Seattle City Council 4/12/22

Thank you.

The April 12, 2022 meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

The time is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Alex Peterson, president pro tem of the council this month.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Present.

Councilmember Sawant?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Council President Pro Tem Peterson.

Here.

Six present.

Thank you.

The Council already officially excused Council Member Nelson and Council Member Strauss from today's meeting.

And if there's no objection, Council President Juarez would be excused from today's City Council meeting.

Hearing no objection, Council President Juarez is excused from today's City Council meeting.

presentations.

Councilmember Herbold has a proclamation recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Councilmember Herbold will first present the proclamation and then I'll open the floor for comments from councilmembers.

After councilmember comments, we will suspend the rules to allow our guests to accept the proclamation and provide comments.

Councilmember Herbold, you're recognized in order to present the proclamation.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate this opportunity to present this proclamation declaring April to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

I want to thank advocates from the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence and the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.

acting the proclamation, and for the work that we do every day to support survivors of sexual assault.

Yesterday, my colleagues had the opportunity to affix their signatures to this proclamation, and the mayor is concurring.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for collecting signatures in my absence yesterday.

Sexual violence includes a continuum of behavior and includes racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, or other hate speech.

Passing comments and behaviors that hit online and do traumatize victims and their impacts should not be minimized.

The negative impacts of sexual violence trauma on adults, youth, and children include fear, concern for safety, missed work or school, injury, and physical and mental health conditions, including symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

This proclamation notes that working together as a community, we can alleviate trauma of sexual violence by ensuring supportive resources are available to all survivors while standing up to and actively disrupting harmful attitudes and behaviors contribute to sexual violence.

I want to note that in A couple weeks on April 27th, it is Denim Day, and we'll be having the Seattle Women's Commission joining us.

And they will be inviting city employees to make a social statement with fashion by wearing jeans.

And we encourage folks to educate themselves and others about the impact of sexual assault.

And we'll talk about the significance of Denim Day and its origins at that time.

But here they accept Sexual Assault Awareness Month proclamation.

We have Amarynthia Torres from the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence, and Riddhi Mokupade from the Sexual Violence Law Center.

I think we're going to pause and hear from other council members first, but after that, I'm so honored to virtually present to you this proclamation signed by the Council and Mayor declaring April to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and thank you again for everything that you do every day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Are there any comments, preliminary comments from council members?

Otherwise, we can Go ahead and suspend the rules and hear from our guests.

If there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow our guests to accept the proclamation and provide remarks.

Hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended.

Today we have representatives from the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence and the Sexual Violence Law Center to receive the proclamation and provide some comments.

Welcome to the city council meeting.

You're recognized in order to provide remarks to the city council and the public.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Peterson, and good afternoon to members of the Council.

My name is Amaranthia Torres, and I'm the Policy Advocacy Specialist for the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

The coalition educates, organizes, and leads over 30 gender-based violence agencies in Seattle and King County, all of which impact the lives of diverse survivors of sexual assault in our communities.

And good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Riti Mukhopadhyay.

I'm the director of the Sexual Violence Law Center.

SVLC is a nonprofit law firm, which provides free legal assistance and representation to survivors of sexual assault and gender-based violence in Seattle and King County and throughout Washington state.

Last year, we served approximately 700 survivors and we're a member of the coalition and work with its membership to address the many legal needs survivors face.

We are both honored to participate in this event today to declare April Sexual Assault Awareness Month for the City of Seattle.

Awareness events this month and all through the year can be an important opportunity to make visible the persistent and pervasive nature of rape culture and abuses of power that continue to thrive in our society.

From harassment in person or online to physical assault and rape all forms of sexual violence are rooted in and compounded by racism sexism heterosexism and other forms of oppression.

Gender-based violence programs bear witness to this harm every day by supporting the survivors who experience it.

To hear more about this work, I'm gonna hand it over to Reedy.

Thanks, Amaranthia.

The city's proclamation recognizes that sexual violence is never the victim's fault, yet we still have a ways to go to truly disrupt and prevent sexual violence in our communities.

At SVLC, we represent all ages and all genders.

Nearly one third of our clients are youth Over 60% of our clients identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a survivor of color.

Through our work, we witnessed the sexual abuse to prison pipeline, where young girls and non-binary youth of color are sexually abused, assaulted, and harassed, and then dismissed or discarded for saying anything, and then blamed and punished for acting out of fear, frustration, or trauma.

We represent and stand with survivors every day in courtrooms, in Title IX hearings, in HR investigations, in immigration interviews, in administrative meetings, and not only see the terrible impact and devastation from their sexual assault, but also from systems and institutions that prioritize their abuser's reputation and future over the survivor's trauma and safety.

Reports of sexual assaults are at an all-time high.

In the past two years, the number of calls and referrals we have received at SVLC have tripled, yet investigations and prosecutions are at some of the lowest in years.

This is all while perpetration of sexual violence continues to evolve.

which requires advocacy to evolve as well.

The Sexual Violence Law Center now houses TEHCY, the Technology-Enabled Course of Control Initiative.

First started by advocates from the community we worked with, TEHCY has evolved into a trauma-informed legal response to abusers using digital technologies and platforms to control, harass, and humiliate a survivor.

It's not good enough for us to tell a survivor to close an account, buy a new device, or just ignore it.

Technology-enabled abuse is not the future.

It's already here.

And we cannot keep up with the number of cases that are referred yet.

We're trying.

For too long, abusers and perpetrators have been protected by institutions, supported by communities, their tactics ignored, their behaviors excused, or often blamed on their victim, who is then shamed, ousted, and isolated.

It is for this reason, it is so crucial that along with this proclamation, Seattle continues to support and prioritize services and programs for survivors.

We ask survivors to step up and share their Me Too moment.

Yet if we do not make available counseling, housing, resources, social services, and civil legal aid to survivors who seek out support, we become another source of perpetuating the very trauma and abuse we seek to address.

But this proclamation gives me hope.

It is with recognizing and naming the problem with prioritizing funding and increasing support for survivor services like Harborview Abuse and Trauma Center, Consejo, Mother Nation, King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, API Chaya, ADWAS, and the Sexual Violence Law Center, we can be the community survivors deserve, a community where survivors' voices are amplified, survivors are treated with dignity, and survivors access accountability, justice, and healing.

Thank you so much, Reedy.

As Reedy so clearly explained, programs across the city have experienced a significant increase in the need for services, in part due to the profound effects of the pandemic, but also, I believe, due to the increased awareness of what sexual violence is and that help is available in our community.

We must honor the courage and dignity of survivors by ensuring that supportive services are available and accessible to all survivors in our city.

We are proud to stand with member agencies in their commitment to this goal, and in their collective effort towards building a world free from sexual violence.

Thank you to Councilmember Herbold and the entire Seattle City Council for making this issue a priority here today by proclaiming April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month amidst all the other pressing business before the council.

You use your powerful platforms to inspire awareness and action.

Thank you for leading on behalf of survivors in our community.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both for presenting that.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Any final remarks?

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, we will now consider the proposed consent calendar.

Are there any items council members would like to remove from today's consent calendar?

Hearing none, I move to adopt the consent calendar.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the consent calendar.

But just a quick note, today's consent calendar includes 19 appointments.

And so I'd like to thank all the appointees for their willingness to serve and the committee chairs and the department staff for their work on those appointments.

We heard a lot of those in committee.

And for the viewing public, all the application materials are published online.

So with that, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the consent calendar?

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Pro Tem Peterson?

Yes.

Six in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The consent calendar items are adopted.

Will the clerk please affix my signature to the minutes and legislation on the consent calendar on my behalf.

Approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Colleagues, at this time, we will open the remote public comment period for items on the City Council agenda, introduction referral calendar, and the Council's work program.

It remains the strong intent of the City Council to have remote public comment regularly included on meeting agendas.

However, as a reminder, the City Council preserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem the systems being abused are no longer suitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and effectively.

Let me just pull up the list of speakers one moment.

Looks like we have just two or three speakers right now.

So each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Our city clerk will moderate this general public comment period, and I will now hand it off to her to read the instructions.

Thank you.

The public comment period for this meeting is up to 20 minutes, and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they are registered to provide public comment on the council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when registered and use the ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

Please note this is different from the general meeting lesson line ID listed on the agenda.

If you did not receive an email confirmation please check your spam or junk mail folders.

Once the speaker's name is called staff will unmute the appropriate microphone and an automatic prompt if you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that is their turn to speak and then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once you hear the chime we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comment at the end of the allotted time provided the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star-6 after you hear the prompt if you have been unmuted.

And our first speaker is Howard Gail followed by David Haynes.

And Mr. Gail you want to press star-6.

Good afternoon.

Howard Gail with Seattlestop.org commenting on our failed police accountability system.

It is now over eight months since Carolyn Bick at the South Seattle Emerald published her expose of the failures, malfeasance, I'm sorry, the corruption at Seattle's key police accountability agencies, the OIG and the OPA.

Yet we know of no actions taken by the council to address these disturbing reports, no findings of any independent investigations, if there are any.

The council has become inured to a policing system that too often responds with unjustifiable violence and is rarely held accountable.

The clearest evidence of this is what we have now, we've now gone over three months without even knowing the name of the man experiencing a severe behavioral health crisis murdered by the SPD on January 5th.

The council, especially the Public Safety Committee, has not only displayed gross indifference at the failings of our police accountability system, but has gone to great lengths to paper over and defend these failings.

I congratulate and support the Seattle Human Rights Commission for finally breaking through this indifference by voting overwhelmingly last week to seek amicus status in the federal court case regarding Seattle's policing consent decree in order to more accurately represent to the court what is actually happening in Seattle and the continuing failures of our accountability system.

In response to the Human Rights Commission announcement and in a failed attempt to highlight the work of the Community Police Commission, Council Member and Public Safety Chair Lisa Herbold cited a letter the Community Police Commission wrote concerning omissions in the SPD's crisis intervention data.

What Council Member Herbold fails to note in this letter is that this letter notes only one relatively minor concern and leaves out the long list of serious concerns I had detailed to Council Member Herbold over three months ago via email as regards this very data set.

I encourage people to contact the Seattle Human Rights Commission and support them in this pursuit to uncover the failings of our accountability system and the stories of those harmed by both police and by these failed systems.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Haynes followed by Sarah Williams who is showing us not present.

And I'm not seeing Mr. Haynes.

Sir, there we go.

Thank you, David Haynes, District 7. Perhaps we need a federal investigation of the Housing Levy Oversight Committee and City Hall's conflict of interest conspiring to use taxes to finance unqualified nonprofit developers politically connected to organizers, activists, and the Democratic Party's operatives hiding within non-profit donors, the owners of government housing and homeless projects, who help with the Democrats' re-election apparatus, never keeping them honest, and a better oversight about creating warehouse-echo, low-quality, modern, third-world slum housing, acting like they're doing people of color a favor, forced to accept a lesser-owned, subpar home.

Beneficiaries of housing levy dollars should be used and are needed for 21st century, first world quality housing built by carpenters, union qualified workers and noble contractors, not Plymouth Housing, Seattle Housing or Sharon Lee of Lehigh, always squandering millions of tax dollars, hiring chief developers, skimming and shortchanging the quality forced into fixing rundown real estate empire within 20 years.

wasting tax dollars twice.

We need private sector to step up with incentives to robustly redevelop America, not corrupt homeless service contractors never held honest about low quality abuse and data manipulation.

And we need to begin to build proper homes, commercial buildings and schools, not government housing acting like money only can be used by nonprofits conspiring to squeeze a profit at expensive quality and honest taxpayers.

We need legislation to incentivize on all levels the Federal Reserve Bank and all these capital markets and banks to free up the capital to incentivize a huge robust build out of 21st century first world homes.

Stop with the non-profit unqualified developer favors that help re-elect Democrats who are corrupt.

Our next speaker is Sarah Williams and she's showing is not present.

And that's the end of the list, Council President.

Thank you.

We have reached the end of the list of registered and present speakers.

So the public comment period is now closed.

We're ready to move on to the items on the regular agenda.

Will the clerk please read item 1 into the record?

The report of the Finance and Housing Committee, agenda item one, resolution 32047, a resolution establishing a watch list of large, complex, discrete capital projects that will require enhanced quarterly monitoring reports for the 2022 calendar year.

The committee recommends the resolution be adopted as amended.

Thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda, as chair of the committee, you may provide the committee report.

Councilor Mosqueda, if you'd like to provide the committee report on this item.

I'm also fortunate to be a member of Chair Mosqueda's committee and can speak briefly to the watch list.

If Councilor Mosqueda is not available right now.

Well, colleagues, you're all familiar with the watch list.

It was a great idea that came from the city council years ago to create this watch list for those larger complex capital projects so that we could keep an eye on them, part of the fiscal responsibility accountability measures.

So this list was discussed thoroughly in the committee and it was, the committee unanimously recommended adoption of it.

So are there any comments on this legislation?

This is resolution 32047. All right.

Let us go ahead and vote on it then if there are no comments on the watch list resolution for the year 2022. Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Sorry about that, aye.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council President Pro Tem Peterson.

Yes.

Six in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, the resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

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

Okay, our next item, will the clerk please read the short title of item two into the record?

The report of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee, agenda item two, council bill 120281, an ordinance granting BSOP1 LLC permits to construct, maintain, and operate a private parking area.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

As chair of that committee, the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee, I'll go ahead and provide a brief report on this item.

Colleagues, this project is at the second and final stage for approving a 15-year term permit to enable a public plaza, improved walkway, and related parking improvements in the Eastlake neighborhood in District 4. The proposal enhances the use of the space for the public and even helps protect a large conifer tree.

We have adopted previously resolution 31988 granting conceptual approval for this project, and today's council bill 120281 is essentially recognizing that SDOT and central staff have confirmed the applicant has met and will meet the public benefit and other conditions we adopted a year ago.

And we received a briefing on this at our previous committee meetings.

and I really want to recognize the collaboration among our Seattle Department of Transportation, the Eastlake community, and the private property owners for moving forward and making these improvements that everyone will be able to enjoy.

Our committee unanimously recommended approval of this bill, and we ask for your vote today.

Are there any comments?

Great.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Councilmember Morales?

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Aye.

Councilmember Sawant?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Pro Tem Peterson?

Yes.

Six 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.

Will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Agenda item three, council bill 120282, an ordinance vacating a portion of the alley and block 6AA Denny 2nd edition.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

As chair of that committee, I'll provide a committee report on this item.

As with the previous item on our agenda, this project is at the second and final stage for approval.

This item is an alley vacation, conceptually approved back in 2016. With Council Bill 120282, we are essentially recognizing that SDOT and our own central staff have confirmed the applicant has met and will meet the public benefit and other conditions previously adopted by the city.

Our committee unanimously recommended approval of this bill.

Colleagues, are there any comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Pro Tem Peterson?

Yes.

Six 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?

Clerk, please read item four into the record.

Agenda item four, council bill 120291, an ordinance relating to rates and charges for water services of Seattle Public Utilities, revising water rates and charges for certain customers.

The committee recommends the bill pass.

Thank you.

As chair of the committee, I'll provide the committee report on this item.

Council members, as confirmed by our own city council central staff during our committee meeting, this is a minor technical correction requested by Seattle Public Utilities and would impact no current SPU customers in the city of Burien.

Our committee unanimously recommended approval of this bill.

Are there any comments?

Okay, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Pro Tem Peterson?

Yes.

Six 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?

Next item.

There are no resolutions for introduction and adoption today.

This is item H on our agenda.

So we can go to other business.

Council members, is there any other business to come before the council?

Okay.

Oh, Council Member Mosqueda.

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I think I, did I miss an opportunity to comment on the appointments under the Finance and Housing Committee meeting, agenda items five through 18?

Am I looking at the wrong materials here?

Councilor Mosqueda, they were part of the consent agenda.

Oh, I had so many great things to say about all those appointees, but thank you for reminding me of the new process going forward.

Congratulations to all of our appointees and to the reappointments.

Thank you, Council Member Esqueda.

Yeah, we know that there's so much work involved in identifying volunteers and folks to serve on these advisory committees and that you as chair do so much work for those, your committee as well as the chairs and the other committees and really appreciate the department staff helping us with that process as well.

All right, so is there any other business to come before the council?

Thank you Mr. President Pro Tem.

Apologies for that.

As I was trying to shuffle through my notes to see where we were at in the agenda since those appointees were part of my talking points, I just missed the chance to say thanks to everybody who worked on the capital projects watch list.

And I wanted to say on agenda item number one in the resolution that we voted on already, a huge amount of appreciation for Council Member Herbold and our previous colleague, Council Member Bagshaw, the work of central staff, including Brian Goodnight and the team for all of the work that they've done on this capital projects watch list, and to Adam Schaefer from the CBO's office and Dan Nolte in the mayor's office, along with I would like to say thank you to all of the people who worked on this.

Of course, we will continue to work in partnership with all of the committees who have oversight over those specific projects on the watch list.

The intent is to make sure that each of those committees continue to have oversight of those projects.

I appreciate the collaborative work on this council to add to

Thank you, Council Member Esqueda.

Thanks for saying those thank yous now.

The watch list is one of the most important things that we do in our monitoring function as a council.

So thank you for that, shepherding that fiscal responsibility.

Colleagues, any other business to come before the council?

Okay.

Well, colleagues, this concludes the items of business on today's agenda.

Our next regularly scheduled city council meeting is on April 19, 2022 at 2 p.m.

Hope you all have a wonderful afternoon, and we all are adjourned.