Seattle City Council Briefing 7/19/21

Good morning, everyone.

The July 19th 2021 Council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9 31 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Sprouse.

Present.

Herbold.

Flores.

Here.

Lewis.

Present.

Morales.

Here.

Mosqueda.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Swatt.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

State present.

If there is no objection, the minutes of July 12th, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

President's report, I don't have anything to report this morning, so we'll go ahead and head into preview of today's city council actions, council and regional committees.

And then, before we do that, just for the record, council member has joined the meeting.

Good morning council member.

Welcome.

So again, as a reminder, the roll call order for this morning's report outs will start with Council Member Strauss, followed by Council Member Herbold, then Juarez, Lewis, Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion with my own report.

So without further ado, let's go ahead and get started.

Council Member Strauss, I'm going to hand it right over to you.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues and Council President.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full agenda.

There is one item from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the introduction and referral calendar, Council Bill 120127, which will approve and confirm the plot of the, quote, the pines at Northgate, unquote, subdivision.

This will go directly to full council next week, and I'll have more information to share with you at that point.

This is a routine type of legislation where there's limited action that council can take.

The next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is next Wednesday, July 28th, and we have four items on the agenda.

A vote on the 2021-2022 Comprehensive Plan Dockening Resolution, a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan Amendment to change the name of single-family zoning to neighborhood residential, which best reflects how our growing and our vibrant neighborhoods are residential neighborhoods.

Legacy duplexes, triplexes, and quads, and daddos and addos make our single-family zones a more vibrant place than single-family zone necessarily demonstrates, and that's why a change to neighborhood residential is very appropriate.

We will also have a briefing on Council Bill 120121, which will enact interim street level use regulations.

And lastly, we'll have a public hearing and vote on Council Bill 120108, amending the Yesler Terrace Tree Protection Plan to allow for increased tree canopy and the development of vacant lots, which we heard in committee last week.

We previously had planned to hear a briefing from OPCD on the public engagement plan for the comprehensive plan major update process at this July 28th meeting.

Unfortunately, OPCD has informed us that they will need to delay that report.

Last week in my work, I had the privilege of attending the Green Lake Community Council on Wednesday evening.

It was a small town hall where I was asked direct questions by people, and both Paul and Forrest of Green Lake Community Council did an amazing job facilitating.

Mostly, we talked about West Green Lake way north.

I think colleagues I've said this almost every week for the past three months that I'm advocating for a two way protected bike lane along the lakeside of Green Lake West Green Lake way north, and we need to be able to have traffic between 63rd and East Green Lake North, be able to to travel at least during commuting times.

I'm open to temporary closures of the full street on weekends or during special events and we do need to do long-term planning to add sidewalks to the street.

I was able to speak with the mayor about this last week and she shared with me her strong desire to reconnect Woodland Park and Green Lake Park I think we had some differences of opinion in our conversation and I'm sure that we can work them out.

We can absolutely be able to reconnect these parks and allow people to commute during commuting hours and provide infrastructure for bikes so that there's a connected network of infrastructure for people to roll and walk all the way around the lake on the outside of the lake.

Also in Green Lake this last week we had a disturbing report of a death in Green Lake.

Beyond my typical conversation about water safety and ensuring that you have a PFD and you swim within your abilities, there were some other details that were quite disturbing about this and my office is following up to know more and reaching out to the families.

Last week, I also attended the Association of Washington City's Legislative Priorities Committee meeting on Thursday, where we discussed transportation, public safety, and broadband, among other issues at the state level.

I highlighted the need for more funding for rapid acquisition of housing across the state.

For reference, the last legislative session, Seattle asked for $400 million for rapid acquisition of housing.

housing.

The final budget only had 125 million which we know Seattle could use all by ourselves in one year and so there's much more work to do.

We were able to add a rapid acquisition of housing to the AWC priority list because we know that so many cities across our state will benefit from housing acquisition of buildings and Seattle is not here to hoard state resources.

All cities across the state need these resources.

Also last week and continuing this week, I'm holding many and hosting many conversations about the design charrette for Ballard Avenue's Cafe Street.

We're having conversations with stakeholders internal and external to the city so that we are able to create a long-term plan for Ballard Avenue so that businesses are able to have the predictability that they need so that we can have the design consistency so that we have a beautiful street and most importantly so that SDOT and the city can have a framework to reapply this to other places across our city because the cafe street on Ballard Avenue is a success.

There are some improvements we need to make and I hope to see this as a program across the city.

Also this week I'll be meeting with FAS Director Calvin Goings and Budget Director Dr. Ben Noble.

On Wednesday I'll be attending the Regional Transportation Committee and Thursday the Puget Sound Regional Council executive board meeting.

On Thursday, I will also be getting to hand over the keys to the Finney Neighborhood Association, who has officially purchased the Greenwood Senior Center.

Thank you, colleagues, for your passage of the legislation to make this happen, and I'll be finishing up my week meeting with local residents about roller derby and how we can get the roller derby leagues back going faster.

Here in District 6 last week I got to speak to a number of small businesses and SDOT was able to provide assistance to one business that had a street tree that had collapsed from the heat.

So thank you SDOT and Darren Morgan.

I also spoke to many residents about West Green Lake Way North and I'll be looking forward to talking to residents during my weekly office hours on Thursday from 2 to 6 p.m.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, that is my report.

Oh, and lastly, I do a fair amount of work with Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, since they report to my committee, the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

And today, the liaison from SDCI to City Council, Christina Postowate.

It's her birthday.

Happy birthday, Christina.

Thank you, Council President.

That's my report.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss, appreciate it.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we'll go ahead and shift on over to Council Member Herbold.

Good morning, Council Member Herbold.

Good morning.

Hope everybody had a good weekend.

Just starting off with items on the full council agenda.

There are no items from the Public Safety and Human Services committee on the full council agenda today.

As well, I have no meeting this week.

My meeting will be next week from Tuesday.

I just want to bring up one item that is on the introduction and referral calendar.

This is clerk file 314479 regarding facial recognition technology.

This clerk file would designate facial recognition technology as a surveillance technology subject to the documentation and reviews outlined in the surveillance ordinance, Seattle Municipal Code 14-18-020.

Lisa Kay on central staff sent out an email and memo to the full council.

This clerk file is being sent to full council on July 26th.

It is sponsored by myself and Councilmember Peterson.

Just a little bit of background on this clerk file.

In a recent OPA investigation, the OPA concluded that Clearview AI, a facial recognition technology, did not meet the definition of surveillance technology.

And because the OPA director concluded that Clearview AI did not meet the definition of surveillance technology, the officer who was found to be using that technology could not be determined to be acting outside of policy or law.

disagreed that the particular technology was not covered by the ordinance.

Chief Diaz as well wrote to the council that SPD is approved to use 17 technologies under the surveillance ordinance.

We do not currently have any plans to request consideration of new technology or proposed revisions to SPD technologies on the surveillance master list.

The chief went on to say that He reiterated that the SPD did not use Clearview AI and had no intention of using Clearview AI and that he was, quote, committed to upholding the tenets of the surveillance ordinance and the civil liberties of our residents.

Clearview's business product is at odds with those two central priorities.

This clerk file being introduced today is a precaution to ensure that facial recognition technology will be subject to the rigorous process outlined in our surveillance ordinance.

Again, we'll be considering this next Monday on July 26th.

Other items related to committee oversight, just wanting to lift up some information from the Human Services Department regarding food security, which has been a top concern as the unprecedented health and economic crisis created by the pandemic dramatically increased the number of households struggling to put food on the tables.

The city joined partners across King County to increase investments and pivot the work of some employees to focus on increasing food-related services, and they focus particularly on residents disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and economic downturn, including older adults, low-income children and families, communities of color, immigrants, refugees, and unsheltered individuals.

They redeployed more than 60 employees from HSD to work specifically on meal programs from May to July of 2020. And in the first year of the pandemic, More than 1 million meals were provided at over 40 shelters and permanent supportive housing programs thanks to partnerships with Operation Sack Lunch and Fair Start.

Older adults through King County received almost 1 million meals, 950,000 meals from more than 50 meal sites and programs through home delivery and pickup.

And I just really wanna take this opportunity to thank HSD employees and their many community partners who have helped families put food on the tables during this period of time.

And really having this sort of sum up from the Human Services Department on all the really critical work that they have been doing over the last year on food security issues.

Just so council members who are not on the Public Safety and Human Services Committee are aware, last week, the committee voted four to one to move legislation restricting the use of less lethal weapons to the full council.

Judge Robert, who oversees the consent decree, has called for a status conference on August 10th.

We don't know what the subject of that status conference is, But nevertheless, I moved to hold off on a full council vote and until after that date.

So August 16th is the first council meeting after that date.

And again, this is just to ensure that if the ordinance is discussed in the status conference, we will have the benefit.

of that discussion.

I just want to also uplift some information that SPD has recently pushed out regarding the findings report covering 2014 to 2019 data.

We haven't begun review of the report yet, but just want to note that it includes key findings from stops and uses of force over a five-year period of time.

And the report also includes recommendations.

The blotter post notes actions that the department has taken to date to address some of these findings.

And it notes that the department has also launched a new arrest dashboard that shows arrest data.

The important limitation on the data that they note that the stop data is confined to Terry stops.

And you may recall that the council adopted a statement of legislative intent in the budget process last year seeking fulfillment of what is now a four-year legal obligation from the bias-free policing ordinance to include data from all traffic stops.

This has not been done for the past four years.

So the council did pass this slide.

I discussed this issue most recently with the chief's office a few weeks ago.

And again, this data that we're getting from the Center for Policing Equity report is limited, confined to data on Terry stops.

I just want to note a couple of big meetings that are coming up.

Thursday is the first meeting of the Font LeRoy Ferry Terminal Project, the executive advisory group.

This is a group run by the Washington State Ferries Division of WSDOT.

They have a community advisory group and they, because they're planning to replace the ferry terminal, they've begun planning and community engagement taking place through 2023 with design and construction planning scheduled for 2023 to 2025 with construction from 2025 to 2027. And that's what I thought.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Herbold.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Okay, I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Glad I could make it.

I just walked myself out of the house and got back in.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Glad to hear it.

Well, welcome.

This old lady can still scale a fence, let me tell you.

Okay, so we have a few items to share this morning, and I will be brief.

There are no items on today's council agenda from the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee.

At last Friday's special meeting, the committee received a RSJI report from Seattle Public Library, Seattle Center, and Parks and Recreation.

And we also received a 2020 library update on the levy report.

our levy report and that was actually really wonderful to hear all three RSGI reports and the update on the levy.

You will notice on today's introduction and referral calendar and ordinance regarding the Walt Hundley Playfield.

Because this is time-sensitive, it will be introduced today, then voted on by full council next Monday, July 26th.

The proposed ordinance authorizes a property trade of two pieces of land of equal value and size.

My office will be sending out more information in the coming days.

The next meeting of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee will be Tuesday, August 3rd at 2 o'clock.

Regarding parks.

So, Seattle Parks work with coastal Salish tribes to design and place signage at Licton Springs, which is located in District 5 near Bob Eagle Staff School, that includes information on the cultural and historical significance of the springs.

The new signage will be installed this week and there will be a celebration on August 3rd.

Next, the Summer Lunch and Playground Recreation Program, as you know.

The update is that they do provide a meal and a snack plus drop-in activities for kids ages 5 to 18. The program runs Monday through Friday at 10 locations from 10 a.m.

to 4 p.m.

and will take place rain or shine until August 25th.

This week, the program served 619 lunches, 510 snacks, and had 435 youth participants and activities.

Sound Transit.

If you recall, back in the first quarter of this year, we were looking at an affordability gap at Sound Transit, about $12 billion.

And then it went down to $7.9 billion.

And I'm happy to report that now our affordability gap has decreased from $7.9 9 billion to now 6.5 billion.

So hopefully that number will keep going down.

And if we pass the infrastructure legislation that's pending in Washington, DC, hopefully this will bring the number even further down for the close the gap.

So we're now holding at a $6.5 billion affordability gap.

The board will be taking a vote on budget realignment to cover this gap on August 5th.

The mayor and I have proposed amendments to prioritize Seattle projects and Chair Keele's proposal.

These amendments will be discussed at the board meeting this Thursday, July 22nd.

In regards to native communities, I'm happy to report, and I want to thank this council, because this was a budget action last year, the new Indigenous Advisory Council Liaison Staff position will be posted online to the public on July 22nd, thanks to, and I really want to thank the Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Indian Health Board, all the folks that stepped up to give us an idea how and what this Indigenous Advisory Council should look, what the staff position should look like, and what the qualification should be.

So that will be exciting when we can finally fill that position.

My office is working with community partners for a final review of the draft ordinance that creates the Indigenous Advisory Council, which is scheduled for committee on August 3rd.

So let's, more to come on that one.

Sadly it's kind of these updates are just now just coming in fast and furious and I'm kind of glad actually that we're finally getting the national attention that it deserves.

Another unmarked grave site was found in Canada and as you know here we are still working on we finished our draft on the boarding school resolution and it's now under review by local tribes and the national Boarding School Healing Coalition.

So there's more to come on that when we finally finish it with all the comments and instructions from national and tribal leaders.

And with that, that concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Lewis followed by Council Member Morales.

Good morning, Council Member Lewis.

Good morning, Council President.

So there are no items on the introduction or referral calendar from my office, nor are there any items on this afternoon's agenda from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

As a pivot from the committee work, last week I did attend, along with Council President and Mayor Durkan, the meeting of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Board.

At this meeting, we as a board approved the front office staffing plan for CEO Mark Jones, and that work continues to go ahead under their leadership.

And indeed, I do appreciate Mark's energy in making up for the lost time in this process, as everyone knows we are several months behind what the initial envisioned timeline was.

So I do appreciate that Mark has hit the ground running.

and is building out a really good team over there at the Regional Homelessness Authority.

The briefing that was provided calls for a fairly intensive ongoing planning process.

So there will be more updates as that entity gets staffed up.

And we continue to be involved in that process as regional partners.

So I look forward to being able to continue to guide that work as a member of the board and a member of this council.

At the Board of Health last week, a lot of regional meetings last week, at the Board of Health, we had a great panel, including several members of the Overdose Emergency and Innovation Recovery Task Force that this council is also participating in, a briefing on the catastrophic density of overdose deaths here in King County and around the country that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis of counterfeit fentanyl pills, and the crisis that we are just seeing of the intersections between the ongoing pandemic and how that reduces community safety and public health best practices surrounding the prevention of overdose deaths.

We had a really great briefing on a number of different harm reduction strategies around education to recognize counterfeit fentanyl pills, making sure that people have access and unstigmatized access to care in cases where they are at risk of an overdose, making sure more first responders have access to Narcan to be able to effectively administer Narcan to prevent an overdose.

And of course, just updates on a number of harm reduction policies that we in King County and the city of Seattle have pioneered over the last several decades, including syringe exchanges, including treatment models like 1811 East Lake and the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program.

We had a brief discussion about the status of the ongoing regional effort between the Board of Health this council in King County to establish supervised consumption as part of a harm reduction strategy to reduce stigmatization and reduce the amount of overdose deaths.

And I look forward to this conversation continuing.

I'm glad this is a very big part of the scope of work that's been carved out for the Board of Health.

And it was a good presentation to attend.

And I appreciate the attention of Chair McDermott and my colleagues on the Board of Health in pursuing this really critical community concern that is going to be a big issue going into the next several years, even coming out of COVID.

So it was a good conversation and a good panel that was assembled.

Finally, I'm going to be attending the Magnolia Farmers Market this Saturday morning, starting around 10 a.m.

when the market opens.

I regret to say that I will not be attending that farmers market for too long.

I will probably be leaving well before noon because it coincides with a Welcome Back Week event for the Pioneer Square neighborhood, which I will also be attending and which will be running from 10 30 a.m.

to three p.m.

at Occidental Square.

These welcome back weeks are a critical component of our effort to galvanize a return to work and a return to an open and active downtown as we continue to see a phased reopening of our economy here in the state of Washington, the city of Seattle.

I highly, highly recommend that folks come down to Pioneer Square this Saturday from 1030 to 3. There will be live music.

There will be a found fashion exhibition from Path with Art.

And there will be free screen printing and a party hat gallery.

So if everyone's in the mood for a festive Occidental Park, time, do please come down and join me this Saturday in Pioneer Square.

I will also be attending the Sunday Welcome Back event in Westlake Park, that of course being at 401 Pine Street in the downtown core, which is going to be more of a family-friendly celebration, welcome back opportunity.

There's going to be a Halloween in July event, which uh...

you know i know uh...

miss something i probably would have uh...

really twisted my parents are to go to when i was younger uh...

so i i highly recommend uh...

that folks take advantage of these welcome back weeks if you really is part of celebrating uh...

and recognizing what we've been through together and and really what uh...

coming out of this crisis as a community is going to look like, and would really appreciate to see everybody there.

The Sunday, July 25th event will run from noon to 8 p.m.

and that'll be down at Westlake Park.

So with that, Madam President, I don't have any additional updates and I will turn it back over to you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

Any comments or questions on Council Member Lewis's report?

All right, I don't see any hands raised, so we'll go ahead and continue down the line.

Next up is Council Member Morales.

And as a reminder, after Council Member Morales will be Council Member Mosqueda.

I'm so sorry.

I actually, I forgot one last thing that was on my list.

Very important.

And I would never forgive myself if I missed this.

So I apologize for interrupting.

I do want to give a shout out, a District 7 shout out to Unite Here Local 8 on winning a fair and equitable contract after years and years of bargaining and organizing that went from being incredibly concerning and rocky to ultimately being incredibly successful and standard setting in the industry at the Edgewater Hotel.

down on the waterfront of District 7. I just want to give that shout out and congratulate them on that work.

It certainly is a great celebration of what is possible when there is very, very intentional organizing and very strong messaging on the part of dignity and safe standards and equitable treatment for workers and just a great vindication of the power of organizing and the power of our local labor movement.

Congratulations, Unite Here Local 8, great work.

I'm extremely proud of you and very happy to be representing a, continue to represent a union organized Edgewater Hotel.

So thank you so much.

That's great.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, for that additional part of your report.

Okay, next up is Council Member Morales.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

Oh, boy.

It was a long weekend.

Let's see, we have 13 appointments on the introduction and referral calendar this afternoon.

I do have one item on the full council agenda, Council Bill 120123, delaying the effective date of the heating oil tax on heating oil service providers.

There's nothing else from the Community Economic Development Committee on the full council agenda this afternoon.

My next committee meeting is tomorrow at 2pm, and we'll be hearing an annual report presentation from the Office of Arts and Culture on the public art program.

So I'm looking forward to having interim director.

children's in for that.

Last week, as Councilmember Lewis just mentioned, I did attend the Board of Health meeting where we had a briefing on drug user health and harm reduction strategies.

As we've all been hearing, the increase in drug-related overdose incidents and overdose deaths is really alarming.

Much of that has been exacerbated by COVID-19 and individuals using substances in spaces where they're alone, where they really don't have anyone to assist in the event of an overdose.

So I won't go into too much detail about that.

Council Member Lewis did a good job of explaining the conversation we had, but providers did discuss how critically important it is to have options like a community health engagement location, also called the safe consumption site, to reduce harm and to really provide access to medical care.

So looking forward to going into that conversation more with the Board of Health and supporting as a council what we can.

Last week, my staff and I met with business owners in Georgetown, two different parts of Georgetown, to have another conversation about the continued need for more support for trash pickup, for RV pump outs, and really what a lot of business owners are asking for is just basic information about who businesses should call in the event that somebody is in crisis in front of their establishment, especially if they're not interested in calling the police, So my office will be working to organize and make sure that there's an easy way to provide access to a compiled list of information resources available that we can share with businesses, not just in Georgetown, but across the district.

My staff met with the Office of Housing last week to discuss options for temporary uses of the UW Laundry parking facility.

We've been talking a lot about the Mount Baker station area in the last, I don't know, six, seven months.

Community members are really interested in activating the space around that station as much as possible to increase community safety and so we are working both with Sound Transit and with Office of Housing to see what we can do to try to activate the space around there a little bit more.

Last week, I met constituents at the Columbia City Farmers Market.

And most of the conversations that I had there were about the concern for pedestrian safety at the Columbia City Light Rail Station.

Folks are eager to hear from SDOT and from Sound Transit about what they are going to do to increase safety for folks, not just crossing through the station, which is at grade, and You know, people have to cross the tracks to leave the station and get to the other side of the street.

But also what we're going to do at the actual street intersections with regard to pedestrian signal timing.

A lot of people are asking for cameras at those intersections because there are still people speeding down the street.

And as people are leaving the light rail station to try to cross the street, as has happened far too often, People are getting hit through those intersections.

So a lot of pedestrian safety questions.

And my office has got meetings scheduled both with SDOT and with Sound Transit to continue the conversation and really to look for some answers.

We will keep asking until we get some answers about what safety measures are going to be implemented there.

I toured on Friday, my staff and I joined Seattle Public Utilities Watershed Management Division to tour the Cedar River watershed and learn more about this incredible resource that we own as a municipality.

and to learn more about hydropower and our water supply here in the city of Seattle.

So I want to thank SBU.

We also had some folks come out from City Light to patiently answer our very many questions.

So I want to thank all of those folks who really helped us understand what a unique asset the city of Seattle owns and stewards for the people who live here.

As Council Member Lewis mentioned, I was excited to join Unite Here Local 8 last week to celebrate a fantastic win at the Edgewater Hotel.

Workers at the Edgewater have been negotiating this contract for about 18 months and won some really important victories, including a raise for non-tipped workers, pay for the extra housekeeping work that is coming along with trying to keep people safe from COVID, and pay parity across different departments.

They want increased access to health insurance and extensive COVID-related provisions that really keep workers and guests safe and healthy as they are in the hotel.

So I want to congratulate those workers who really demonstrated a lot of grit and commitment and really, as Council Member Lewis said, really demonstrates the power of organizing and using their collective voice to win some important victories there.

Yesterday I attended a welcome back event in the Chinatown International District and thoroughly enjoyed performances by Gray Violet and Young Fuego, who brought his own mosh pit with him.

It was awesome.

It was really great to be back out in community and see so many folks enjoying a beautiful afternoon in the district.

I also attended a block party to raise awareness for the efforts in the South End to build a Youth Achievement Center at the Columbia City Light Rail Station.

I want to thank Councilmember Juarez again for her work in facilitating that transfer of property.

It's not quite complete, but I think it's going to happen.

And it really demonstrates, again, the power of organizing.

The young people of South Seattle have really crafted an incredible vision for what they want to see there.

They want a facility that offers mentoring and you know, job training and programming, supportive services for young people.

And it's a really great example of the kind of community-led vision, community-led development that we've really been working to support as a council.

And I'm excited that that project is off and running.

This week, I'll be joining Councilmember Mosqueda for a community forum on anti-displacement strategies.

This is a perfect example of the kind of project people are asking for.

Folks are certainly interested in affordable housing, but they also want an array of other kinds of services in their community, and they want to be able to lead those projects and keep community members rooted in their community without having to leave for the other kinds of services that are important.

That should be an interesting conversation on Thursday and tomorrow I'll be meeting with folks in the Chinatown International District and Sound Transit to discuss the station area planning that is underway there.

Folks are very eager to be heard about what their priorities are for how that station area planning unfolds.

So lots of district related work and I am through with my report for this morning.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rueda.

It's really appreciated.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right.

I'm not seeing any hands raised, so we'll hear next from Council Member Mosqueda, and then after Council Member Mosqueda will be Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues and staff making this streaming possible.

It's good to see all of you.

A few updates for you today.

There are two items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full council agenda.

These two items passed out of the July Finance and Housing Committee unanimously.

That was July 9th because we met on a Friday due to the holiday.

This includes The Jumpstart legislation that we considered in our committee, Council Bill 120118. This is the Jumpstart Seattle Fund legislation, which accomplishes two important goals.

First, it helps to create more transparency around Jumpstart's revenues by creating a specific fund to track exactly how much the projected revenue aligns with the actual revenue.

These dollars start to come into our coffers in the beginning of 2022, based on 2021 payroll expenses.

And when we start receiving these funds, it's a much anticipated flow of revenue that will help to make sure that we're investing in core government services and critical investments per what this council had passed in its spend plan.

And tracking exactly how much comes in is going to be important as we have made projections north of $214 million.

It will be very helpful to be able to have eyes on that, both from a budgeting process and for transparency with the general public and broad coalition that supported the passage of Jump Start.

The second thing that this legislation accomplishes is it helps to make good on the commitments that we made in that spend plan.

The large coalition of community partners who stood with us as we created a detailed spend plan was a critical component of the passage of the spend of the jumpstart proposal.

Again, colleagues, thank you for every single one of your votes.

The spend plan passed unanimously by our council.

last July and it is an important component of how we make sure that we're investing in housing and permanent supportive housing services, how we're investing in Green New Deal priorities, economic resilience, and our city's equitable development initiative.

So we are excited about the upcoming revenue and we're also very proud of our city for having passed the Jump Start Seattle proposal and the spend plan that went with it initially to make sure that we could provide COVID relief in 2020 and continue the COVID relief in 2021 along with investments in core government services.

All of these investments have helped put Seattle on the map yet again for being proactive in how we pass progressive policies that take care of our most vulnerable and really think about creating more equitable local economy.

The other important component is that having a transparency around these dollars give us the ability to come back to community and show how these dollars are being used for those four critical investments and also ensure that additional investments are additive, that we are truly investing in creating broad systems changes and that we're investing upstream is something that this council will continue to do.

And I think that we are going to have multiple reports coming forth about how these dollars are being used in our community, especially the positive and disproportionately positive impact on communities of color for our BIPOC communities.

So this is exciting legislation that the committee passed unanimously.

And there are two amendments that I wanted to flag for you to for your consideration this afternoon.

You also received a memo from central staff.

Thank you very much.

This legislation in front of us does the amendment in front of us would do two things.

First, It has a recital expressing the council's intent to consider committing additional funds to this year's NOFA.

which is our notice for intent to apply funds to affordable housing funding rounds.

It draws from dollars appropriated for the affordable housing acquisition and development in the 2022 budget.

And it recognizes that there are additional opportunities to ramp up our acquisition and development of affordable housing in the current market, and that we are going to have more legislation to come so that we can act now with urgency to make sure that those opportunities are being turned into housing.

The Office of Housing, just as a little bit of background, currently has around $20 million in available funds for the fall NOFA.

And we know based on projections that expressed an intent for those who expressed an intent to apply for the NOFA, that there's nearly $100 million in shovel-ready projects.

That will need that will be applying for these funds.

So with the jumpstart funding how with the jumpstart housing funds coming online next year.

We do have the ability to forward commit dollars for shovel ready projects this year in line with what the jumpstart spend plan had in mind.

And we'll be working with central staff and our other council colleagues leading up to the budget to create an approach that allows for us to invest now in shovel ready projects, because we need these units of housing to really respond to the crisis that was present before COVID, but also has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

I want to thank Councilmembers Lewis, Councilmember Sawant, Council President Gonzalez for all of your offices expressed an interest in working with us.

And we will have more to come on this concept during the budget and trailer bills to follow.

But that is an important addition in this afternoon's bill.

The second component of the amendment is a request from FAS and the CBO to clarify that the Jump Start 2021 revenue will be deposited into the general fund and not into the Jump Start fund.

that is being created.

And this colleagues is very much in alignment with what the council had intended.

FAS did request this additional clarification just to ensure that our legislative intent was explicitly clear.

And this is absolutely what the council also intended.

And we're happy to make this addition today.

So if you'll remember in 2020 and 2021, The revenue from Jump Start was intended to go into direct COVID relief, the small business, direct cash assistance, immigrant or refugee support, child care support that we did, and specifically into making sure that we shored up core government services.

So that was embedded in our 2020 and 2021 spend plan, and it was funding that we did borrow forward thinking that would have otherwise come from the general fund.

So making this amendment to offer clarification in alignment with what FAS and CBO have suggested is absolutely a friendly amendment.

So those are the two, excuse me, those are the two components of the one amendment in front of you.

And if you do have any questions, please let my office know or Ali Panucci know, along with Tom Mikesell before our meeting this afternoon, and we'd be happy to answer any additional questions.

The second item on today's full council agenda is Council 120113. And this is the MFTE COVID extension legislation that narrowly relates to projects whose timelines have been impacted by COVID.

Multifamily Tax Exemption Program provides tax exemptions in exchange for the creation of units that are affordable up to 80% of the area median income to be included in new multifamily rental housing developments.

This last legislative session, the legislature made several changes to the MFTE program to address a range of program issues.

This specific legislation in front of us is a narrow of that legislation that passed at the state level to follow up on the changes that really try to address if there's any immediate impacts and how we can move forward on a handful of specific projects that are using MFTE so that we can build housing as quickly as possible to respond to the crisis of COVID.

So colleagues, those are the two pieces of legislation on our agenda from the Finance and Housing Committee this afternoon, and I'm looking forward to full passage and consideration.

Our next Finance and Housing Committee meeting will be tomorrow, Tuesday, July 20th, at 9.30 AM.

We'll have appointments to the Domestic Worker Standards Board, including Steve Hooper, who currently serves as the president of Ethan Stoll, who was a strong proponent, as well, of the work that we did on Jumpstart, and also has been involved over the years in our conversations around Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights from the beginning, so appreciate their interest in serving, Marie Gabrielle Rose Rosenbert, who currently is working as a nanny and a nursing assistant in the Seattle area, is interested in serving, along with the reappointments of Silvia Gonzalez and Elizabeth Hunter Keller, who were very active and have served on the Domestic Worker Standards Board from the beginning, looking forward to considering the reappointments.

We will have a briefing.

For members of the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force on Council Bill 120131, this legislation is intended to lift the budget provisos placed on the funds in the Finance General pending recommendations from the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force.

This was the 2021 adopted budget that included approximately $30 million to support these efforts.

We'll have a presentation from the Domestic Workers Standard Board as well from Karina Bull, and we'll have a handful of legislation that relates to upcoming budget items as well.

First is Council Bill 120111. This ordinance proposes the acceptance of grants and private funds for donations for various agencies and organizations.

The second is Council Bill 120112. This is the quarterly supplemental budget and Allie and Tom will give us a briefing on this item before we consider taking any vote.

And lastly, we'll go over the Seattle Rescue Plan 2. This is phase 2 of 3 acts that we mentioned would be considered and we'll get an update from Allie.

So again, that's just a preview of what is to come for later consideration on that next iteration of the federal dollars that we anticipate coming down.

And Allie has an overview of those various funds that the federal government has made available for us.

Also, let's see, you also see that there's many items of importance to us on the agenda.

As always, oh, excuse me, this is an important note for all of our colleagues.

Colleagues, you will see that there's many items on the Finance and Housing Committee that are important to all of you.

And just like we did in the previous months as we considered the Seattle Rescue Plan, if you are interested in participating in any items related to budget and you are not a member of the Finance and Housing Committee, I will continue to be able to bring forward amendments for the colleagues consideration.

If you'd like to work with us or central staff, non-committee members can author amendments to legislation and advocate for them in committee, and we can take up amendments by allowing you to be recognized by me to describe the amendments.

Obviously, non-committee members cannot make a motion or second a motion or vote on the amendments, but I will be happy to bring those forward for you as the author so that you can speak to those.

and I can also make sure that those amendments get posted in advance so our council colleagues can be sure to ask you as non-voting members of the Finance and Housing Committee if they have any questions in advance and then we can get all the information posted and shared.

with the full council.

So again, as it relates to the upcoming Seattle Rescue Plan or the supplemental budgets or even the grant acceptance, if those issues are of interest to you, please let us know how we can help to advance any questions that you may have or any amendment ideas.

And please let Farideh Cuevas know if you'd like to participate so we can make sure to note you on the agenda as well.

Council President, I will summarize with a few items here from the upcoming weeks, unless there was a question.

I'm sorry.

Oh, there we go.

We do have one question.

Council Member Sawant, you have a question for Council Member Musqueda, please.

Thank you.

Not so much a question.

It's in reference to what Council Member Musqueda just said.

I was going to request to attend tomorrow's Finance and Housing Committee meeting.

And as was explained, non-members of the committee can attend and participate in the discussion, but obviously we cannot vote.

And yeah, and the reason I'm requesting is because my office has already requested.

In fact, it's the draft amendment is ready.

I requested central staff and Ali Panucci specifically to prepare an amendment to the supplemental budget to fund The $500,000 that the Garfield block super block project in the central district of 15 year grassroot community efforts needs for the project to become shovel ready that proposed $500,000 can be freed up by reducing the Seattle Police Department budget by $500,000.

I would just recall the promises made by seven of the nine council members here last year to reduce the police budget by 50%, but while that did not happen, there was a promise by the council to reduce the police department budget by $5.4 million this year to account for the $5.4 million that they overspent in the budget last December.

And this $500,000 is less than 10% of that promise.

So I believe this is a very important thing.

And this project is very exciting.

Last week, I attended the Garfield Superblock Party, an event that our office co-sponsored where community members got to see the plans and design for the project, historic and culturally relevant public art installations, site furnishings, improved access, play equipment, a water feature, and an improved restroom facility.

When completed, the Garfield area will be a gem in the Central District, and it's a prime example of how the city must shift money from the bloated police budget to urgent and vital community needs.

The project enjoys broad public support, And working with our office, the members of the Garfield Superblock Coalition have gathered signatures from 506 community members in the last couple of weeks in support of the project.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Swatt.

We'll hand it back over to Council Member Esqueda.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you, Council Member Swatt.

We'll note your participation.

We'll make sure that you have all the information as well.

Last week, I attended the kickoff meeting for the Public Health Director Recruitment Community Advisor Committee.

I'm really excited about this process as we seek to find a replacement to fill the very big and shiny shoes of Director Patty Hayes, who was a longtime friend and mentor.

We are going to be looking for candidates who are ready to step up to the challenges that face our city and our county and have the vision to help lead us forward in the wake of this pandemic.

Also recognizing that public health has been long under-resourced and we need a strong champion in that position who can help make sure that we're We are steering this public health ship towards stability for the next type of crises that is going to hit our city, recognizing we have multiple crises still, both that of the opioid pandemics that my colleagues have spoken to, and also the crisis of racism that our public health board has been very explicit about wanting to address, along with the lack of housing, all public health crises.

I also attended the National League of Cities Human Development Committee meeting, which I am a member of, and it is part of the summer board and leadership program.

I spoke very briefly in the session about the work that this council has done to allocate $8 million towards child care in the wake of COVID.

3 million going directly to providers through an appreciation allotment for each child care provider and also 5 million going for capital and infrastructure and we received a lot of national praise from the folks who were on part of that participating committee and we are sharing the information out so hopefully other cities can continue to replicate that type of direct assistance.

This week I'm looking forward to attending a town hall with Salesforce on Thursday from 1 to 2 p.m.

as we talk about the growing way that our economy is growing in the wake of COVID, but also the need for us to identify additional housing for everyone.

I will be excited to talk about how innovation plus housing is what we should be focused on and really lifting up the information that we saw in our racial equity toolkit that was shared in Council Member Straus' committee last week.

And we'll also be teaming up, as Council Member Morales noted, we'll be talking about the Racial Equity Toolkit in an upcoming community forum this Thursday, where we'll be talking about the both-and approach, both combating displacement and addressing exclusionary zoning, as we kick off a conversation leading up to the major comprehensive plan.

I appreciate Council Member Strauss's leadership in having these committee meetings shepherded into the Land Use Committee.

and the ways in which we're going to be lifting up the need for small businesses, community housing, tenant organizing, equitable planning, and to do these efforts jointly, both addressing displacement and building affordable housing, is something I'm really excited about.

And I know that we will have much more conversations to come, but very excited about that community forum that really builds on that racial equity toolkit and the analysis that we must have additional housing as well as prevent displacement, and we can do both.

as we build towards the comprehensive plan updates, which will come in 2024, preceded by the policy ideas in 2023, which will be preceded by deep community engagement throughout 2022. Finally, on Sunday, I will also be attending the final Welcome Back Week.

And just as a reminder, Sunday, July 25th from 12 to 8 p.m.

at Westlake Park, that will feature a family-friendly programming, including the Halloween in July that Council Member Lewis noted.

I will be dressing up my kiddo, hopefully, in something that's not too warm.

We have a cow outfit and a dinosaur outfit to choose from right now, so trying to choose which one is best for a warm day at Westlake Park and Pacific Place.

And we will also be participating in face painting, dance workshops, and sidewalk sales for downtown vendors.

At 7 p.m.

there will be a secret sunset concert, so that's going to be a lot of fun.

And do wish the Mariners and the Sounders good luck at their home game as well.

Finally, last week my office had the opportunity to stand in solidarity with SEIU 6 in winning their contract, janitorial workers around the city who have been hard working throughout the pandemic.

And on Saturday, July 10th, SEIU janitors voted overwhelmingly to approve the tenant agreement reached by SEIU's sixth janitorial bargaining team and representatives of their new employers.

This contract includes wage increases of up to $3.

$3 an hour over the next three years.

Experienced first experienced janitors, stronger protections or against COVID and higher pension contributions along with no cuts to health care to make sure that janitors and their families continue to have the protections they need.

I'm excited about this contract.

It covers over 4000 janitors in King County.

and it will remain in effect until the year 2024. The total increase in wages and benefits for SEIU-6 janitor contracts over the life of the contract is expected to be over $37 million.

Congratulations to SEIU-6, and thank you to Aretha Basu for representing our office there.

And then just very briefly, Council President, two updates from the FAS department.

They do have, FAS wanted to let folks know that they continue to engage in payroll expense tax training sessions via WebEx.

They've had over 133 participants.

Thank you so much to the participants and FAS.

They amended the director's rules which were recently filed with the city clerks with the first tax return due in January 2020. Very excited about that conversation that they've been having and making sure that the implementation is workable so we can see the much needed and expected Seattle Jumpstart payroll tax revenue start to come in in early 2022. And also the Heating Oil Tax Office of Sustainable Indian Environment has notified FAS of the potential to delay the effective date of the Heating Oil Tax.

The originally effective date was to move from September 1st, 2020 to September 1st, 2021. OSC's proposals would move the delayed effective date for another six months.

Ordinance to extend the effective date will be introduced on July 12th, which was last week.

But I think that Council Member Morales may have noted that last week, just wanted to reiterate FAS is closely tracking that as well.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I appreciate all of the work that my colleagues have also mentioned about the importance of the opioid overdose issues that we heard about at the Board of Health last week and appreciate how quickly we have moved to deploy the $1.3 million that the council had set aside for the creation of the community health engagement location.

We have over the past few years faced some serious roadblocks, both at the national level and locally because of local legal challenges.

So we have moved quickly to allocate the now $1.12 million to drug user health services.

to harm reduction services and public health Seattle King County is in the process of developing procurement for those dollars.

So I think it's important to note not only was the data quite staggering to see and heartbreaking to see the number of lost lives and how many folks have been caught up in addiction and overdoses, especially in the wake of the stress that people have experienced in the last year due to COVID.

But I wanted to make sure that folks also know that the 1.12 million that the council allocated is on its way out the door very soon.

Department of Health received those authority to spend those dollars in late spring, early summer.

And so we are very much anticipating that the millions that the county and the city have jointly put together and are going out the door to address this we're going to continue to work with them to make sure that we don't have a growing crisis.

so I appreciate public health Seattle king county's work to help make sure that that procurement process goes smoothly and that we can help make sure that folks have access to harm reduction services to address the crisis that we heard about in Portobello.

All right, I don't see any other hands raised, so we will go ahead and go down the line next up with Council Member Peterson, and then after Council Member Peterson will be Council Member Szilagyi.

Good morning, Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Our City's Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on this afternoon's full City Council agenda.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 in the morning, and so our next committee meeting is this Wednesday, July 21st.

A quick preview of the 15 items on the agenda for the committee.

We have five appointments to the Seattle City Light Customer Review Panel.

We also have five appointments to the Customer Review Panel for Seattle Public Utilities.

Thankfully, the experienced members of both review panels stayed on long enough to complete their review and endorsement of the multi-year strategic plans of both city-owned utilities, which means these new appointments will focus on future issues.

We will have a public hearing on Seattle City Light's petition to vacate a portion of Diagonal Avenue South, west of 4th Avenue South, to provide to other city departments the land to facilitate completion of the bike and ped trail through Georgetown and an off-leash dog park.

We will receive a briefing on the most recent independent financial audit of Seattle City Light for the year 2020. And spoiler alert, it's good news.

As expected, the audit is clean with no material adverse findings.

We then have our first discussion of three ordinances to implement Seattle Public Utilities rates for 2022, which we already approved by resolution for three of the four SPU lines of business, drainage, wastewater, and freshwater.

The rate for solid waste is already approved for 2022. Both of our city-owned utilities received kudos from the Seattle Times columnist that writes the Rants and Raves column.

They raved about Seattle Public Utilities responding to, in the middle of the night, investigating a water main leak and fixing it, and also a rave to Seattle City Lightworkers on one of the hottest days we had a couple weeks ago, restoring electricity to that neighborhood.

Good news from the Washington State Supreme Court.

Last Thursday, July 15, the court reinstated sweeping changes made to the King County inquest procedures in 2018, providing an expanded avenue for the families of people killed by police to seek answers.

The justices sided with the families of three people killed in 2017, including Charlena Lyles from District 4. One of the key demands of Lyles' family members has been to allow the inquest in that case to proceed, as they reiterated at a vigil I attended for her in June of 2020. The City of Seattle thankfully withdrew its challenge of the inquest process and over a year ago I sent a demand letter to the other jurisdictions calling on them to allow the process to proceed.

The decision by the Washington State Supreme Court was needed to break the logjam and move things in a positive direction.

Lyle's tragedy and many others also reinforced the need for trained professionals other than armed police officers to respond to those who need help in many behavioral health crises, a key rationale for reimagining public safety.

This past Friday afternoon in District 4, I had my office hours again with constituents over the phone.

I continue to look forward to in-person office hours restarting this September.

This past weekend, I joined volunteers organized by the University District Partnership to paint colorful murals to brighten older buildings next to the Ave in the heart of District 4. When visitors to Seattle arrive downtown, when tourists come here, we will encourage them to take the light rail to the funky and fun U District neighborhood, which boasts some of the best restaurants with international flavor, flanked by our world-class University of Washington.

The University District is already open for business and will be bustling when Sound Transit's light rail station opens there on October 2nd.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Sawant, and then after Council Member Sawant, I will conclude this portion of the agenda.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President Gonzalez and council members.

On Friday, my office attended a victories celebration hosted by Unite Here Local 8 members to celebrate their years-long struggle to win a good union contract at the Edgewater Hotel.

In the last couple of years, my office and members of Socialist Alternative have been closely involved in supporting the hotel workers in their fight for a contract that protects good benefits, ensures union protections in the event hotel ownership changes, and provides basic rights and dignity.

I've been proud to participate in delegations with the hotel workers to confront management inside the hotel, and it was wonderful for the union members and their supporters, including my staff member Jonathan Rosenblum, to be able to participate on Friday outside the hotel with ice cream and cake.

The United Workers, mostly women and from all over the world, won because they took a fighting approach to their bargaining.

They unified and took action alongside labor community allies.

They were ready to strike and they demonstrated an unwavering tenacity in the face of management intransigence.

Their example is an inspiration to workers everywhere and an important lesson about how working people need to wage struggle, whether at the bargaining table or to win victories in City Hall.

The Edgewater Hotel workers, along with all hospitality workers, are on the front lines and battling the corporate assault on workers that accelerated during the pandemic.

Many hotel owners we know have used the pandemic to accelerate their push to automate many hotel functions and cut jobs.

My office remains committed, of course, to work with UniteCare members and indeed with all hospitality workers to fight for jobs and for people before profits.

There are no items on today's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

At last Thursday's committee meeting, there were four appointments to the Green New Deal Oversight Board that the committee voted to recommend confirmation of.

However, because the committee was after 12 noon on a Thursday, those items will be on next week's council meeting agenda instead of on today's agenda.

The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for its regular time, Tuesday, July 27th at 2 p.m.

At that upcoming meeting, the committee will continue discussing the three bills from my office concerning rent increases.

And I hope that at the next meeting on July 27th, the committee can vote on the bill requiring landlords to provide six months notice for rent increases.

Currently in Seattle, only two months notice is required.

And as I have informed the committee members before, this bill was originally requested by the City of Seattle Renters Commission.

I also hope that we will be able to vote at the next meeting of the committee on the legislation requiring landlords to provide relocation assistance when they displace their tenants with outrageous rent increases, a process that has come to be known as economic evictions.

That bill was formally transmitted to the Council President's office last Tuesday for introduction, including with the official sign off from the city attorney's office.

So I hope that Council President Gonzalez will agree to add it to the introduction referral calendar soon because the reality is it's a very important bill.

According to data compiled by the Puget Sound Regional Council's transportation survey, there are some neighborhoods in Seattle where over 35% of people move for displacement related reasons, which is overwhelmingly because of rent increases.

Over the past decade, there has been massive displacement and gentrification of our neighborhoods, primarily driven by skyrocketing rents, forcing thousands from their homes, neighborhoods, and often the city.

And in fact, this point came up in, you know, we didn't have the statistic available at that time.

This statistic was presented to the committee by my staff member Ted Verdone at this last Thursday meeting.

But this point came up in other ways where when we were, discussing the right of any tenant to have the right to have the lawyer when they face evictions.

This point came up repeatedly about how many tenants actually end up carrying out a process which has now come to be called a self-evicting because when the rents go up to the point that they know they can't survive there, they end up moving.

In fact, those kinds of evictions, which are also known as economic evictions, are simply not recorded.

This data from the Puget Sound Regional Council is actually extremely important, and it confirms what housing justice advocates and renter rights advocates, including the attorneys who defend the tenants from evictions, have pointed out repeatedly that this is what's happening.

And we know that many of these end up also becoming cases of homelessness.

According to nationally recognized studies, it shows every $100 increase in the average rent in the city results in a 15% increase in homelessness.

And I just wanted to share with the full city council here that in the committee we have had many discussions on both these bills, I believe now up to three committee meetings and at the last committee meeting I appreciate committee members, asking questions.

to both my staff and to the city council central staff on these two bills.

And I'm hoping that we can vote on these two bills, preferably both on both bills on July 27. And we will continue to have conversations with the committee members to make sure that their questions or concerns are being responded to.

We will also continue the discussion about rent control at the next committee meeting.

My office has been setting up information tables around the city to give people the opportunity to get involved in the struggle for rent control and to sign the petition, community petition that we have released and the support that we have been getting throughout the city.

We've tried it in different parts of the city and the support we're getting is really remarkable.

Several council members spoke today about the importance of safe consumption sites.

I just wanted to remind council members that several years ago, the people's budget fought for and won a budget amendment to fund establishing a safe consumption site in Seattle.

And outrageously, Mayor Durkin has refused to spend those funds.

The members of the public may also have seen an excellent op-ed in the Seattle Times on July 16th, authored by Reverend Jeffrey, senior pastor of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, a historically Black church in the Central District.

In that op-ed, Reverend Jeffrey notes that in 1969, the city forced the New Hope Church and Black middle class homeowners in this very area to sell their land under the threat of eminent domain for Spruce Street Mini Park.

The city's establishment at the time sought the elimination of the Central District's vibrant Black neighborhood, which included working people and also Black small businesses.

The politicians at the time set up what they called the Seattle Urban Renewal Enterprise, following policies established in 1959 of creating so-called model cities, which was a euphemistic term that really what it did was spell displacement and destruction for Black communities.

This so-called renewal project was also referred to as the Yesler Atlantic Urban Renewal Project.

Under this program, the Central District's Black community was labeled as, quote, unquote, home to the colored, the poor, the ignorant, the unfortunate, the undesirable, the weak, the undeserving poor, end quote.

And city officials, as I mentioned, used the threat of eminent domain to force the church and the neighboring Black homeowners to sell their property.

And the city then created, quote, unquote, incentives for middle and upper class white families to move into the area to supposedly quote-unquote revitalize the area.

In other words, the city's political establishment committed a stunning outrage, an egregious theft of Black resources, and legalized racist redlining and gentrification.

I apologize for my dog barking.

As I explained last week, my office is working with Reverend Jeffrey and pastors of other Black churches and community members on a resolution calling out how the Yesler Atlantic Urban Renewal Project systematically displaced Black community members from the Central District.

My office has been reviewing the city's archive documents about that racist program, which is one of the many ways that the Black community members have been systematically pushed out of the central area.

At the very least, the city needs to fund the New Hope Family Housing Project as one step towards preventing central area displacement.

The resolution will also make clear that the TaxAmazon movement won funding explicitly for anti-displacement affordable housing in the central area, particularly won by the activism of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, along with a dozen clergy and many community activists and socialists to demand with the city establishment support what they call the central area housing plan.

That funding will be available starting next year and the office of housing should prepare for that funding by including it in the notice of funding availability published this fall.

The resolution will also make clear the city council's intention to do that.

The church in partnership with the Low Income Housing Institute has developed a plan for the New Hope Family Housing Project to build affordable housing for 87 households with community preference for people who have been displaced or are threatened with displacement from the central district.

My office is committed to supporting that project.

And also on Saturday, July 24th at noon, we will be having a community rally and a social gathering near the church to talk about this project and also the resolution.

Last Thursday, my office submitted our legislation to ban police training with the military or police forces of any country that violates international human rights law.

It's a fairly straightforward bill and is plainly needed.

Shockingly, right now there are no restrictions in Seattle law on the Seattle police engaging in training with human rights violators.

The police violence of the last year, starting with the blast balls pepper spray rubber bullets and tear gas that Seattle police directed at justice for George Floyd protesters last summer.

all underscore how urgently needed this bill is and given that Seattle police have in the past trained with Israeli police and military the Israeli state's assault on the people of Gaza this past spring has renewed the community's demand for legislation ending these training sessions with countries that have been found to have repeatedly violating international human rights laws.

And as I pointed out before, this has been documented by mainstream international organizations like the United Nations, Amnesty International, and so on.

This bill has certainly been prompted by past exchanges between Seattle police and the Israeli military and police, but it's not directed just at the Israeli state.

It bans Seattle police from training with the forces of any nation state that has been found to have violated human rights.

At the request of community activists advocating for this legislation, as council members know, my office transmitted the bill for introduction to Council President Gonzalez last Thursday to be referred to Council Member Herbold's Public Safety and Human Services Committee, and many council members have been in contact with community members about this legislation.

over the last 13 months and had meetings with some of the activists over the last weeks.

And now that our office has put forward a specific bill, Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Herbold will hopefully introduce it and schedule it for a vote as soon as possible.

And I look forward to supporting the final passage of this bill, supporting basic human and democratic rights.

And once again, I apologize for the disruption caused by my dog.

Thank you.

Those Huskies, they're so vocal.

They like to talk all the time.

They do, they do.

Well, you revved up your dogs, so thank you for that report.

Really appreciate it.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on Council Member Sawant's report?

All right, hearing none, I think that means it is my turn.

So I will try to make my report as brief as possible.

Colleagues, I have nothing on this afternoon's introduction and referral calendar.

But I do have two items on today's City Council agenda slated for final action.

The first is Council Bill 120120, which would give civil service classification to the five public disclosure officers at the City of Seattle who currently process the public records of elected officials.

And I also have Council Bill 120124, which would create an independent economic and revenue forecast office.

I have discussed both of these bills in several council briefing meetings and of course they were the subject of a Governance and Education Committee meeting last week.

The members of the Governance and Education Committee did consider both of these pieces of legislation and unanimously recommended that the City Council adopt both.

I will make additional remarks and further explanation of both of these bills during this afternoon's City Council meeting for those of you that are not on my governance and education committee.

If you have any questions about these bills, you are welcome to reach out directly to me or to my deputy chief of staff, Cody writer, or to council central staff members to answer any questions that you might have about those bills.

Nothing more to report from my governance and education committee for this week.

On Thursday, July 2nd, the Puget Sound Regional Council Executive Board will have a short business meeting starting at 930 a.m.

to adopt several action items on a consent agenda before we adjourn and convene jointly at 10 o'clock in the morning with the Central Puget Sound Economic Development District Board, the Growth Management Policy Board, and the Transportation Policy Board.

for a special joint session that will be a two-hour workshop on building a foundation for racial equity that will be led by Glenn Harris, who is the president of Race Forward and also a former employee of our very own Office for Civil Rights.

He is going to facilitate the workshop, which is going to focus on how racial equity plays a role in the work of Puget Sound Regional Council and decisions related to transportation, growth management, and economic development.

Looking forward to joining my regional colleagues at that event.

Lastly, I will report that on Friday, we, as a community, received a very heartbreaking decision out of a Texas court on DACA, which is, of course, the protection that is afforded to millions of DREAMers across the country, including here in the city of Seattle, that flows from an executive order issued by former President Obama.

The U.S. District Court rule that DACA is unlawful and therefore the Department of Homeland Security can no longer approve new applicants or accept new applications to the program.

Current DACA participants are able to renew their status.

Again, current DACA participants are able to renew their status, but this decision, of course, is devastating for the millions of undocumented people and mixed status families across the country.

many of whom had expected or hoped to have been able to qualify and apply for the DACA program in the coming year.

And so we, again, are standing with our brothers and sisters and siblings in the immigrant and refugee community to once again call upon our congressional leaders and President Biden to once and for all pass comprehensive immigration reform and create a pathway to citizenship with millions of individuals who are once again found in limbo and are at risk of being separated from their families and separated from the only home that they have known.

So I do hope that Congress will act with urgency to pass legislation that is long, long overdue in this area.

I've had an opportunity to talk about this briefly with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal last week, and I know that she is as committed as ever to lead on this effort on behalf of our community.

And here in Seattle, we stand at the ready to be supportive and to lift up the many voices of our immigrant and refugee community members who are desperate for this final fix to our broken immigration system.

And lastly, lastly, I know I said finally before, I did also have an opportunity to join many of the union members for SEIU Local 6 and Unite here at Local 8 in community on Friday to celebrate the great contract victories that many of you colleagues have already described, so I will not describe them again, but really profound congratulations to those two labor unions and their members for a hard-fought, long-fought victory on a fair a contract for thousands of their members who are workers, families, residents, and contributing members of our community.

So congratulations to all of them.

Colleagues, any other comments or questions before we adjourn?

I am not seeing any other hands raised.

So colleagues, that does conclude our agenda for this morning's council briefing.

I will see all of you at 2 o'clock.

Good night.

Have a good rest of your morning.