And then the following Monday, I believe it's July 20th, we will have a vote at full council.

In anticipation of those conversations, we're asking folks both on item three and item two as amended today, if you do have thoughts, additional ideas, amendments that you'd like to run by central staff, the deadline for that is next Thursday, not tomorrow, next Thursday, and ideally in the morning, 10 a.m.

would be our desired time.

So just to repeat, that is July 9th, and that is also reflected in the notice that went out, and you will then have the opportunity to work with central staff if there are possible amendments or questions that you have for a possible vote again on the 15th.

Councilmember Herbold, hello, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Just a question that I I have asked a couple times and I apologize if I've been provided the answer and have missed it.

But I've had a question about whether or not direct financial assistance as proposed by this bill could create problems for families who rely on income eligibility in order to qualify for other assistance programs, local, state, or federal programs, and inadvertently result in them losing the benefits that they rely on.

This bill includes $17 million in direct financial assistance for immigrant and refugee households, and just wanting to know if there's a way to structure the benefit that would mitigate this concern.

or I think another idea that has been identified is benefit cliff counseling to be funded with those who do receive payments.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, you have asked that question and I apologize if I prepared a response and maybe didn't distribute it.

So in general, the answer is quite complicated because it really varies by program and types of assistance programs people may be enrolled in and that sort of thing.

In general, in looking at the ways this type of assistance is being provided in other and other cities around the country and talking to a few staff members in other places.

What we've determined is that in general, sort of one-time assistance usually would not be considered income, but that is not definite for all types of programs.

And so the language is, the proposal is written in a way that allows the community-based organizations who will be working with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to distribute these funds, to provide that relief in a variety of ways, whether it's a direct cash payment, gift cards for purchasing certain, you know, purchases at specific locations and that sort of thing.

So because of the complexities of the answer is somewhat different for different types of assistance programs, it provides flexibility to provide assistance in different formats that will work for the individual.

Customer Herbold, any follow-up?

I'm just signaling my interest in recognizing this is a lot of complexity.

My interest in helping fund efforts to help potential recipients navigate the tradeoffs.

Appreciate that.

Allie, thank you so much.

I know that you were doing a lot of work to both compare to what Austin, Texas had done.

So thank you for pulling that information forward.

Previously, the Council President had also asked that we do a crosswalk with some of the other ways in which we supported immigrants and refugees and other programs.

So I believe you've been working on that as well.

And maybe we can have that as a report back at our July 15 meeting.

Oh, sorry, go ahead, Allie.

I'm sorry.

I was just.

No problem.

And so thank you for giving us this high-level overview today.

And council colleagues, I appreciate your time and due diligence to go through the items here, which would be providing immediate relief to those who are experiencing the effects of COVID, both in terms of the public health crisis and the economic crisis.

Okay.

Allie, please continue.

Yeah, thank you.

Chair Mosqueda, if I could just make one request.

You've mentioned this, but if there are any minor changes council members are considering for Monday to either Council Bill 119811 that we just discussed, the high-level spending plan, or Council Bill 119810, the tax proposal, if you could let central staff know as soon as possible tomorrow morning so we can get those amendments prepared before the holiday weekend.

I think that's a great point.

Thank you, Ali.

We want to underscore that point and really appreciate all of the time and effort that you all have put into this.

Thank you, Ali.

With that, we will conclude items 1, 2, and 3 on our agenda and a huge amount of appreciation.

Congratulations, council colleagues.

That includes the official walk-through of this first iteration of the jump start Seattle proposal, both the tax plan and the spend plan.

I'm looking forward to having this conversation and vote with you all on Monday, July 6, and thank you.

Thank you in advance, and thanks to central staff again, and to all of our offices and our teams who have made this robust discussion possible.

Thanks again to the community partners who we will be giving more shout-outs to on Monday, but I couldn't have done it without all the community pressure, participation, advocacy, and support.

With that, let's move on to item number four.

And Jeff, welcome back.

We have not seen you since you have had a baby.

I want to say congratulations to you and hope the little one is well.

And maybe we will get a cameo.

But I hope you are able to get your full paternal leave in.

We want to make sure parents get that parental leave.

And we also know there's pressing issues in the city.

So appreciate you being here.

But just welcome back and congratulations to you.

I'm going to have our city clerk read into the record item number four, and then we'll take it over to you.

So, Madam Clerk, could you please read item number four into the record?

Agenda item four, Council Bill 119816, relating to the city's response to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, amending ordinance 12600, which adopts the 2020 budget, accepting funds from non-city sources, changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and from various funds in the budget, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date all by a three-fourth vote of the City Council for a briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

And before we start, how are you and how's the little one?

I'm good and the other one's excellent.

Okay, excellent.

So Council Colleagues, this item is in front of us.

This is co-sponsored by myself and Council Member Herbold.

I'm going to move that we have item four in front of us so that we can then have a discussion.

I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 119816. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

It's been moved and seconded.

Now Council Bill 119816 is in front of us, and I'm going to ask that central staff, Jeff Sims, go ahead and walk through what is included in the bill, and then I'll turn it over to Council Member Herbold for some comments, and then I may have some comments, and then we'll have a discussion.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thank you, Tara.

The vast majority of the funds in this bill, which is a little bit more than $13 million in total, come from money that was provided by the state legislature through their shelter grant program.

portion of which was provided to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.

So $13 million of the $13.5 million is coming from that source.

The remaining amount of funding is actually funding provided from the federal government related to the Older Americans Act.

And that is actually just the prior calculations and estimates for what Seattle's allocation of those funds turned out to be a little bit more than what we initially expected.

And it's just appropriating those funds in that way.

Focusing on the $13 million though, there are six purposes that were outlined, sorry, five purposes that were outlined in our agreement with the Department of Commerce.

All of them are to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and all relate to homelessness and people experiencing homelessness in the city.

So those five purposes are shelter needs, hygiene services, supplies such as personal protective equipment, costs that would be incurred by permanent supportive housing facilities, and then food access or food delivery services.

The executive has proposed six purposes in this bill, one of which is supported through, as I mentioned, that smaller amount of funding just to supplement what was previously provided.

So I'll briefly go through those and then note that there are two technical amendments and try to move quickly so that I'm conscious of the time that we're at today.

The first proposed use is $3.3 million for permanent support housing.

The city provides support for the operations of those facilities including funding from our short-term rental tax.

The revenue from that tax is less than what obviously would have been expected, and so this will backfill some of those amounts to make sure that there is full operational support.

The second item is $2.5 million in food support for permanent supportive housing facilities.

Those residents are often at especially higher risk for coronavirus and are not currently able to access a lot of the ways that they would have received food previously, such as food banks or congregate meal programs.

This provides food support for those residents.

The third item is $4.8 million for what has, a lot of people have used the shorthand of an RFP, but it's really a closed competition to our current providers that operate shelters, day and hygiene centers, and permanent supportive housing facilities, essentially to submit the cost that they have incurred as a result of the outbreak, and then where possible, the CBO will go through and identify what is eligible for FEMA reimbursement.

And then after that, they will be providing this as a grant to make those organizations whole for the expenses that they've already incurred as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

I'll note that one aspect that is part of this is also the need for capital improvements or capital reconfigurations that organizations might have to undertake in order to make sure that they can continue providing the services that they've been funded to do.

So if certain barriers need to be erected or things like that for them to meet public health guidelines moving forward.

The fourth purpose is $1.6 million for ramping down the shelter de-intensification as we've referred to it.

That's essentially when Some residents from some of our congregate facilities have been moved to a different facility in order to allow for social distancing in those congregate shelters.

And that money is, those funds to operate that are eligible for FEMA reimbursement.

However, after the federal declaration of emergency has ended, There will be a time period where we anticipate needing to continue to support those services.

So this would provide approximately two months of time to ramp those, that de-intensification down.

I think that's essentially through the end of the year.

And actually the number, the next proposed item, $750,000 is for a similar purpose that it's ramping down services, but in this case it's hygiene services.

As the council members are aware, Seattle Public Utilities has We have deployed portable toilets, hand-washing stations, and two mobile hygiene trailers.

These also are eligible for FEMA reimbursement during the period of federal emergency.

However, once that emergency has ended, we think we will likely need to have a period where we continue to provide those services or ramp them down.

is $498,000, and that is actually, as I mentioned, funds that were provided from the federal government for hungry and meal programs for seniors to be able to modify their delivery and their operations.

Those are the six areas, and I'll highlight that there are two technical amendments.

They're both to section two of the bill, where previously the language indicated that the funds would be authorized for emergency housing, that was in, that it was incorrect and doesn't align with the summary and fiscal note or what has clearly been presented.

For example with the first amendment Seattle Public Utilities does not operate housing.

That was actually meant to be the hygiene services that are detailed in the summary and fiscal note.

With the second amendment that currently says emergency housing again or that was should it should be properly characterized as homeless services.

noting that food support is not necessarily a housing program.

Some of our shelter de-incentivization, we refer to as shelter, not as housing.

So homeless services will encompass all of the proposed uses that were presented.

So I hope that that is a strong enough encapsulation.

All of this material was also provided to council members through a memo that is attached to this agenda for the public as well.

And with that, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Good to see you again.

I will also note that all of our council colleagues, we have this in the zip drive that was prepared by Patty.

Shout out to Patty.

Thank you so much.

Item number four has the memo, the two amendments that we're talking about that are technical in nature.

Council Member Herbold, would you like to speak to this amendment?

I'm sorry, not to the amendment, to the underlying bill.

Thank you.

Yes, please.

I appreciate that.

Video is not on in case you want.

Oh, there you go.

Thank you.

So yes, we've been anxiously awaiting this legislation for a couple months.

I've heard both from our human services director, as well as a number of service providers who are desperately and urgently needing these funds and are actually incurring the unanticipated expenses because of the coronavirus are paying out the cost of those expenses from their very limited reserves and making extraordinary efforts to provide frontline care and services to people who have been hit hardest by the public health emergency and economic downturn.

Appreciate allowing that this that this legislation allows the executive to restore the $1.4 million in homelessness prevention and rental assistance funds that were removed when the council accepted CDBG funds back in May, and really appreciate the efforts of Chair Mosqueda.

I would like to thank the council for working with me to expedite the council's consideration of this once we did get the bill, and ensure that it wasn't held up by our discussion of the full 2020 rebalancing package.

and help organizations better, as well as allowing the executive to assess through the ERRP process both what the needs are, but also what our ability to ask FEMA for reimbursement is, which is also very, very important.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I appreciate your championing of these efforts.

your urgency in which you've also been underscoring the need to get these dollars out the door.

I am excited about this legislation.

Obviously, we are pulling this out of the overall proposal because of the need to get these dollars out.

I will note that the Department of Commerce grant came through to the city in March.

On March 27th, this funding came forward.

I am Council Member Herbold, and every single council member, I believe, has been briefed on the commerce proposal, and I think that there's a level of frustration that the dollars haven't gone out the door yet.

I want to thank Council for continuing to push to get these dollars out the door, and the earlier efforts that you all engaged in to try to reallocate additional funding into deintensification efforts, recognizing the crisis that is COVID.

and getting some funding out the door.

We've all been engaged in wanting to see this type of funding be used, and the urgency in which to get it out cannot be understated.

I also want to thank Representative Macri.

Representative Nicole Macri was instrumental in securing this funding for emergency COVID relief, specifically for programs related to homelessness, and really appreciate her work at the state level.

And again, folks throughout the city have been trying to see what we are doing with these funds and why we haven't got them out.

So our homeless service providers on the front line on the pandemic, they've been talking about the mounting needs related to getting folks off the street and into safe, non-congregate settings like hotels and motels.

They needed cleaning supply dollars.

They needed PPE support.

They needed more assistance for permanent supportive housing and shelter providers and premium pay for our service workers in addition to meal delivery and services and more.

There continues to be a high degree of uncertainty about how we are going to fund all of these priorities.

So this $13 million from the state came at just the right time three months ago.

And now it is time for us to get it out.

It's beyond time for us to get it out.

As you heard from Council Member Herbold, service providers are calling daily awaiting this ordinance to get the money out the door.

And not only are they waiting, but the providers that they represent see people every day, clients, vulnerable individuals who are housing insecure and are houseless and need these dollars.

So we're excited about the ability to move this forward.

Frustrated that it took us this long, but let's get this over the finish line.

Really appreciate the summary of all the content in the bill.

And thank you, Jeff, for your ongoing work on this and for identifying those two technical corrections that needed to be made.

Not seeing anybody else signing up to speak, just double-checking here.

Okay, anybody, anybody?

Nobody, okay.

So why don't we do this?

Let's go ahead.

It's been moved and seconded that the committee recommends passage of the bill.

We have before us two technical amendments.

I'd like to move Council Bill 11981. Is that the right number?

Jeff, did I say that number right?

No, it's 119816.

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 119816 as presented on Amendment 1. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments on Amendment 1, the technical correction Jeff first spoke to?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 1?

Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herbold aye Juarez aye Lewis aye Morales aye Peterson aye Swantt aye Mosqueda aye Eight in favor none opposed.

Great, unanimous.

The motion carries, the amendment is adopted.

We'll now consider amendment number two.

I move to amend council bill 119816 as amended and as presented on amendment two.

Are there any, is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the amendment as presented on the agenda and described by central staff.

Are there any additional comments on amendment number two?

Hearing and seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 2.

Strauss.

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Peterson.

Aye.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

Another unanimous vote.

The motion carries in the bill as amended.

I'm sorry, the motion carries and the bill is amended.

Will the clerk now please call the roll on the recommendation of the bill, on the passage of the bill as amended.

Browse?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Herboldt aye Juarez aye Lewis aye Morales aye Peterson aye Sharmuska aye 8 in favor none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The motion carries and the bill as amended will be sent to the July 6 City Council full council agenda for final consideration.

Council colleagues, thank you so much for your support for that bill.

Council Member Herbold, I see you're off mute.

Did you have anything else to add to that?

No.

Okay.

Thank you, Jeff, for the presentation.

That brings us to the end of our council agenda as amended.

Again, we want to thank Budget Director Ben Noble, Julie Dingley, and I believe Tiffany Washington was planning to be with us as well.

We look forward to having you present at our next meeting.

Our next meeting is going to be on July 8. And again, we will have public comment in the morning and the afternoon.

We will do our best to try to get as many people in this afternoon.

We were able to get everybody who was present able to testify, so appreciate you all hanging in there and testifying.

And just a preview, next week we will have a community panel featuring organizers from Decriminalize Seattle and the Participatory Budget Project.

They will be providing an overview of a community roadmap.

that many in the community have been working on to respond to the call to defund Seattle Police Department by 50% and investing in community-based needs and health and safety alternatives through a participatory budgeting process.

This is not a new process, and we're going to, at the very beginning of next week's meeting, have the opportunity to hear from the chair of public safety who has been involved in past participatory budgeting efforts and will provide us with an overview of sort of how that process has worked in the past and appreciate her leadership on that in past efforts.

We also are going to have a Monday morning and an afternoon session and we will make sure that the afternoon session gets finalized and sent around.

There is a possibility that we will try to streamline our discussions in the morning so that folks have more of a break in the afternoon.

There is a public hearing, by the way.

we will have a public comment session at 4 p.m.

that day so that anybody in the public can participate and will just be devoted to hearing from members of the public in case you are in a work situation or have family obligations that don't allow you to provide public comment during the day, we will have that evening session for you and that will really be focused on If there's no further questions or no items for the good of the order, we are going to adjourn before 5 p.m.

It's been a long day, a historic day.

I'm really proud of this council.

I'm proud to be part of this effort working with all of you.

And thank you for your ongoing work.

I see all of you.

Thank you.

Enjoy your evening and have a great long weekend, especially our folks in central staff and the staff in each of our offices.

We greatly appreciate you and all of your work.

Enjoy some well-deserved time off, and we'll see you on Monday, July 6th for full council.

Take care, everybody.

Bye, Debra.