Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee 6/12/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

It is Thursday, June 12th and the Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee will come to order.

It is 2.03 PM and I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll.

Council member Rivera.

Present.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Here.

Council member Kettle.

Here.

Chair Nelson.

Present.

For present.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Please note that council member Solomon is excused today.

Thank you everyone for joining us after that long morning meeting.

And I just wanna say that we have a short agenda today, but it's a big topic.

We have the one item on our agenda is an ordinance relating to the interactive media kiosks in downtown in several neighborhood business districts.

All right, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Seeing none, the agenda is adopted.

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

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

We have two in person and three online.

Okay, let's start with the two in person and give everybody two minutes.

I'll read the rules for public comment.

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

Speakers will have two minutes.

When you hear the chime, you will have 10 seconds left.

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

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

So for in-person comments, the first speaker is Alex Tismeran.

It's me, yeah?

Good.

Where is my face?

Oh, it's me, Alexander.

Zeheil, my dirty damn Nazi Gestapo, fascist pig, amab and bandita.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I'm a Trump supporter.

I have 5,000 times speak in Consul Chamber.

I have 6,000 days of trespass and five times you prosecute me.

I'm happy today.

It's exactly what I've been working for 30 years every day.

Nobody cares.

750,000 people wake up.

Stop acting like an idiot.

It will be change in this election.

It's exactly what we need doing right now.

We need to clean this chamber totally from this idiot who make us life miserable, spend a billion and billion dollars for nothing, a bandita, a Nazi pig.

I talk about this for 30 years every day.

Everywhere.

I'm very happy.

First day in for 30 years, what is I feel, people start wake up.

Seattle start wake up.

Seattle start thinking about something, what is will happen for another 20 years.

It is very important.

First, what is we need?

Totally change this chamber.

This mob and bandita is all nine without exception.

So right now I speak because Trump is last chance.

Viva Trump, viva new American revolution, stand up America, stand up Seattle, make real changes, bring us to real democracy, real constitution, real freedom of speech.

An open bedroom in City Hall, you know what this means, so everybody can go and speak for three or five minutes, one day per week.

It's my proposition.

Viva Trump!

Viva New American Revolution!

Okay, in case the public is wondering, let the record show that that language does verge on abusive language, and let the record show that we value free speech.

Our next in-person public commenter is Michael Woody.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Michael Woody, and I'm here on behalf of Visit Seattle to voice our strong support for Council Bill 120992, which would allow for the launch of a citywide digital kiosk program.

In 2024, Seattle and King County welcomed 40 million visitors.

that spent $8.8 billion in our region generating nearly $840 million in state and local taxes.

These kiosks are a strategic investment in sustaining that growth and impacting healthy visitor experiences to navigate the city, discover local businesses, and engage with Seattle's vibrant cultural landscape.

Many travelers arrive here without a fixed itinerary and could use real-time tools dedicated to where to go and what to do.

These multilingual kiosks will serve as an extension of our visitor information centers, offering wayfinding, transit access, public alerts, and local recommendations in a format that is accessible 24 seven.

This is the right time to make this investment, especially as we prepare to welcome global audiences during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, expected to be over 750,000 people for that event.

We urge you to approve this measure and help to deliver a more connected, inclusive, and welcoming experience for every visitor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Our next in-person speaker is John Schulz.

Good afternoon, council members.

John Scholes with the Downtown Seattle Association.

I want to make three brief points.

One, the ordinance before he authorized the digital kiosk program has very broad support among arts and cultural organizations like SAM and the Fifth, among transit organizations like Commute Seattle and Transportation Choices Coalition, among business improvement areas throughout our city like the University District Partnership, Soto, Ballard, and West Seattle.

Second point.

This has been under review for about two years.

And the traffic study, the aesthetic study, SDOT's review, the four design commission meetings have all informed the ordinance before you.

And I think the details that you see both in the ordinance and in the memorandum of understanding between DSA and the city are responsive to a lot of what you've heard and some of the issues that have been brought before the council as you reviewed the resolution.

And then the third point, Seattle is often first at many things.

For better or worse, in this case, we're not first with these kiosks.

These are in the ground in 23 other markets, which affords us a lot of information about how the program's performed, how the vendor has performed, and how the public has responded to them.

And there's good news on all fronts, and I urge your support and passage of the ordinance before you today.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

That was our last in-person speaker.

We will now proceed with remote public comment.

The same rules apply.

As a reminder to our remote public commenters, please press star six to unmute yourself when you hear these prompt.

Our first virtual public commenter is Cynthia Speis.

Hi, I'm Cynthia.

The kiosks are of exceptionally tiny financial benefit and utility.

These are billboards the vast majority of the time, creating an eyesore throughout Seattle, which visitors don't come here to see.

If they wanted to see garish ads, they'd go to Vegas.

It would be more on brand for Seattle to have additional trees.

It's a ridiculous excuse to say these are for the World Cup because people who can pay thousands of dollars in international airfare plus lodging and food would also already own smartphones.

If you truly believe this is filling a need, then you're out of touch with reality.

This isn't the late 80s.

These will not be used productively.

I'm up to the fact that if you vote for these, then you're voting for adding billboards throughout the city.

It's shameful that most council members do not support either council member Strauss's proposed amendments that provide practical protections for both residents in the city.

And that council members have largely ignored the Seattle design commission's recommendation.

I urge you to disallow any cameras from being included on these.

Selfies are a frivolous excuse for having a surveillance technology.

Moreover, the selfies booths are accessed by a QR code, which are inherently means that the selfies taken using the billboards are unnecessary because the device they have in their hand already has a camera.

Additionally, the privacy protections in the MOU are very weak.

There should be explicit language disallowing the tracking or profiling of devices based on people's internet history from using the Wi-Fi.

People's privacy should not hinge on the whims of what a private business chooses to have in their privacy policy.

This is especially important since people might think this is the city's Wi-Fi like using the library, but it is not.

None of the revenue should be our local arts underfunded, whereas policing is given bountiful pocketbooks.

Please read the Seattle Design Commission's reports.

This is a deterioration of the landscape and Seattle experience that you're proposing.

So the least you could do is read their very well thought out report, which has significantly more good recommendations than what I thought included in their report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Cynthia.

Our next remote speaker is Alberto Alvarez followed by David Haynes.

Alberto, go ahead and press star six to meet yourself.

Thank you.

Mass surveillance tools are easy for any volatile government to weaponize against Seattle residents and visitors.

No amount of promise or guarantee can stop that.

Abortion care and trans care patients will to bounty hunter laws from the red states when it is fact that the administration is moving against the freedom to choose and the rights of the LGBT plus.

To tell our guests that part of our city will be off limits to them is inhumane and discriminatory.

This council, who is happy to say a lot and do nothing to help communities who are in crisis as of this very moment, Deny this permit.

Stop serving up our city to a fascist takeover.

Have a good day.

Thank you, Alberto.

Our last remote speaker is David Haynes.

David, go ahead and press star six to unmute yourself.

We need those kiosks streaming a live feed to the CCTV to assist cops in getting it right.

without civilian dispatch and liberal fools getting in the way of proper crime fighting.

There is a real public safety crisis and every single monitor that's ever been put in downtown has been smashed or has been broke to the point where Metro doesn't even put the rest of them up, leaving people wondering when the next bus is coming by or when they're going to return the bus stop that's never going to be returned because the mayor and the council and the chief have failed at public safety.

But you all want to try and trick people who come here for six days and 2026 for FIFA to make them think that Seattle is such a sophisticated, advanced technological city.

Yet you cannot even consider stopping to look at a kiosk without worrying that somebody is going to sneak up behind you and hit you and surround you and shake you down and spit spray their diseases on you.

Yet council doesn't want to make wholehearted efforts with public safety.

You just want to go through the motions, virtue signaling and pulling your punches to appease racist perverted voting blocks.

While city council government accountability refuses to improve the integrity of ethics by making a law requiring city hall to admit when there's a conflict of interest that they have to admit to before each and every council meeting.

So we know what type of representative we have, whether it's in good faith or bad faith, which we only see bad faith permeating council.

when it comes to landlord issues, housing issues, homeless issues, public safety issues, sabotaging the comprehensive plan and capitulating to the racist, tainted one Seattle plan that makes it unsafe to live, work and play in Seattle.

You all need to let that live stream of the kiosk assist CCTV because you all have sat.

A lot of the people who are against it are the same ones who capitulate to the devil's advocates and to the evil bullies.

and all these racist, untrustworthy criminals who were conducting one civil war, you could put those kiosks up and verify who the hell...

Back is the last public commenter we have signed up.

Okay, assuming there are no additional people who've signed up online or in person, we will now close public comment and proceed to our items of business.

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

Agenda item one, CB 120992, an ordinance granting Downtown Seattle Association permission to install, maintain, and operate interactive media kiosks in public places located in the Metropolitan Improvement District and in other participating business improvement areas for a 16 and a half year term, renewable for one successive 13 and a half year term, specifying the conditions under which the permit is granted for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you very much for that.

Just I'll note that last Tuesday we passed the conceptual framework for the this kiosk program out of full council and now we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of the of the program itself.

Council bill 120992 provides final approval for the downtown Seattle Association's digital kiosk program authorizing both the SDOT term permit and the city slash DSA memorandum of understanding and so The term permit itself, I will just note that it's contained within the Council Bill.

It's 27 pages.

It grants DSA the legal right to place kiosks in the public right-of-way, which would otherwise be prohibited, sets technical requirements for kiosk design, siting, safety, privacy, and operations, establishes SDOT's regulatory authority to inspect, enforce, compliance and remove kiosks, mandates decluttering, trash removal, public realm improvements for each installation, and establishes the required annual fees paid to the city.

The Memorandum of Understanding is 12 pages and defines the partnership terms between the city and DSA, establishes revenue sharing formulas and how DSA spends its portion, clarifies that DSA manages vendors, bears all costs, and handles day-to-day operations, details how the public content is programmed and displayed, and then finally specifies what financial and operational information DSA must provide to the city.

And the MOU is attachment A to this legislation.

The central staff memo specifies that if there are conflicts between the two documents, the term permit prevails, meaning regulatory requirements trump business arrangements.

So we previously passed the supporting conceptual resolution out of this committee and NFL Council, as I noted.

We also had a briefing and discussion on this ordinance in Council Bill in our last committee meeting on May 29th.

So here we have it before us and for a possible vote and we've got SDOT here at the table again today as well as the mayor's office.

Yes.

To answer questions and also our central staff analyst Calvin Chow to summarize the ordinance and provide answers to your questions should you have any.

And for the record, would you please introduce yourselves and then go ahead and begin.

Hello.

Happy to be here again.

I'm Elise Nelson.

I'm the Street Use Division Director for SDOT.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Andrew Meyerberg from the Mayor's Office.

Calvin Chow with Council Central Staff.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

So first, I'd like to offer just a couple of remarks before I turn it over to Elise and the SDOT presentation.

First, thank you to the council for considering the resolution and passing the resolution, and for inviting us to speak to the ordinance today at committee.

I want to thank Elise, Amy Gray, and the SDOT team, Cara Evalier from the mayor's office, and the DSA at Ike teams for getting us to where we are today.

It's been a lot of work.

This kiosk proposal is a result of nearly two years of planning and deliberation.

At the outset, we worked really closely with DSA to build a proposal that brought innovation to the downtown core and significant public benefits to our community, not just through the myriad services that the kiosk will provide, but also in the enhanced cleaning and ambassador services in the downtown core, increased support for our BIAs, and additional revenue for the city in challenging economic times.

As part of our work, we engaged in a thorough SEPA analysis, which ultimately resulted in a determination of non-significance.

This included comprehensive assessments of and mitigations of potential driver distraction and aesthetic considerations.

We further engaged in multiple design commission meetings, and we received helpful feedback, the majority of which was integrated into the proposal that's before you here today.

Lastly, we greatly appreciated the discussions by council members at the last two meetings on this issue.

as well as the thoughtful analysis by central staff.

So thank you again for that.

And virtually all the issues that were flagged by council and in public comments are addressed either in the term permit ordinance, again, that you're going to see today, or in the MOU.

So before I turn it over to Elise and Estad, I want to thank you all again, and particularly Council President Nelson, for having us here and for considering the ordinance.

So thank you.

I'm just going to get the presentation up really quick here.

That's not the right type of screen, let's see here.

That's why we usually have Bill Laborde.

Just a second, let's try again.

I was going to remove presentation mode.

How do you remove presentation?

OK.

And then it should be removed from presentation mode.

I can't see .

Sorry.

For the public that's listening, we're almost there.

All right, we'll try one more time here.

Do you want me, should I try to get in that mode first?

Yeah.

So obviously that didn't help her.

Sorry about that, everyone.

We are going to share it in the mode it wants to be shared in.

Here we go.

I'm going to hit the screen too for a second and see what it does.

That one doesn't let me.

That's not gonna work.

Sorry, usually I don't have so many technical difficulties.

I saw a screen that looked hopeful, but it's not going to work, so.

Cal, I should have let you do this.

That would have been a smart move.

All right, we will use this screen and go through.

So again, it's nice to be back today.

We've been here a few times now, so this is not new information, but it's good to kind of be at this step and really have a chance to dive into the details more with you all today.

Again, I'm Elise Nelson with SDOT, and we're talking about the Downtown Seattle Association's Digital Kiosk Programmatic Term Permit, and today we'll be digging into the ordinance.

So today I'm going to kind of recap what we've already talked about and discuss the details of the term permit, which we actually talked a little bit about our first time we came to council, but it's been a few months, so it's good to recap and discuss again.

Then we'll talk about SDOT's recommendation and next steps, which include a possible vote today.

Kiosks are a near-term action listed in the city's downtown activation plan, and this is a way to help make downtown a top destination for people who live and visit here.

The delivery mechanism that we've identified for the kiosks is a programmatic term permit, and the downtown association will hold that programmatic term permit, working closely with their vendor that they've identified, Ike Smart City.

The term permit would authorize up to 80 kiosks in two phases, and the kiosks would bring revenues that would be reinvested back into downtown and other commercial areas.

There's also no cost to the city for maintenance.

In the first phase, which occurs fully downtown within the Metropolitan Improvement District boundary, the DSA would receive the first $1.1 million in revenue, and anything additional would go to the city.

In the second phase, revenue would be directed to the, within the MIDD would be directed to the city, and then in the other BIAs that are participating, the revenues would be directed back to their districts.

The term permit ordinance authorizes city council to consider and approve uses that do not otherwise conform with the Seattle Municipal Code.

And finally, like you noted, Council President Nielsen, you recently considered and approved a conceptual resolution for the program, which was approved on June 3rd with one amendment related to funding and it being how it's directed to the city.

This slide shows some of the specific dimensions and details of the kiosk so you can understand their height and width and depth.

The kiosks are designed for an urban environment, so they're shatterproof and very robust and intended for this kind of environment.

There's a number of features that they bring, which include public safety information, such as severe weather alerts and alerts about unplanned demonstrations, an emergency call button, interactive wayfinding that will be coordinated with SDOT seamless Seattle program, a curated public art program, and a free public Wi-Fi.

And again, the DSA and their vendor, Ike Smart City, will be responsible for maintenance and repairs.

The kiosks operate in two modes, passive mode and engaged mode.

So engaged mode is where a person is interacting directly with a kiosk and they can find information on local events, arts and cultural information, directions and wayfinding.

They can find real-time transit access to apps such as Find It, Fix It or other things.

The default is the passive mode which will have a loop of content that includes city, commercial, and community messaging as well as the public art.

Again, to go over the phasing plans, phase one would include 30 kiosks within the Metropolitan Improvement District, and phase two would add a potential of 50 additional kiosks, 30 within the Metropolitan Improvement District, and then 20 more in participating BIAs, which include Ballard, U District, Soto, and West Seattle Junction.

Phase two will require additional executive approval before it can move forward.

Here's our timeline slide again.

The blue arrow has moved to the ordinance.

And this is meant to kind of identify that there's been a lot of process to date.

We have been working on this for several years and included a robust amount of internal review and SEPA analysis.

Now we're in front of you.

And what comes next if this moves forward is site-specific installation permitting, additional SEPA threshold review.

And the hope is to install these before FIFA World Cup next year.

So this is the term permit process.

Step one is complete with the resolution having been approved.

We're in step two where we're considering the ordinance and setting the terms and conditions for the permit.

And then step three for this will include SDOT permits to install at each location they would like to install an individual SEPA level review.

We're gonna turn into the nitty-gritty, the weed, so to speak, of the ordinance.

And we've already just discussed this a few times, but I think it's important to have a refresher.

So the term permit ordinance establishes terms and conditions for the DSA and their vendor.

The term is established, the time of the term is established to be 16.5 years for their first term and 13.5 years for their second term for a total of 30 years.

There are many protections that are inherent in our term permit process, including protection for existing utilities, requirements to remove and restore kiosks and restore the right-of-way where we require them to be removed, requirements to keep the kiosks in good working condition, bonding, indemnification and insurance requirements.

We've also worked really closely with IT and have prohibitions set in the term permit related to data collection and retention.

The DSA or IHC will not be collecting any personal identifiable information.

Related to where a kiosk will be not located, they won't be located in historic landmark or special review districts, nor will they be in shoreline districts or the waterfront or residential zones.

We also will not allow them in the Seattle Center overlay or parks boulevards.

And where they will be cited is, this is just kind of a high-level summary.

There's a lot of citing details in the ordinance, but they must be placed on low-speed streets in the furniture zone, which is what this image shows.

And they have to be away from intersections and crosswalks.

We also have considered curb uses that they shouldn't be next to, such as bus zones and commercial loading zones.

We do not allow street trees to be removed to accommodate a kiosk.

We also limit the number of kiosks per block.

The ordinance includes clearances from the Seamless Seattle Wayfinding Program, which was something that was discussed during the Seattle Design Commission's process and review of the program.

All right, so there are specific notification and outreach requirements that'll be required for the site-specific installation permitting.

That's mimicking street use permit requirements that we have for other uses.

So there will be a comment, kind of a process once those installation permits come in the door to make sure we know what folks are thinking about them and that there's some work with the nearby businesses and property owners.

We also have worked out some details on the public benefit package that you'll see in the ordinance.

And this was developed to include feedback from the Seattle Design Commission's recommendation.

So in addition to being able to remove broken, redundant, or outdated street furniture, The DSA and their vendor will also look for opportunities to install new amenities.

A few examples might be flower baskets or bike racks that could be located in your kiosk, and there'll also be a cleaning buffer around the kiosk that they'll maintain.

Finally, there's really detailed reporting requirements in the ordinance, which are standard for term permits, but we've worked to make even more reporting requirements than usual, which also is a way to identify some of the concerns that the Seattle Design Commission had and kind of keep track of how the program is working and look for opportunities to continue to work together in a collaborative nature with the DSA and ICC.

All right, so for what we've heard, we know we've been here a few times.

We've been hearing some of the questions that you've brought to us.

So this isn't meant to be a comprehensive list, but just some of the themes around what we've heard.

So privacy and security concerns are one.

And noting that in Section 25 of the ordinance, we prohibit collecting and retaining any personally identifiable information except when the user provides consent to connect with the free Wi-Fi or retrieve their selfie.

Another item is related to video motion and driver distraction.

In the ordinance in Section 9, we have standards that are based on some extensive technical review and analysis that we completed, working closely with both the applicant's engineer and SDOT technical staff to review and analyze potential impacts as part of the environmental analysis that was done.

We've also heard concerns about brightness, and the kiosk will not exceed brightness limits that are included in the Seattle Sign Code, which is referenced in Section 10 of the ordinance.

So our recommendation is that the City Council adopt the ordinance for the DSA programmatic term permit.

This will allow the DSA and INC Smart City to begin installing kiosks after site-specific permit review and additional environmental review concludes.

So today, we are presenting to you, and you are potentially voting on the ordinance.

If there is a vote to move forward, it could go to full council next.

And then again, starting sometime later this summer, we would expect those applications to start coming in for the site-specific review.

And here is my final slide.

Thank you for your time today.

We hope this has provided you adequate information.

But we're here and happy to answer any follow-up questions you may have.

Thank you very, very much for that additional detail.

You're right, we have been at this for a while.

I think that it's been, well, this is the third committee meeting, so it's been six weeks so far here on the council side, two years in SDOT, even before that discussed between DSA and the city in various ways.

So with that, do my colleagues have any questions?

And I know we'll get to your part in a sec.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for that presentation.

I'm just really thrilled to hear we're not going to be getting rid of any trees as part of this effort.

I know that the U District BIA is supportive of that in my district, of this, not that.

My district is also supportive of not getting rid of the trees, as am I.

But the BIA, the U District BIA, I know is also in support of this.

So thank you for the presentation, and this was very helpful.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, and there'll be time for comments about the effort overall in a bit.

I do want to add a little bit of detail, not to be crass, but let's just talk about money because the ad revenue these kiosks will generate for DSA is a big driver of my support personally.

I've said that on the record before and I'm proud to say it now because I can't imagine downtown without the Downtown Seattle Association and everything that it does, notably as the operator of the Metropolitan Improvement District, which is personified by the chartreuse vest-clad ambassadors that are all over downtown, but so much more, including holiday lights, the summer concert series, et cetera.

And so questions have been raised about whether or not DSA or the city could have gotten a better deal with another vendor, et cetera, or questions about the ad revenue or should the city have contracted directly with the vendor.

And so I just, Just let me say a couple points on some of those themes.

The Ike program in Seattle is one of the most favorable terms ever provided to a city when compared to agreements they have established elsewhere in the country with 32.5% gross revenue share.

As an example, when compared to San Diego, where it's 50% net revenue sharing, our arrangement of 32.5% gross revenue share would actually result in significantly more revenue to the BIAs and the city.

And when I say BIAs, of course, I'm including the mid, but we're also talking about the benefits to the BIAs all over the city.

The beauty of a gross deal is that DSA and the city aren't involved in Ike's accounting and the costs are truly borne exclusively by Ike.

DSA and the DSAs in the city are getting almost one-third of the money without paying anything, and those are extremely favorable terms.

It's one of the most generous arrangements, I would say.

entered into by Ike.

And again, SDOT was interested in acquiring digital wayfinding kiosks as part of its seamless Seattle program, but ultimately decided against pursuing that because the acquisition and maintenance costs were just too high.

And also the time and effort it would take to implement the program, despite the clear benefits that they would generate for the public.

So this is an example of the city being able to leverage and partner with the DSA and its vendor to provide not only all of those public benefits at no cost, but also to potentially receive significant additional net revenues that are triggered in phase two.

So, and that's where we can talk about one of the amendments here.

So with all of that, I just wanted to add that detail because this has been laboriously negotiated, let's just say.

So with that, I move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120992. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

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

Are there any comments or questions?

Council President?

Yes, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm gonna move to amend Council Bill 120992. Yes, as presented.

Amendment one.

Thank you, Amelia.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on amendment one.

Will central staff please provide an overview of the amendment and then Councilmember Hollingsworth, you can speak to it as well.

Thank you, Council President.

Happy to.

So when the Council passed the resolution with the conceptual approval for this program, Councilmember Hollingsworth offered an amendment that was adopted by the Council.

that established that the revenues that go to the city should be used for citywide business activation and business district citywide.

So this proposed amendment would make that same language in the term permit and also in the MOU that the mayor is authorized to sign.

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Thank you, Council President.

And thank you, Calvin, for your help on all this.

Colleagues, we passed a resolution where I offered this amendment within the resolution.

And basically, it just shows the importance of different business areas throughout the city.

I always am gonna wave a flag for District 3, obviously, in the different business improvement areas.

And without the Pike-Pine Corridor, particularly on Capitol Hill, Seattle would not have a nightlife.

We would not have an economic engine in our city.

So I just wanted to highlight that and all the great small business districts that we have throughout the city and just want to make sure that we are extending some of that love to all the districts.

Thank you.

Thank you, I voted for this amendment during the resolution process and I'll say that I support this amendment as well.

Obviously resolutions are statements of legislative intent, this will become law, but the spirit of this is really what's key.

I think it's entirely within the spirit of this program to provide citywide benefits to our streetscape in addition to the key activation work that this will fund for DSA and our other BIAs.

Excess revenues provided by these kiosks will go to the general fund and this amendment stipulates that we ought to use that to support all of our neighborhoods and small business districts.

particularly Pipe Pine Corridor.

I'm just making this up, but you're absolutely right.

It's tremendously important for the city.

Also leads straight down to our waterfront, passing our new convention center.

So I'm in wholehearted support of this amendment.

Are there any other comments?

Okay.

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

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Solomon.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Great.

The motion carries and amendment one is adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

sometimes when you get into the nitty-gritty details, we have waxed poetic, I think, of this kiosk program and this initiative already, but I will simply say that, again, this ordinance provides the final approval for DSA's digital kiosk program, authorizing both SDOT and the term, authorizing both the SDOT term permit and the MOU.

Interactive kiosks are a component of Mayor Harrell's downtown activation plan and DSA makes downtown better.

So I am for anything that helps DSA improve our city for the benefit of all.

We don't leave DSA to fend for itself and support, in my opinion, of this legislation is a signal of support, particularly in phase one, for everything that the Downtown Seattle Association does to make downtown Seattle the best it can possibly be.

And it is also optimistic that these will be extremely, that they will be popularly received and also well positioned in our other neighborhood business districts across the city.

Council member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair, Council President.

I just wanted to say a few things.

One, I'd like to thank the DSA, Mr. Scholes, who's here today, the DSA.

I will not try to match the Council President's love of the DSA, but I am.

I don't think it's possible.

But I am supportive, and particularly with the work of the MID program, which goes to One of the main drivers for my support for this is public safety.

And on the back end is the BIAs.

And I recognize the amendment just passed talked about going to different areas of the city.

Hopefully this could be a motivator for different areas of the city to create their own BIAs because I think that organizational structure of the BIAs as part of their desire to improve the business and economic activity has an underlying requirement of public safety as well.

And again, this is, you know, the front and the back end for this is really public safety for me.

I also wanted to thank Visit Seattle for coming out today.

I appreciate the work that they've done.

Ike, the team there, the mayor's office, and of course SDOT and Mr. Chao from central staff.

We do need to work these issues.

We do need to improve our downtown area.

And I just wanna say one thing, and I think this is important.

I know Visit Seattle, I know the DSA is on point on this.

is that we keep talking about Third Pike and Pine, Third Pike and Pine.

Last week I was out there 6.30, 8.30 at night, Third Pike and Pine, and I see the challenges that we face there.

I was at the convention center, then came back downtown, quite nice.

I've been to Pike Place Market, the Overlook Walk downtown, I mean, and then Alaskan Way, the waterfront.

But we have this challenge.

And we keep talking about it, but nothing happens.

You know what happens?

Microsoft says we're not going to come back to the convention center.

So when we keep talking about these things, we need to take that next step.

And I'm asking questions of different people right now, because we need to get away from the circle that we're in when it relates to Pike and Pine and downtown, the 50-yard line and all this.

To be frank, I'm tired.

Because I've been, like when I was out talking to the residents and businesses, you know, it is painful.

I spoke to this at Public Safety Committee in Chair Common on Tuesday.

And so I'm just taking this advantage of this opportunity to say no more.

I don't want to be here next year, the year after saying, oh, Third Pike and Pine, Third Pike and Pine, because I'm already tired of it.

We're pressing on our strategic framework plan in terms of improving our public safety posture, creating a safe base in our city.

We passed 17 bills already.

We got two more in the pipeline to go to council, resolution and the like.

But we can't be just going like this as it relates to the third pike and pine.

So I have some ideas.

Of course, as usual, as you know, I do a lot of stakeholdering and the like, talking to different people because I don't want to say anything without making sure T's are crossed and I's are dotted.

But we need to think beyond what we've been talking about.

Because we can't keep continuing this way.

That is my public safety, third pike and pine.

I do see the kiosk as being a way to do that, the 911 option, which we'll have, and these other pieces.

And I think it is positive, and particularly with supporting our business community, preferably with the BIAs, because of that function that they have, that organization, that structure that they have.

And I just want to take that opportunity.

So thank you, Council President.

And once again, I do appreciate the work that, particularly outside of government, the work that is being done by Visit Seattle by the DSA.

And in this case, even with Ike.

But lastly, yes, I can never match your love of DSA because it's the benchmark.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you.

Councilman Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your leadership on this.

I have to say that we get asked frequently to do things to help downtown.

Our constituents ask for you know, assistance in making sure that we have a vibrant downtown that they can come down to visit and feel safe.

And this is an example of a private-public partnership to go toward that end, to make downtown safer, more vibrant, and in a way that, you know, the revenue for this is going to go right back to keeping the area clean and safe and all the things.

And the thing is, you know, we try this, and if it doesn't work, then we'll have to pivot to something else.

So the things that we do aren't always set in stone, but we have to do something.

And when we are asked to do things and then things like this are proposed and then we don't try it, it really...

it makes it difficult for us to know, well, what can we do?

So this is to me an example of that.

It's folks are asking and we need to make downtown more vibrant and safer.

We are having challenges.

and Chair Kettle, Public Safety Chair Kettle, you have done so much leading us into passing all these public safety bills and we need more.

So this is, like I said, it's an example of a private-public partnership.

If it works, great.

This is, you know, more of this.

And if it doesn't, then we can be right back here and we will make tweaks to it.

And so to me, it's worth trying.

because otherwise I don't want to be sitting here folks asking us to do something and we're not doing anything because it might be too difficult or there might be some things on the back end that might not work exactly how we would like, then we can, do something on the back end to make things better, but at least we're trying.

And so I will be supporting this today and looking forward to seeing it move forward and then looking forward to having a conversation in the future to see how things are going.

So thank you.

All right, well, I feel like I shouldn't say anything because you've both said, you've both been so lucid and thoughtful.

I will simply note that we have in your inbox many emails of support.

I am aware that there are some people that are concerned about the aesthetics, et cetera, but here's what I would say.

These are the first new things to go in downtown in a really long time.

They represent, to me, they are a reflection of the innovation of this city.

of technology and much of our growth has depended on that sector as well.

But more to the point, the public benefits are key.

And let's not forget that long list, and I won't read them all off, but just a couple of them I will.

which is the second perhaps or equally important reason why I'm so supportive is that our small local independent businesses will benefit from these kiosks providing multilingual information to people who will be traveling to our city from around the world for the World Cup and also provide for free Wi-Fi, et cetera, emergency response, et cetera, et cetera.

So I just wanted to make the point that there are many benefits, but it is kind of putting a stake in the ground.

It's where the silicon meets the road when it comes to improving downtown and moving forward, in my mind.

All right, if there are no other comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the amended bill.

Council member Rivera.

Aye.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council member Kettle.

Aye.

Chair Nelson.

Aye.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you very much.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

Please affix my signature on the legislation on my behalf.

I do want to say one more thing before we leave.

I want to extend a deep thank you to Taman Um, my aide and the committee clerk.

He is out sick, but he has been working on this project from the get go since, probably January or February, 2022, when I first learned about this.

And it's a bummer that he can't be here to share in this moment, but I just want to say thank you also to Eric pitching in today and the whole team out there, DSA, the mayor's office, central staff, Calvin Chow.

Anyway, there'll be more time on Tuesday, not this coming Tuesday, but the following when we take this to full council for a vote.

So if there's no more business before the committee, it is 2.54 and we are adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.

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