Seattle City Council 4/13/2020

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Here.

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Eight present.

Thank you.

Presentations, I'm not aware of any presentations today, so we'll move to the approval of the minutes.

The minutes of the City Council meeting of April 6, 2020 have been reviewed.

If there is no objection, the minutes will be signed.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are being signed.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes?

And I'd like the record to reflect that Council Member Sawant has now joined us.

Welcome.

Okay, if there is no objection, the introduction and referral calendar will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the introduction and referral calendar is adopted.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll go ahead and move to the payment of the bills.

Will the clerk please read the title into the record?

Council Bill 119-775, appropriating money to pay a certain claim to the week of March 30th, 2020 through April 3rd, 2020, and ordering payment thereof.

Thank you.

I move to pass Council Bill 119-775.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Here.

It's an aye or an aye.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

We will move on now to committee reports of the city council.

Will the clerk please read agenda item one into the record?

The report of the city council, agenda item one.

Council Bill 119766 relating to commercial tenancies, temporarily restricting increases in commercial rents, authorizing repayment of late rent installments for small businesses and nonprofits, declaring an emergency, and establishing an immediate effective date, all by a three-fourths vote of the City Council.

Thank you.

I will move to pass Council Bill 119766. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill.

Council Member Herbold is the lead sponsor on this bill, so I will yield the floor to her to allow her an opportunity to address the bill first.

I understand that there's also an amendment, but why don't we go ahead and address the underlying bill first, and then we will consider the amendment.

Fantastic, thank you.

So this legislation builds off of the rent moratorium for commercial tenants that Mayor Durkin proposed a number of weeks ago and is intended to address the sort of inherent tension between that moratorium and the fact that rent is still due for folks.

It establishes a way for property owners to get paid and for small businesses and nonprofits to minimize their rent debt as it may accumulate over the period of this crisis.

My office has heard from small businesses concerned about their ability to survive the public health emergency.

I'm sure many other council members have heard those stories as well.

Seattle Times writer, Danny West neat wrote a story recently that I think reflects a lot of what we see happening across the city, the difference between property owners who are being very generous and understanding.

in creating the time and space necessary for tenants to pay the rent and other responses that are much more stringent and not really appreciative of the crisis that that we're in right now.

A number of months ago, I'm sorry, a number of weeks ago, a coalition of small business owners led by Molly Munizol reached out to council members early on to propose ways that the city could help more small businesses survive.

This was one of those ideas contained in that letter.

requiring rent payments to be payable over longer periods of time.

In developing the legislation, I consulted with other additional small business owners, including Joe Fougere of Tutabela Pizza and Beto Yars of Ventures, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs, as I say, with limited resources and unlimited potential.

And they provided a lot of feedback and good ideas that we worked to incorporate.

I have just a short closing statement that I would like to also say at the end, if that's okay, after we work on the amendment.

That is a fine.

So why don't we go ahead and take up the amendment, which is Amendment 1 on the agenda.

Why don't we go ahead and take that up, and then we will consider the amendment, and then we will have comments on the bill as amended after we consider the amendment.

How does that sound?

Okay, great.

So would you like to formally move your amendment?

I move Amendment 1.

I will second it.

Thank you.

So Amendment 1. Let me go through the Roberts Rules of Order before I can talk about it.

So it's been moved and seconded to amend the bill.

Council Member Herbold will now address Amendment 1.

So amendment one came out of some work with NAOP Washington, Commercial Real Estate Development Association.

This amendment is intended to put some common sense limitations on the small businesses that are covered.

Businesses will need to have experienced an economic hardship, either because they were forced to stop doing business or because their revenue dropped by 30% or more as compared to the previous year.

And the amendment also clarifies that local outposts of large chains would not be eligible even if they have 50% or fewer employees.

But we've been careful to make sure that small franchisees would still be eligible even if the franchisor is excluded from the definition.

The goal is to ensure that when we talk about helping small businesses survive, we're really focusing on the businesses most likely to need help to do so, and not opening the doors for businesses who don't really need the protection.

And I appreciate the fact that an organization that is devoted to the interest of commercial real estate has been willing to come forward and recognize the need for this legislation while making some recommendations that I feel are reasonable.

Thank you.

Are there any questions or comments on Amendment 1 to Council Bill 119766?

Okay, looks like there are no questions or comments.

So will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Before Council Member Herbold makes her final comments, are there any other further comments from any of my other colleagues on the bill as amended?

Council Member Morales.

Hi, thank you.

I do just want to make a quick comment.

As Councilmember Herbold said, all of us, I'm sure, have been hearing from our small business constituents.

And we know that commercial tenants really have almost no rights.

And our small businesses need protection, especially during this emergency, so that they have some kind of chance to come back once we are in recovery.

As Councilmember Herbold said, this isn't complete rent forgiveness.

It's just a freeze on increases.

And they have a year, but they can pay the money back.

So we know that small business already takes a big risk, regardless of what kind of business they're doing.

Our entrepreneurs work really hard to make our neighborhood commercial districts really different.

So I'm excited for this opportunity to offer some rent relief to support them.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Any other comments from my colleagues?

Okay, hearing none, Council Member Rubles, I just want to say thank you so much for the introduction of this bill.

I think it is a very fine complement to some of the work that we're seeing in this landlord-tenant space as it relates to residential tenancies, and I will have a bill for consideration by the full council later this month.

that effectively does the same thing that this bill does, but in the residential category of tendencies as opposed to the commercial tendencies.

So I think everything we can do to create as much stability as we can in this space is going to be absolutely critical to making sure that we allow people the best opportunity to see the light at the end of the tunnel once we hopefully, and I believe we will, get through this public health crisis.

So I'm going to let you have the final word before we call this bill to a vote.

Yeah, just a personal note that again, I know everybody who represents a district or or even our at large council members share this, this really personal feeling that our district and our city is so.

It's so benefited by just an incredible way array of truly beloved small businesses.

It's really our small businesses are really what gives our city vitality and make our neighborhoods such wonderful places to live.

believe that we cannot let the coronavirus attack what makes our communities so special.

And they hope is that this legislation will give these beloved small businesses and essential nonprofits a fighting chance to survive.

One of the things that folks have reminded me is that we do that small businesses do have financial relief coming to them.

Many folks have have applied.

But again, although that financial relief is coming, we don't know how much the relief will mitigate as it relates to the financial impacts of this virus, nor do we know necessarily the timing when people will receive funds.

So this bill will allow people to buy some time, and it allows them to enter into a time payment plan six months after the end of the crisis and allows them a full year to pay off their rent in addition to, as we mentioned before, freezing rents on the types of leases that don't have multi-year commitments for rent increases within them themselves.

So thank you, everybody, for working with me on this bill.

I think it's a really good example of the types of things that we could do to address the needs of our institutions that we care so deeply about.

Well said, Council Member Herbold.

Let's go ahead and get this bill into law.

So I will ask the clerk to call the roll on the passage of bill as amended.

Council Member Morales?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

None in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the list, to the legislation on my behalf.

Let's move on to item two.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item two, Council Bill 119771 relating to the 2018 Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy.

Amending the levy implementation and evaluation plan adopted by ordinance 125807 to provide for emergency child care services, ratify and confirming the mayor's civil emergency order, emergency child care services for frontline essential workers, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date all by a three-fourth vote of the city council.

Thank you.

I will move to pass council bill 119771. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill and as the sponsor of the bill I'll go ahead and address the substantive parts of the bill and then I will.

open it up for an amendment that is a friendly amendment from Council Member Herbold, and then we'll go ahead and take comments about the bill as amended.

So really quickly, in June 2018, the City Council approved Ordinance 125604, submitting a proposition to voters to fund education services with a property tax levy that would generate approximately $619.6 million over a seven-year period.

The Families Education Preschool and Promise Levy, or FEP, lays out four investment areas for levy funding, preschool and early learning, K-12 school and community-based grants, K-12 health, and Seattle Promise.

Section seven of the adopting ordinance provided that levy proceeds may only be spent in accordance with an implementation and evaluation plan approved by the ordinance and by the city council.

That plan was approved by the council in April 2019 originally, and this plan provides detailed information about council's funding expectations in each of the four areas that I just previously outlined.

On March 27th, the mayor issued an emergency order that would provide emergency childcare services to essential workers as defined by the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

These workers include health care workers, first responders, pharmacy workers, and grocery store workers.

Council Bill 119771 was originally transmitted to us by the mayor's office and the Department of Education and Early Learning.

This legislation would amend the Families in Education Preschool and Promise Levy Implementation and Evaluation Plan.

to include temporary emergency childcare services for frontline essential workers consistent with the mayor's emergency order that was issued on the 27th of March.

these would be FEPP levy funded services.

In order to formally include these childcare services as an eligible expense for use of FEPP levy funds, the executive transmitted this proposed legislation to council amending the FEPP levy's implementation and evaluation plan, and total expenditures by deal on the childcare services is limited to the amount of funds that otherwise would have been used to fund the Seattle Preschool Program during the same period of time.

Contracts all contracts under this bill will be limited to an initial term of 30 days And the director of deal may extend these contracts for up to two additional 30-day periods so this proposed bill would declare a finding of the council that child care services with developmentally appropriate activities provided on an emergency basis during school closures are consistent with a suite of education services defined in the enabling ordinance, and that this bill would also declare that there is an immediate need for essential workers to have access to child care services, and it would ratify and confirm the mayor's emergency order.

The proposed bill attaches as attachment to, that is listed on this agenda, an emergency addendum to the FEPP implementation and evaluation plan that effectively operationalizes the mayor's emergency order on child care services for essential workers.

The agenda makes clear that child care services will be paid for by using funds that were allocated within the preschool and early learning investment area only.

These dollars under normal circumstances, as I previously mentioned, would have been used to support the delivery and operation of the Seattle Preschool Program and the Seattle Preschool Pathway Program.

However, with the closure of schools and the governor's stay-at-home order, Many of the SPP and SPP pathway programs are not currently in operation.

That means that FEPP levy funds are available to be redirected to support these emergency child care services.

Importantly, the executive cannot exceed an amount equivalent to the funds that would have been spent on these strategies during the emergency time period.

This is an important provision to make sure that future years of SPP and the SPP pathway programs will continue to be fully funded as originally intended in the implementation and evaluation plan we adopted in the spring of 2019. And then lastly, I did receive written confirmation from DEEL that the FEPP Levy Oversight Committee was consulted as required by law, and the Oversight Committee had agreed that the implementation of emergency childcare services is an appropriate use of FEPP Levy funds during this civil emergency.

So colleagues, out of the abundance of caution, I wanted to make sure that we have this bill before us to make sure that we continue to have the accountability and oversight necessary for the expenditure of these important but limited taxpayer-approved levy funds.

in the space of early learning.

So that is the structure of the bill and what is before us and what this bill will do.

Council Member Herbold has an amendment that she'd like to make to the underlying bill that would require additional reporting requirements.

So I'm gonna hand it over to Council Member Herbold to formally introduce her amendment and then we'll take up her amendment and then come back to the substantive bill as amended for comments.

Council Member Herbold.

And you are on mute, Council Member Herbold.

I certainly am.

Thank you.

So I'm moving Amendment 1 to Council Bill 1197.71.

Second.

So it's been moved and seconded.

So why don't you go ahead and address the amendment?

Sure.

So, um, this amendment just simply requires a monthly report from the executive on the emergency childcare efforts.

Um, I've been hearing from people in my personal network, um, that, uh, today in the efforts of both SPS, Seattle Public Schools, as well as, uh, deal, um, that the demand for childcare, for the identified populations has not been what they initially expected.

And of course, we know that one thing that often happens is once it's provided, then the demand grows.

And I just want to make sure that sites don't end up having excess capacity and that there be consideration to expanding child care, child care provision to other groups of essential workers.

For instance, transit workers, the folks who are putting their self in harm's way to do the essential work of getting people around, as well as our homeless service providers that are on the front lines.

Just want to make sure that if there is excess capacity within the system, that there's an ability to serve more families.

And so the required monthly reports from the executive includes the number of emergency childcare sites currently operating and their locations, the number of staff at each site, the number of students at each site, including a disaggregation about the type of essential worker that the parents of those students perform.

the amount of funds spent on emergency child care services, and the fiscal impacts to other families, education, preschool, and Promise Levy investments from redirecting resources to emergency child care services.

This amendment was circulated on Friday to council offices by central staffer, Brian Goodnight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any questions or comments about the amendment?

Okay, hearing and seeing none, we will go ahead and take up the amendment.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Sorry about that.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, nine opposed.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Colleagues, are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

Council Member Herbold, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

This is more of just a flagging of an issue, and Council President Gonzalez, you may know whether or not DEEL is planning to address this, but one of the issues I think that was in some ways raised in the letter from the advisory board relates specifically to a really important equity issue, given that childcare providers provide care for the children of doctors and nurses who are on the front lines and exposed to coronavirus every day.

And through the children that they're caring for, child care workers are facing the same exposures.

And there's been a movement towards hazard pay for grocery workers, hazard pay for homeless service providers.

And I'm just wondering if the department is considering whether or not to consider hazard pay for this group of professionals that are doing essential work that is critical to the functions of our first responders.

I do not know the answer to that question.

I know that the question has been posed.

I think it's an important question.

And I know that there's been, at least as it relates to the contracts with childcare providers in school, public school buildings, there's been a lot of conversation about sanitation and how to make sure that the environment is as safe as it can possibly be under the circumstances.

But I think that it's an important question to get a follow-up information from Deal, and we'll make sure to do that and circulate it to you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

are there any other questions or comments?

Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for your work on this legislation and thanks to the mayor's office for sending it down.

I agree with all of the comments that Council Member Herbold just outlined as well in terms of who needs access to these critical childcare services.

So I appreciate that friendly amendment.

I also note that the Department of Early Learning Director Chappelle has received a email from the folks at SEIU 925 who are contracting workers who provide childcare to individuals throughout the city, and as SEIU 925 represents family childcare providers throughout the city, I'm hoping that they will continue to be used as an important resource in this effort to make sure that all of our essential workers have access to high-quality childcare for the current population and for any expanded population.

Just I want to note from the email that they sent, they note that the city of Seattle has a strong labor history and that SEIU wants to help provide workers across our region with access to high quality child care and also make sure that they're accessing high quality child care for those who are organized and have a voice on their job, especially in this time.

We know how important it is for people to be able to raise their hand and speak up if they feel unsafe at their place of employment.

And that's true from the grocery workers who we helped protect by removing the five cent fee for bags last week, and also includes childcare providers as we look to make sure that their services are available across the city.

So just want to ping that for our department as they're looking to deploy not just our city dollars, but also the King County PSTAA money and look forward to their ongoing participation with our friends at SEIU 925.

Thank you for those comments.

Really appreciate the note there.

I will say that in my conversations with the executive, it's my understanding that they're looking at every single opportunity they can to figure out how to meet the child care needs for essential workers.

So that includes not just contractors in center based facilities, but, you know, sort of making sure that we're keeping an eye on how we can.

make sure that the system is being fully responsive.

And I think that the amendment that was advanced by Council Member Herbold that we've now adopted is gonna help us fine-tune exactly where the gaps are to the extent that there are gaps.

And so I think those data points will be absolutely critical to understanding how else we can modify the model in order to meet this critical need for these workers.

Are there any other questions or comments from my colleagues?

Okay, hearing none.

I just want to say that I'm really excited that we can advance this legislation.

I'm also mindful of the impact that it can have on existing levy funds and programs and services that we fund through it.

That's part of the reason why I wanted to make sure that out of the abundance of caution, we had legislation to formalize this as opposed to just relying on an executive order.

I think it's important for us to have that accountability and that transparency around how these dollars are going to be spent and having sort of additional details out in the public about our expectations around how the executive order was gonna be operationalized in this space.

I will say that doing this work just really highlights for me that we still have an absolute crisis around childcare in our city.

It's part of the reason why we are scrambling.

So it's not just a crisis for these essential workers, but for everybody.

And I think we're seeing that during a period of a public health crisis and a pandemic like this, experiencing the gaps in our childcare system in an even deeper, more profound way.

And that's part of the reason why I've been working with so many of you and former council colleagues on really, really making sure that we're having a conversation about how to best meet the needs of working families who have children in our city.

I think this is a good step forward for this small body of workers, but look forward to being on the other side of this coronavirus and continuing to have a conversation about how we meet, how we close the gaps in the childcare space in the long term.

So with that being said, I'm going to ask the clerk to call the roll on the passage of the bill as amended.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

All right.

Agenda item three.

Will the clerk please read agenda item three into the record?

Council Bill 119770 relating to the Office of the Hearing Examiner, temporarily suspending deadlines imposed by the Seattle Municipal Code for the duties of the hearing examiner, temporarily suspending several sections of the code that impose deadlines on the actions of the hearing examiner and ratifying and confirming search and prior acts.

Thank you.

I will move to pass Council Bill 119770. Is there a second?

second?

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill and as sponsor of the bill, I'll go ahead and address the bill first and then we can, uh, I will ask for comments.

So as I mentioned this morning during council briefing, the hearing examiner has requested that the council consider passage of council bill 119770. This legislation will temporarily suspend deadlines required in the Seattle municipal code for the office of the hearing examiner due to the COVID-19 emergency.

In response to the governor's and mayor's orders during the civil emergency, our hearing examiner, Ryan Vansell, published important emergency rules to provide guidance on the operating rules for the Office of the Hearing Examiner during the COVID-19 emergency.

Those rules were to be in effect for 60 days and include closure of his office to the public, allowing remote hearings, allowing electronic filing of documents, suspending in-person payment of fees, and allowed people to pay their fees later if the office closure prevented payment from being made timely.

These are all important actions necessary to comply with public health guidelines and to help prevent the further spread of the coronavirus to the public and to the hearing examiner staff.

Of course, the Office of the Hearing Examiner is something that is created by statute.

It is an independent office, and they require this bill in order to have the flexibility needed to continue to comply with these public health orders.

So, Council Bill 119770 will temporarily suspend statutory deadlines.

The suspension will automatically end with the termination of the civil emergency.

It's important for us for me to note that this bill does not suspend deadlines applicable to city departments, appellants or other participants in cases that come before the hearing examiner.

And this bill only provides the hearing examiner relief from the stringent deadlines that would make it difficult for the office of hearing examiner to comply with the governor's stay home state health order.

So for those of you who took a look at Amy Gore, Council Central staffer, Amy Gore's memo, you will note that she made sure to highlight that there is that particular issue.

If we as a council want to take up the issue at a future date to consider suspending deadlines for city departments or for The other litany of folks that I just mentioned, we could do that, but Council Central staff has identified that it would be appropriate to consider that temporary policy relief or shift in a separate and newly introduced bill.

So I will have conversations with the hearing examiner to see if that is something that makes sense from a policy perspective, and also happy to hear from any of you all.

at a future date as to whether or not that is a policy shift that would be of interest.

So that is the essence of this bill, and I'm happy to entertain any comments.

Are there any comments on the bill?

Okay, hearing and seeing none, I will ask the clerk to please call the roll on the passage of the bill.

Council Member Morales?

Aye.

Councilmember Misqueda?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Councilmember Herbold?

Aye.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Lewis?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation on my behalf?

We will now move to other business.

I have one item of other business, but before I go through that, is there any other further business to come before the council from any of my other colleagues?

HAB-Charlotte Pitts, COB moderator, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or he, she or This is a follow-up on the CARES Act presentation that we got from those folks last Monday.

So this would be a letter to our members of our federal congressional delegation expressing a policy position from the city council on items that we think are important for funding in the CARES Act, it would go to Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, along with Representatives Adam Smith and Pramila Jayapal.

I described this letter during council briefing, but for transparency here during full council, it includes advocacy around maintaining essential city services by increasing funding and flexibility for the Coronavirus Relief Fund.

It requests increased funding for food assistance, It also requests that there be a significant increase in resources for housing and emergency shelter, including home ownership stabilization and shelters for those individuals experiencing homelessness.

It also advocates for an increase in assistance for working families through access to temporary assistance for needy families, block grants, and also expansion of access to recover rebates and unemployment insurance.

It also requests and advocates for additional support in the economic development area, including expanding the paid and sick leave payroll tax credit, stabilizing the municipal bond market, and details around the Paycheck Protection Program.

Additionally, it would, this letter communicates to our delegation that we are looking for increased access to essential public health services by way of free testing, treatment, and prevention of COVID-19.

We are also asking that there be maintenance to critical utility and transit services funding and projects that are really important to our region and our city.

And lastly, we are highlighting the need at the city level for a protection of our vulnerable residents, including immigrant and refugee populations.

And I believe that it may have been Council Member Herbold who suggested in addition, to also include advocacy around an investment in the area of sexual assault services programming through the Violence Against Women Act.

So that has been properly circulated to council members by the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

And in order to comply with the Open Public Meetings Act, we have to take a roll call here in full council in terms of those individuals who would like to have their a signature added to the letter.

So before we do that, are there any questions or comments by any of my colleagues?

All right, let's go ahead and I will ask the clerk to go ahead and call the roll to confirm which council members want to be added as a signatory to this letter.

Council Member Morales.

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

Colleagues, we'll make sure that your signature is affixed to the letter and that it gets over to OIR for delivery to the individuals I mentioned.

I appreciate your consideration of the letter since we received word that it would be most influential and productive to get that letter out today.

So thank you all for for your quick response to that.

So colleagues, this concludes our agenda for this afternoon.

The next city council meeting is Monday, April 20th, 2020 at 2 p.m.

And I look forward to seeing you all then.

Until then, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.