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Good afternoon.

Today is January 26, 2026. The council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.01 p.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Lynn?

Here.

Council Member Rink?

Council Member Rivera?

Council Member Saka?

Council Member Foster?

Council Member Juarez?

Here.

Council Member Kettle?

Here.

Council President Pro Tem Strauss?

Here.

Only four present.

Thank you.

And Councilmember Rink and Council President Hollingsworth are excused for the meeting and the other council members are excused until they arrive.

First order of business today are the approval of the minutes.

If there is no objection, the minutes of January 12, 2026 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Moving to the second item of business, the president's report.

I is the council president, Pro Tem.

facilitating this meeting in place of Council President Hollingsworth, who is excused today.

I'll just say for the President's report, what is happening in Minneapolis, in my opinion, is un-American and there must be independent investigations to what has occurred.

I'll quote Obama's now that this is a timely reminder that ultimately it is up to each of us as citizens, our cities to speak out against injustice, basic freedom and hold our government accountable.

Echo your call for all Americans to draw inspiration to the peaceful protest and the peaceful use of our First Amendment rights to protect our democracy.

There's a lot that we're doing here in Seattle.

There's a lot more that needs to be done.

I just wanted to state for the record that what I am witnessing, in my opinion, is un-American at its foundation.

With that, we'll move right into the third item of business, which is the state legislative.

In my report later, I'll share some of my reflections from going down to Association of Washington City's Action Days.

I do want to thank the entire OIR team for setting me up, and I see Councilmember Saka is now present.

Councilmember Rivera is now present just for the record that they're here.

So over to you, OIR, for your update.

Colleagues, I just want to call out that we have the legislative update.

We then have our own regional reports and then three executive sessions.

and so currently we're scheduled to be here I think until 5 or 6 p.m.

If you have questions, if you have statements you'd like to make about policies, feel free to make them, but if you need to get into in-depth conversation, I'd ask that you connect with OIR after the meeting so that we're not here until 8 p.m.

With that, over to you, Director Hashimi and Anna Johnson and Samir Jineju.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members, and welcome, Council Member Foster.

It's wonderful to be here with you for the first time.

I'm Mina Hashemi.

I'm the director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined virtually by my colleagues from our state relations team, Ana Johnson and Sameer Janejo, who you will hear from momentarily.

Thank you for your time.

We are now in week three of the legislative session and there are just 45 days left.

The first two weeks of session were marked by intense activity as lawmakers worked within a highly compressed timeline.

In a short session, bills have only 24 days to be introduced, heard in committee, potentially amended and voted on before they can be advanced to the rules committee and then the floor.

Most House and Senate committees meet approximately a dozen times during this window, which makes time the constant challenge for legislators, staff, and advocates.

In addition to policy, legislators must grapple with the supplemental operating budget.

As a reminder, Washington law requires the governor to submit a balanced budget measured over a four-year outlook, meaning that projected expenditures may not exceed anticipated revenues across that period.

As such, the supplemental budget that was proposed by Governor Ferguson in December seeks to close a $2.3 billion shortfall by combining spending reductions with major one-time fixes.

Now the budget is in legislators' hands and broader legislative discussions are underway about how to address long-term budget pressures at both the state and local levels amid increasing demands for public services and constrained revenues.

Part of this conversation is the much anticipated millionaire tax, which is expected to propose a 9.9% tax on Washington taxable income above $1 million, effective in 2029. The revenue conversation is ongoing as lawmakers work not only to balance the budget over the long term, but to also manage short term fiscal obligations.

And you will hear from the team about more of those revenue proposals today and over the coming weeks.

So with that, I'd like to turn it over to my colleagues Samir and Ana to get into the details.

But again, I want to thank you council members for your engagement.

Good afternoon, everyone.

We'll be going over some, but certainly not all, of the bills that we are tracking, starting with a couple of budget and revenue-related bills.

House Bill 1717, which creates a sales and use tax remittance program for affordable housing construction.

50% of the sales and use tax would be remitted back to the developer, and then 50% would be remitted back to the city, and the city signed in pro on that bill.

Also, speaking of revenue, it's House Bill 2100 sponsored by Representative Scott, which creates a statewide payroll expense tax, including a credit for employers who are paying into the city's payroll expense tax and the city signed in pro.

A few climate and environment bills were heard in the first two weeks, starting with Senate Bill 5965 and House Bill 2233. These bills prohibit the sale and distribution of single-use plastic carry-out bags and also increase the fee for paper bags.

So we both signed in pro for the House and the Senate version.

House Bill 2421 and Senate Bill 6119 is phasing out the toxic chemical 6 PPDQ out of tires over the next 10-year period so that a more environmentally friendly alternative can phase in.

This affects our storm water as well as salmon in our city and state.

So the city testified pro on both the House and the Senate version of this bill.

And then House Bill 2369 creates a local foods for public schools program, increasing the local share of farmed food in our region to funnel to public schools.

And the city signed it in pro and sent a letter to the committee on this bill.

Moving on to General Government, one bill to highlight is Senate Bill 6037 and House Bill 2224, the companion, which concerns fire protection districts.

This bill would allow the city, if they were to create a municipal fire protection district within city limits, It would remove a requirement that the city reduce its property tax levy by the amount that the new Fire Protection District would levy, thereby making that a more attractive option for the city, and the city testified pro on that bill.

Moving on to housing and homelessness, the first bill, House Bill 2489, what essentially prohibits cities from taking enforcement action against folks who are living on public property unless there's adequate shelter space available.

And House Bill 6026, House Bill 2480, is a governor request bill that requires cities to allow residential development in commercial and mixed use zones with an exception for industrial areas.

It also prohibits cities from requiring ground floor retail for residential uses and that part of the bill the city expressed has expressed some concern with.

House Bill 2304 increases the supply of condominiums by expanding the types of condominiums that can be subject to an express warranty of quality, express warranty insurance coverage, essentially making it easier to build stacked flats and the city testified pro.

And lastly, House Bill 2266, which requires cities to allow permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, indoor emergency housing, and indoor emergency shelter in all areas of the city with exemption for industrial zones.

The city signed in pro on that bill.

Moving on to labor and commerce.

A few bills to highlight starting with House Bill 2294 which prohibits negative use restrictions on property that has the effect of limiting consumer access to food and medicine.

This bill was modeled after and similar to the restrictive covenant ordinance that the City Council passed last fall.

The city signed in pro.

And House Bill 2105 is an attorney general request bill which requires employers to notify their employees when the federal government has asked for Employment eligibility information for employees, and the city signed in pro.

And then lastly, Senate Bill 6053 in House Bill 2355 establishes labor protections for domestic workers and takes inspiration from the city's domestic worker ordinance.

The city testified pro on that bill.

For public safety and criminal justice, I'll start with Senate Bill 5855. This bill prohibits law enforcement and federal enforcement officers from wearing face coverings with limited exceptions and requires that all enforcement officers be identifiable to the public.

The city signed in pro on this bill.

And then Senate Bill 5880 and House Bill 1228 deal with the toxicology testing regime in the state and allowing for DUI blood samples to be sent to alternative toxicology labs in addition to the state patrol lab.

This is a city priority from our legislative agenda and the city attorney Erica Evans testified pro on both of those bills.

Senate Bill 6002 is a bill that regulates automated license plate reader technology and ensures driver privacy protections the city is closely monitoring this bill as it impacts our city policy and House Bill 2320 is a bill that is updating the 3D printing regulation for firearms as well as regulating the CAD or the software machines that allow software to be inputted to these 3D printers and making more requirements for the 3D printing and CAD companies around the firearm manufacturing.

and the city testified, or the city signed in pro on that one.

In terms of social programs and education, Senate Bill 5872, a governor request bill, establishes the pre-K promise account in the state treasurer's office in order to accept eligible donations, grants, and gifts to support ECAP, or the Early Learning and Childhood Education Assistance Program for the state.

and the city signed in pro on that bill.

And then also Senate Bill 5940 establishes a foster care housing voucher pilot for those who are aging out of foster care and the city signed in pro on that bill as well.

And the transportation, Senate Bill 6148 is a bill that allows sound transit to issue issue bonds of up to 75 years.

Currently, there are only can only issue bonds that last 40 years, the city signed in pro.

and then House Bill 2307 updates the commute trip reduction law by eliminating definition that eligibility for the program for commuters who commute between the times of 6 a.m.

to 9 a.m.

So it removes 6 to 9 a.m.

from the definition and the city signed in pro.

In terms of this upcoming week, the number of bills to watch out for, but a few will highlight on Monday is the toxicology testing bill.

This is a Senate bill.

being heard in Ways and Means.

On Thursday, a bill prohibiting Washington law enforcement from hiring anyone who was a sworn officer of ICE has a hearing.

And then on Friday, House Bill 2297, which incentivizes grocery stores in underserved areas, is being heard as well.

And then here's a reminder of some of the key dates.

The next date is February 4th, which is policy cutoff, so all bills need to have been heard by February 4th in order to keep moving along, unless there is, unless there's tax and revenue bills, in which case they are not, the deadlines do not apply to those bills.

And that will be our presentation for today and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Samir.

Great work down there.

I see former Council President Deborah Juarez and then Councilmember Kettle have their hands.

Take it away, team.

Thank you, Mr. Acting Pro Tem Chair.

Very quickly, too.

On page 10, you were going pretty quick there on sound transit and the terms of the bonds.

Are you saying 75 years down to 40 or 40 up to 75?

Yes, from 40 to 75, extending the time period.

Okay, so we are going to extend on the bonds.

Okay.

And then on page eight, real fast, not real fast, on Senate Bill 6002 with Senator Trudeau, the license reader, you said that that may conflict with our city policy?

yeah as the bill was introduced and moved out of committee the bill has some regulations that would counteract what our city policy is or essentially run in conflict with what our current practice is and there's a lot of details in this bill so there's a number of areas that that takes place and I'm happy to fill you in now or off the record if they're outside this briefing if you'd like

Okay and very quickly and it's not in your packet but I know that we spoke to the City Attorney and I had the bill number because it changed but we were tracking the prostitution sex trafficking under Representative Stearns I understood there were some issues on whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony so I wanted to know is that still on your radar are we still working through that on public and I don't see it on here

Yeah, that bill did have a hearing within the first two weeks.

It would be in your very long council bulletin.

I forget the bill number right now.

I got two huge ones, two packets.

I got a huge 48-page packet and a 12-page packet.

Is it yeah so we are tracking that bill we did not take a position at the time of the hearing and it is scheduled for executive session this week later this week, and so we're continuing to monitor.

Can you give me the new bill number because I had it this morning.

I can and shoot it over to you via email or teams just give me one moment.

While she's doing that I asked about a bill number before committee started and thank you Ana for getting it to me quickly and I see that my eyes tricked me and I didn't see Councilmember Foster but thank you Director for noting that she is Councilmember Foster's been here since the get-go as well Council Member Juarez any further questions or should we No I'm good I just need the bill number but thank you Mr. Chair thank you guys Wonderful Councilmember Kettle over to you

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Strauss.

I wanted to start with, for Council Member Juarez, Senate Bill 6002. As written, it's very problematic.

The city should be against the bill as written, but I have had productive meetings with Senator Trudeau, and there's been, you know, engagement, positive engagement, and unfortunately, there's a lot of things about the Seattle ALPR program, the Automatic License Plate Reader program, that Olympia just did not know about, or at least Senator Trudeau and this bill did not take account of.

and so as written now, there's major issues with the bill.

But again, we're working with them.

We've highlighted a number of pieces where our bill very much is different from the FLOC ALPR programs that a lot of jurisdictions in the state use.

And so we are working with her office and with others to highlight those pieces and to get language, basically language fixes in there.

because at this point right now it would essentially decimate our program and we need to avoid that.

And again, Director will be working with the team and pretty much everybody on this.

Also in public safety, since we started, I started in public safety with the House Bill 2320. I've met with Representative Barry and others last week, and I wanna say thank you for the hospitality and support that we received while down in Olympia with the OIR team, and of course, my AWC colleagues here on council.

Very important bill.

Top of our list was the toxicology labs, so I'm happy to see all the progress with Senate Bill 5880 and House Bill 1228. And obviously, Senate Bill 5855 with the law enforcement face coverings.

This is a very big topic today.

There's different pieces to this and to the federal law enforcement more broadly that we'll be working.

Separately, I did also want to note A lot of these bills are really important.

HB 2304 for condos, really important for District 7 and for our city.

That we need to basically get the condominium world fixed, for lack of a better word.

And so looking forward to improving that piece.

I understand HB House Bill 2489 on public space local enforcement.

There's a lot of considerations there.

We have to be the devils in the details with that bill, and so hopefully there's nothing that really impedes the ability, you know, ADA considerations, for example.

And plus, you know, this is a discussion that's been ongoing for years now, and we have to have that balance.

And of course, you know, we're pro on House Bill 2100 as written.

I know there's different efforts underway down in Olympia that may want to change that, particularly related to cities.

So we need to be mindful of that bill, make sure it doesn't change in ways that would be negative against the city.

And the last thing is for Senate Bill 5905 and House Bill 2233, the plastic ban, bag ban.

That's like a lesson.

We had our plastic bag ban and it worked really well.

And then all of a sudden Olympia came in with one.

Next thing you know, we have plastic bags all over the place again in Seattle.

Thicker, stronger, yes, but still not really compatible with our system in terms of dealing with and garbage and all the like and it just highlights how we do something, like automatic license plate readers and then all of a sudden Olympia does something and then things are hiccuped and then we have to look for fixes.

So I've been following the plastic bag ban partly because I see parallels and I think it's a case study in terms of we need to be in sync because the unintended consequences are such that it creates additional problems down the line.

Council President Pro Tem that's all thank you very much thank you Councilmember Kettle and thank you to Councilmember Kettle Saka a member of AWC Rivera for all attending AWC action days I can tell you AWC noticed we had a larger delegation last year and they noticed when we were there one person remarked they'd never seen Seattle before I pointed to the fact that Maybe they weren't looking hard enough but it's always great to have Seattle legislators down there.

Ms. Thank you, Council President Pro Tem Strauss.

This morning, I just wanted to reiterate something you just said.

Thank you for acknowledging those of us that were an Olympian.

You and I have the pleasure and honor of sitting on the AWC together on the board.

I very much enjoy our participation, Seattle's participation on the Association of Washington Cities.

I also want to thank Director Hashemi and her staff for being there, Ana and Samir.

I too met with legislators about some of the priorities that the D4 very much cares about.

And I also wanted to add that I also had the pleasure of testifying for a bill that Legislator Representative Davis is moving forward that's gotten what I think to be pretty good bipartisan support and it's the right thing to do and that is that it is increasing some of the license fees for guns in order to use foreign intervention programs so that when kids get caught, young people get caught with possession of a gun, that there's an actual intervention so that they can receive, at that point in time, services in order to get them treatment and other services and that they are monitored so that they have the supports they need not to get in trouble again.

and many of us have talked about the fact that it is so important to provide intervention right away and not wait, in my opinion, five times until a child is caught with a weapon in order to make a robust intervention.

This goes toward that and ensuring that even the first time that they get caught with a gun, that there's a robust intervention and the funding to go along with the services.

So, like I said, I testified in support on that on my own behalf as a D4 council member, but wanted to let you know that that bill is out there.

and that not on behalf of the city of Seattle, but in my own capacity as a council member, I testify in support.

I believe very strongly in that.

And that is an example of something, putting your money where your mouth is to really support kids.

As you all know, guns and kids is something I very much care about and being able to do something to avoid kids having guns.

And when they do, that we're doing an immediate intervention so that they get back on the right path.

So I could speak more about Olympia, but I'll leave it there.

Association of Washington Cities has a hot sheet, which I will share with you all council members via email, which talks about the bills that the AWC collectively supports.

or opposes or signs up as other because there are parts of the bill that have issues.

ALPR is one of those that AWC signed in as other because there were issues including the retention time period.

So happy to also colleagues if you want to talk offline about anything AWC related.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Colleagues, any additional conversation for our state team?

Ana, I see you've got your hand.

Yeah, I just wanted to get back to Councilmember Juarez about the bill she was looking for.

It's House Bill 2526.

No, I don't think it is.

I have House Bill 1265 on page 33.

That may be last year's bill.

There was a new bill introduced this biennium that's very similar.

So the one that's under consideration right now is 2526. Okay.

Well, that's be nice to know if that was in your document that you provided me, which is fine.

Okay.

So that's 20. I'm glad if I can follow up council president, please.

so that's what I thought because I'm looking at this document and it says 1265 and I was thinking that's last year's number but anyway 2526 so so that's still is that's still pending correct

That's correct, yep, it's scheduled as of right now for executive session out of the policy committee on the 29th.

Okay, so I'm, again, maybe this is just dated, it says January 26th though, page 41 to 48. I'm looking at page 41 where you have listed our Seattle priorities, which maybe you should put it in the front.

only because some of these things I remember we put in a resolution and I don't have that in front of me about what we highlighted is to be priorities so how do we determine which ones were the priorities because some of the stuff that I had highlighted for the tribal stuff I see the juvenile recalibrations back in here but I don't see any I don't know how he came to this can we is there an answer for that

There is an answer to that.

I need to get in the document and look at it to figure out why there was the discrepancy on those numbers.

So if it's okay, I'll follow up with you afterward.

If you're finding a priority from the legislative agenda that's not in there, it could be an inadvertent error, but there could be some other reason.

that something happened with the bill or something.

So let me, let me check on that and get back to you.

Okay.

So maybe I can just give you a little help here.

So if you could get to all of us, just cause this is dated 1226. So let's get the correct bill numbers.

But other than that, can we put the Seattle priorities first and then have what that resolution, which we listed cause we all edit it down to what we thought were priorities.

And I was concerned about the Sex trafficking one, I was concerned about the seven ones, the tribal ones that were pending, I don't see in here as priorities.

And I was also concerned about, oh God, now I can't find it in here.

Hold on one second.

Oh, the recalibration of the juvenile points that Senator Kaufman was working on that we ran two years in a row.

and I think there have been some changes to that.

I don't know if that has a new bill number as well.

But if we can have that in comparison to what we pass in a resolution to what our priorities are.

So even if you're not sure, at least I know from the resolution we passed what made it to this document to say where it's at.

because I'm preparing to go down and give public comment either in Olympia or do it via Zoom and working with two or three state legislators and senators in the city attorney's office on some particular language on the criminal side.

So if this could be updated, that would be great.

Thank you.

And one other thing that we might do for clarity, not having the document in front of me, but I think some of the priorities that are on the legislative agenda don't all correlate exactly to a bill number, so we can go through and try to track that, where if it was a broader priority that was identified by the council, we can try to tie it back to a bill if it's not clear.

Okay, so what they used to do, and you can do this or not, is we would get a document that was like a scorecard, and it was our resolution and the things that we thought were important, and it would say, in committee, pass, pending, didn't make it out of committee, has a new bill number, and it was just like a cheat sheet, so I don't have to go through 48 pages to find stuff and also have the wrong number.

So that would be great.

Yeah, we can make something council specific for you.

I think we've got the tracker in front of you that we're using for broader for our departments too.

So if there's too much information on that, we can scale that back.

Yeah, and then can we have a section too for the tribal stuff?

Because I saw that there's a bunch of tribal stuff that I had teed up besides the criminal stuff on the warrants, on the education, on the sex trafficking, the juvenile recount, and I think there was another one I can't remember.

Anyway, we attach that to that resolution too as priorities for the Seattle City Council.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Acting Pro Tem Chairperson.

Thank you, Council President Meritus.

Colleagues, any further questions for the state delegation?

And Council Member Juarez, I'd love to also get briefed on which of those bills I can help advocate for as well.

Thank you.

Any closing comments to our state team or Director of OIR?

I have a question, Council President Pro Tem Strauss, if that's okay.

A follow-up.

Thank you.

Much like my colleague, Council Member Juarez, I'm hoping that, thank you for putting this slide deck together.

It would be really helpful to have a cheat sheet that says where these are in process.

and whether there's opportunity for public comment for these things as they move forward because we don't have a lot of time on Mondays and I appreciate Ana and Samir having the full information and running through it quickly but it is so quickly and it would really be helpful to have that cheat sheet so then we can do our own follow-up in the week in between because I know this is all running so quickly in this 60-day session now much less than that and that would be helpful.

So if we could request that, I really would appreciate that.

Sure, sure.

And our agenda did get quite a bit longer in December, so we are playing some catch-up on how to best get you all the information that is most important to you.

I would like to encourage everyone who's not taking advantage of our one-on-ones that we do with your offices to please do so.

That's a really good time for us to go through each of the bills that are important to all of you.

I think we have those set up with most council members, but if you haven't taken advantage of those, that is a really, that's a good time for us to be able to go through things.

Well, we've got our computers open in front of us.

Amen.

Well, I will take that as the closing comments for today because I agree.

I have found OIR to be very effective and helpful when I reach out and have those standing meetings.

You've heard me with the information I've needed to be successful.

Anything else from Ana or Samir?

Seeing none, thank you for all your work.

I know that a week's worth of work occurs in one day in Olympia.

That's why they call them weekdays.

And just keep up the good work.

We'll see you next week.

Wonderful.

We're going to move on to item four, signing of letters and proclamations.

And I had heard that we have some letters, but I don't see it here in the script.

So I want to double check colleagues.

We have any signing of letters or proclamations today.

Council President Pro Tem, I have a letter, but I was told I was introducing it tomorrow for potential signatures.

So happy to talk about it today, but I was prepared to talk about it tomorrow.

Let's do that tomorrow and that's the source of my confusion.

Thank you very much, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you.

Yeah, we'll move right on in the preview of City Council Actions, Council and Regional Committees.

We're gonna start with Council Member Lynn.

I liked how Council President Hollingsworth made it less formal than the roll call and just passing the baton.

So we're going to start with Councilmember Lynn and then we're going to go to Councilmember Foster and just pass it down to the down the dais, one person to the next.

So that would be Foster, Kettle, Rivera, Saka, Juarez, and then I'll bring it up in the rear as Council President Pro Tem.

So with that, Councilmember Lynn, over to you.

Thank you.

Just in terms of committees, attended the first King County Council Regional Policy Committee this morning.

Mayor Wilson spoke there.

and not a lot of other things to report other than just absolutely devastated by what we're seeing in Minnesota it feels like we are living in a dystopian nightmare not only because people are being killed in our streets by the federal government but also because of the lies that are immediately being shared by the federal government and so I'm sure all of you like our office are laser focused on doing everything we can to prepare it feels somewhat akin to like a natural disaster and I feel like we need to treat it that way but instead it's the federal government that is causing this but I just as as I think about our committee work and our council action plan and to me preparing for ICE is absolutely urgent and our number what I believe needs to be our number and priority and that's what we're focused on and making sure that folks can legally observe in a safe manner because we see the critical importance of video footage to holding our federal government accountable to combating the lies that they are sharing about our community and so that's one thing that I think we certainly need to focus on and then two, making sure that there's accurate information about ice activity because we've seen just our community on super high alert with schools sheltering in place last week and just everybody is super worried and scared and so I want to see what we can do to better share information with our community so that's going to be another top priority that we want to focus on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lynn.

We're going to pass it over to Councilmember Foster and then Councilmember Foster, you can just pass the baton down the line.

Councilmember Kettle will follow you.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

I'm going to be very brief.

I've lost my voice and I'm just getting it back.

So I'll say thank you, Council Member Lynn, for your comments.

I share the way that you were feeling.

I'm sure all of our colleagues do and most of our residents here do.

I know we are receiving a lot of communications from community members with their concerns and that we are working diligently to make sure that we are being responsive here locally in Seattle.

Again, keeping it brief, I'm looking forward to having arts join us in the Housing Arts and Civil Rights Committee for a briefing on Wednesday about their work plan and some of the pain points that they are facing in the arts community.

And tonight I'm excited to be attending India's 77th Republic Day reception.

I know there's going to be lots of other folks there.

And unfortunately, I had to cancel a few community events because I wasn't able to talk over the weekend.

So with that, I will pass it down to Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Council Member Foster.

Hope you feel better soon and regain your voice.

For me, first is Public Safety Committee.

Our next Public Safety Committee is tomorrow and we're gonna have the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office join us and discussing human trafficking and basically give a foundational overview of the crisis that we have in Washington State in this topic, and it's really important in terms of the county and the city and some of the areas that we're facing in terms of this sad circumstance.

And this kind of also plays into a summit on Thursday, a summit on crime survivors and particularly commercial sexual exploitation.

So these two, events this week kind of go hand in hand.

More generally today, and to the topic of Minnesota, obviously I've been engaged with the mayor, the deputy mayor, our new operations manager for public safety, the public safety advisor, a new public safety advisor, and others on the executive team.

plus others in terms of working through the various pieces as it relates to Seattle and then what we need to do as a city to prepare ourselves better, particularly as we go through this period of transition.

And this builds on meetings I've had with the city attorney and others, so working with them, developing pieces.

And separately too, this is important, I had a discussion with my counterpart on the King County Council, because it's really important for the city and the county to be working well together.

So yes, what happened in Minnesota, Minneapolis this weekend, builds on the tragic and unprofessional disgusting in terms of what's happening in terms of the federal government and the people on our streets.

And I think it's important again for us, and I do have an updated statement working related for tomorrow's committee meeting.

We're walking through the pieces of this and what we need to do moving forward.

So yes, and I echo the comments made already as well.

Separately, in terms of topics, had a meeting with our FIFA World Cup, LOC, the local organizing committee, as we get closer, it's getting even closer and closer and very important.

And then separately met with History Link and Densho, some of these important features, these gems that we have in our city to really chronicle our city.

And the Densho piece is really interesting and apropos for today in terms of chronicling when in the past our federal government, when our government generally has worked against our citizens, in that case our Japanese descent, heritage, Japanese Americans among us.

Wednesday, meeting with United Veterans, Civilian Response Veterans for Peace.

Also mentioned on Thursday, the Summit on Crime Solutions related to commercial sexual exploitation and also meeting with the Seattle Public Libraries Foundation.

and then Friday, you know, we'll be meeting with the Ballard Eagles and VFW Post 3063. I'm working with my colleague from the District 6, Councilmember Strauss.

And then for next week, you know, a lot of different things happening related to Evergreen Medical Respite Care in terms of, you know, for those that are on our streets.

Also separately, the Historic Theater District, the Seattle Theater Group, very important.

I'll be meeting with OIR International next week on Thursday, but also the GBSA in terms of issues that, particularly as it intersects with public safety, and then the Cascade Bicycle Club at the end of the week.

And just one last, I recognize it's difficult days in terms of what we're seeing across our country, but on a more lighter positive note, colleagues, I'm happy to announce that I've been named the Grand Marshal for this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade.

And so I'm very excited to be the Grand Marshal and to work through the Irish Week celebration that we have upcoming.

Congratulations.

And with that happy note, I pass it to Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle, and congratulations on that honorific.

Last week, I attended, as I said earlier, the Association of Washington City's Board Meeting and Action Days in Olympia.

I've already reported on some of the work there and the meetings I had.

Last week, I also, we had a day long on Friday staff retreat in my office where we talked about priorities for the D4 and work plan for the year ahead, including committee work.

I had on Saturday the honor and pleasure of attending the 50th anniversary of the Broadview Library.

It was so great to see the passion and support for our libraries.

here in our D5, my friend down the way here.

There was really great representation from constituents in the district at this library.

It was a library that 50 years ago constituents very much advocated for in a very robust way.

There was a sit-in even because funding was allocated and then it was going to get taken away and then they organized and then they advocated, they got the funding, they situated the library, which then was expanded about 25 years ago.

It's a beautiful branch.

Like I said, a lot of community members showed up and it was just an it was really great and as you've heard me say I am so supportive of our libraries.

It is a third place for so many of our residents from kids going for story time all the way up to our seniors who spend time there and so it really was a pleasure to be there and there were so many library staffers there who were so excited to be there on a Saturday.

You know library staff love their jobs it's so clear and it was really so great to see.

So anyway, I'm going on and on about that.

Obviously we have a library's levy we're gonna be looking at later this year and looking forward to working with you all together and further support of our libraries.

So happy birthday to Broadview branch happy 50th you don't look a day over 35. This week we're going to be holding our second LEND committee meeting of the year.

That's the libraries education neighborhoods committee.

The office of immigrant and refugee affairs will be presenting.

I'm so grateful to have them come and give an update.

on their work.

Obviously, many of us have mentioned this.

I will mention it as well.

After the horrific killing of a man by ICE agents in Minneapolis, we're all wondering what we as a city can do if confronted with ICE agents pouring out into our streets.

I do want to say colleagues that as we're all grappling with what to do I want to make sure as I know you all do as well that we're giving residents good information and telling residents what we actually can do versus what maybe we would like to do but are unable to do.

I don't want to give people false hope or confusion, a false sense of security.

That said, I also want us to work together, as I know you all want to work together.

We cannot let the federal government pit us one against another during this time.

And I'm gonna, by way of an example, what do I mean by that?

When I was in Olympia, I had a legislator tell me that her people were getting picked up.

as if somehow I didn't understand what she meant in this sense of ownership, to which I responded, yes, as a Latina woman, I fully understand.

My people have been getting picked up for decades.

So let us not treat each other as other, we need to come together to fight back what we're seeing from the federal government.

So you have my commitment that I will work with all of you as we move forward and look for opportunities to see what we can legally do during these very difficult times and how we're able to protect residents in our city.

from this horrific overreach by the federal government.

But let us not attack each other.

All that happens is we're letting them win when we do that.

I'll say also lastly, we have a quarterly meeting in the district of our community councils this week, which I really enjoy.

I get to hear about what they care about, the challenges and their thoughts and things that feedback on things that they're enjoying that we're getting right.

And I look forward to that engagement.

I always say I am not here for myself.

I'm here for the residents that I help represent and meeting with them is a very important way that we all do that.

So unless anyone has any questions, I'll turn it over to my colleague, Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

First off, I want to start out by acknowledging what happened this past weekend in Minnesota, which is my home state.

It's where I was born.

That's where I grew up for the first half of my childhood until I was about sixth grade.

Then we moved out west, me and my dad.

Our community this past weekend was shaken by another horrific execution style.

The video shows to me murder of another citizen, another resident, another community member.

This person was an ICU nurse who, according to video and eyewitness accounts, was attempting to simply protect a woman and help keep traffic moving when he was viciously killed by federal agents.

Ten shots were fired in his back.

And even more outrageous and appalling than that is listening to the official federal government accounts, verbal accounts of what transpired and contrasting that with the unrefuted video evidence of the incident shocks the conscience.

Videos and multiple eyewitness accounts directly contradict the official federal government narrative.

Our federal government is inserting people into communities across our country and running amok and they're killing people indiscriminately for no reason.

And this comes obviously just on the heels of killing murder of Renee Good under similar circumstances in Minneapolis.

So I appreciate my colleagues' comments on all this that I've heard so far more important than public words, my direct one-on-one conversations I've had with many of you about this as well.

But it's very clear that meaningful steps must be taken to protect all our residents, especially those who are exercising their constitutional rights to protest or simply going about their daily lives.

No one should fear for their life or personal safety while exercising their constitutional rights.

We're trying to do what they view is the right thing.

A little good trouble never hurt anyone.

What happened was completely unjustified.

We need to do better.

Video doesn't lie.

All right.

Well, on a very much lighter note, committee reports.

So, last week, maybe the week before, sorry, we held our, the week before, the Thursday before, we held our first steps committee meeting.

Formal name of the committee, colleagues, as we know, is the Transportation, Waterfront, and Seattle Center Committee, and formally referring to it as STEPS, so Safety, Transportation, Engineering, Projects, Sports, and Experiences Committee.

and in line with that, with safe traffic safety being at the foreground, being first, we had a great presentation from the department, Seattle Department of Transportation on their vision zero, progress against goals.

Appreciate the thoughtful conversation and discussion we had in committee about that important topic.

More to come.

Our next committee meeting will be Thursday, February 5th.

The agenda is being finalized now, but that is the date.

It's what we know now.

With respect to Olympia Action Days, I was down there, I think it was a two-day session.

I was down there for the second day on last Thursday.

I wanna thank my colleagues, council members, Strauss, Kettle, Rivera, that's who I saw that day and there might have been more.

My apologies if I miss anyone, but appreciate the collaborative dialogue and discussion that we had individually and then most importantly with our counterparts and elected peer counterparts at other jurisdictions.

I was able to have some conversations with some elected officials to advocate around a number of priorities, including on the transportation front, traffic and road safety, Vision Zero, Revive I-5, there's some pending funding and asks for the City of Seattle jointly with King County Metro to provide Revive I-5, additional Revive I-5 mitigations, also supporting that that somewhat potentially boring, but very important bonding authority increase that Council Member Juarez mentioned earlier during the discussion with OIR and amongst other things, also supporting the universal preschool for all, additional subsidies for preschool providers, progressive revenue options, including the millionaire's tax.

and foster care housing voucher pilots, amongst other things.

So, important conversations there.

Appreciate the opportunity to join in along.

Couple other community things I was gonna mention, but in the interest of time, I know we have a lot going on, and so I'll just mention one of the things is I had a fun day with scouts and last week in City Hall, I was pleased to host West Seattle Scout Troop 284 at City Hall.

So this troop is over 110 years old.

It includes all genders and ages, races, and with kids ranging from grades six through 12. So, so fun and cool to host these these bright youth at City Hall, give them a tour, answer questions and have them share space that they own and co-own as well along with our other constituents.

So that is all I have.

Welcome any questions, comments from you all colleagues.

If not, I will pass the literal or figurative baton on to Council Member Warris.

Thank you everybody, thank you.

First of all, I want to thank my colleagues for, I wasn't here last week, and I want to thank you for your kindness and support.

You know that I experienced a personal loss in my family and I had to leave town for a week.

So anyway, it meant a lot to me to have my colleagues being so kind and patient while I was gone for a week.

and a lot happened apparently.

Apparently I can't go away for a week without all hell breaking loose.

But anywho, let's get to Seattle City Light in a minute.

The next Parks and City Light Committee is scheduled on February 18th.

And just a brief update quickly, we will be and are prepared for the vetting and confirmation packet when it comes to the second floor.

I have been through this process for the last three CEOs of Seattle City Light, so I kind of have an idea how it works.

Our policy director, Paul, is working with Eric from Central Staff to put together a packet regarding Seattle City Light, and you will have it in your box by close of business as well other stakeholders, so there's no need to PDR.

We'll send it to you if you want it.

The packet includes the chronology, of Seattle City Light, the charter, the background, which is important, and the last three mayoral appointees with the timeline and their CVs, so for the committee and the public and full council can put in context this position as the CEO of Seattle City Light.

As I shared, I chaired and was on the committee for the last three CEO confirmations and search.

including in the packet, you will find the informational packet, the number of FTEs at Seattle City Light, their budget, the revenue in comparison in context with other city departments.

Seattle City Light is the second largest city department.

Seattle City Light produces, generates the most revenue of any city asset.

and Seattle City Light has exactly, I believe, 1,869 Union Strong employees.

And of course, the residents of Seattle as ratepayers are also shareholders.

So we will have a minimum of two, a minimum of two committee meetings as part of the confirmation vetting process.

And there will be public and written comment dedicated to learning more about the anticipated mayoral appointment.

So that being said, it is common practice that we will, as the mayor's office will too, shepherding their appointee on the second floor to Seattle City Council on the committee.

We'll have an opportunity to submit questions to the prospective appointee, which the mayor's office will assist that person in answering them, as is the practice.

but also we'll hear more from the public and we've received a lot of information from the public about the appointee and so we are anxiously awaiting to see the confirmation packet of the anticipated mayoral appointment.

So I would like everyone to just calm down and take a deep breath.

We've done this before.

We can do hard things and you will all be heard.

Okay, this Thursday, Board of Health, it looks like I am on that board with Councilmember Foster and Rink.

And I'm excited to share with, sat on this board before, and former City Council Mosqueda sat on that board with me, and as you know, she's on King County Council now, and she is now the chair of the Board of Health.

So that will be fun and exciting, because she knows her stuff.

So I'm looking forward to that.

Looking forward to Councilmember Foster and Rink doing most of the work.

Yeah, because I've been doing it for nine years.

So God bless and good luck, Councilmember Foster.

Because I think you're going to be vice chair, right?

Yeah, so this is great.

Actually, it is actually a fun board, I'll have to say.

It is.

The Board of Health actually does a lot more than you would realize.

And it's nice to have Councilmember Mosqueda as the chair.

She's a good leader.

Okay, so we will be doing that Thursday, and the meeting includes a briefing on the Board of Health Authority, the 2026 work plan, and the policy to co-design the food access pilot program.

And we also have been working with Representative Farvar on the for covenants and for food deserts.

And when, as you know, when Fred Meyer left Lake City Way, we got a copy of the title.

There was no covenant banning anyone else saying that they could only use the property for a grocery store.

But as you know, Mayor Harrell passed and we supported and worked with legislation that this council passed that those covenants will not be honored anymore and that we believe that food and access to food is a human right and not a property right in the sense that you can regulate and legislate it where people cannot get access to food because the covenant won't allow them to, will only allow them to put a grocery store there and nothing else.

So that being said, I look forward to working with Representative, I'll keep saying Daria, but Farvar, on the legislation that she has pending in Olympia.

And I'm hoping that when we get here back from OIR, we have an update where they're at on her two pieces of legislation.

I understand one made it out of committee and one didn't.

So I guess we'll learn more about it when they come back.

That being said, I think that's it.

Thank you.

Council Pro Tem Vice President Council President Strauss person President Emeritus Pro Tem Thank you.

That was a great update and colleagues.

Thank you for allowing me to take this meeting remotely today.

I will feel like I had a head cold and I did not want to spread it around.

for my committee, Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments.

We will meet on February 3rd at 9.30 a.m.

Two items are on the agenda at this time.

One is the first of two meetings for the appointment of Ali Panucci as Director of the Budget Office.

draft questions around to our floor, the second floor, with a due date of this last Friday.

I have extended the deadline to the end of today or 8 a.m.

tomorrow.

So if you have additional questions, please get them to me ASAP.

Second item will be a vote on the interlocal agreement ordinance for the Seattle Social Housing Developer.

We had a conversation in committee last week In the flavors of interlocal agreements, there are many different flavors of them.

In this case, because it is a passing tax revenue that is collected by the City of Seattle as the collector onto the voter-approved housing need, which is the Seattle social housing developer, there's not a lot of flavors to this type of interlocal agreement.

I have no, from our committee there is no, there are no items coming to full council and my external committee is sound transit.

Line two is highly anticipated cross lake connection between Judkins Park, Mercer Island and South Elview will begin on Saturday, March 28th I can tell you colleagues of the potential schedule of early and late.

This is on the earlier side and that's because Sound Transit has been working hard to make sure that the contractor has been performing on time as contracted.

So this is great.

We do have the new Judkins Park.

Thank you for Council Member Wink for attending in our stead this last week for that exciting announcement.

and Councilmember President Emeritus, Councilmember Juarez, the Pinehurst station will open later this year as well.

For the Association of Washington Cities, as you've heard, along with Councilmember Rivera and Salk and Kettle, attended the Association of Cities Action Days.

As I said, Seattle was noticed for being there.

I think everyone had gotten excited for how many of us attended last year, so I'll put it on your radar a little bit sooner for next year.

We'd love to have as many Seattleites attend.

There's also a conference in June that I strongly suggest attending.

The cross-city collaboration is really meaningful and it was really great to see a fair amount of work get done just by being able to share notes of what's going on in our cities, big or small.

Also, in addition to our Office of Intergovernmental Relations team.

The Association of Washington Cities has Friday legislative calls that all of you as members are able to attend.

So if you are interested in joining the Friday call updates, please let my team know and we'll get you plugged in.

During our time in Olympia, it was great to meet with city leadership within cities and from across the state.

It was great to meet with Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, budget writer, representative Ormsby, Town Transit, regional legislators Castro, Mena, Obras, and many others.

It was wonderful to get to meet with Seattle delegation representatives Alvarado, Thomas, Street, Macri, Favar, Paulette, said hi to Senator Valdez, to see Representative Reed and meet with Senators Freeman Solomon.

So thank you to our legislative delegation for all their work.

As YR mentioned, they've been hard at work.

The most important bill on their list to me right now is Senate 5940 or House Bill 2455 which is the extended foster care housing pilot program which would allow for two years up to 50 youth would be eligible for the program if they are receiving foster care services and experiencing or are at risk of experiencing homelessness.

This is important because we can't just let our responsibility to these youth and their graduation from foster care.

With that, in District 6, I will be hosting a town hall.

It's coming Wednesday, January 28th, 5.30 p.m.

at the Greenwood Library.

We'll also be hosting office hours at my District 6 office, Thursday, February 5th, every Wednesday or Thursday from here on out.

Colleagues, that is my report.

There are no questions.

I'll get to three executive sessions.

unless Council President Hollingsworth has surprised us with early attendance.

I can't see our Zoom screens.

Seeing no further questions and Council President Hollingsworth still excused, we'll now move it and if there's no further business, is there any further business?

You didn't say anything about the Seahawks.

Oh, that's right.

That was the trivia question.

So, oh, well, I guess I gave it away.

If Broadview Library is 50 years old, what else is?

C.

There we go.

C.

C. That's awkward.

Seeing as there's no further business, we will move into the executive session.

As a presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city's attorneys authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure council reserves questions for policy of open session.

I expect the time for the executive session and at 5.07 p.m.

If the executive session is to be extended on that time, I will announce that the extension and the expected duration conclusion of the executive session, this council briefing will automatically adjourn.

Just to make things a little bit more simple, I'm going to state that it will run until 5.15 p.m.

at the latest.

next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is february 2nd 2026 2 p.m council is now in executive session council members please log on to the executive session zoom meeting thank you