Governance, Accountability and Economic Development Committee 3/28/2024

Yeah, that sounds good.

Awesome.

Cool.

Thanks for the heads up.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you all in the chambers for coming.

Okay, good afternoon.

This is the committee.

Let's have some quiet here.

Good afternoon.

This is the Committee for the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development.

This is the meeting for the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

This is the March 28th, 2024 meeting, and it is 2-0-1.

I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee, and will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Here.

Councilmember Hollingsworth?

Present.

Councilmember Rivera?

Present.

Councilmember Saka?

Here.

Chair Nelson?

Present.

Five present, none excused.

Thank you very much.

And I did invite other council members to attend this meeting today, so they might be filtering in as well.

I note that we have an excused absence.

Council Member Saka needs to leave at 3.30, so that is a pre-excused early absence if we don't end by then.

With that, there are two items on today's agenda.

The first is a briefing and discussion on the app-based worker minimum pay standard legislation.

And the second agenda item is a briefing and discussion from the Office of Economic Development on the Mayor's Downtown Activation Plan.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

With that, we'll now move into the hybrid public comment period on all items listed on the agenda.

And we'll call speakers in the order that they've signed up to speak.

We've got several people here.

And so we're going to toggle between in-person and online speakers.

Let's see, there are 20. There are about 20 people that are signed up in person, more coming here.

And how many people are signed up on the remote, please?

Currently, we have 30 remote commenters, Chair.

Okay.

So here's what we're going to do.

Everyone will have one minute to speak, and we will normally public comment period is 20 minutes.

I will extend that.

I will double it to 40 minutes, but I will cut it off then, and anybody who was not able to speak before we get into our items of business will have the opportunity to speak after the last item of business, and this is to accommodate our schedules.

Council Member Gonzaga does need to leave, and I want to make sure that he's here for this discussion.

So everyone will get an opportunity to speak.

We'll start with 40, and then at the end of the meeting, we will continue with our public comment period, because we want to hear from you.

All right, with that, we'll start with our first.

We will call 10 public in-person commenters, and I will call three names and ask you to be ready to come up, and then once we are done with 10, we will move on to the remote speakers.

All right, our first in-person speakers are Alex Kim, Henry Morales, and Jordan Green.

Give me a second, Councilmember.

Should I go here?

Either one of those should work, whatever is most comfortable.

Hi, I'm here in support of the new pay up ordinance.

And has the law provided better pay?

Yes, for me, absolutely.

I compared my best week last year to my best week this year, and I made twice as much money.

So how does the law work?

It makes every offer that we get a good offer that's worth doing.

In the before times, the least we could get paid was $2 only.

So customer tips, restaurant wait times, long lines at the store, traffic, parking, the customer not coming to get the food or having unclear instructions, none of that stuff matters.

Or app bugs or issues, none of that matters anymore thanks to the new law.

And that's a mountain of stress that's gone for us.

Now we can just focus on doing our jobs well, and we don't have to navigate this maze of pitfalls that could rig the system against us to try to make a decent living.

So thank you for your time.

And I hope you side with the workers on this issue and not the 50. Thank you.

I love the new pay structure.

Please say your name before you begin.

My name is Henry.

I love the new pay structure.

I feel like Seattle's the only place in the country where you can actually be paid fairly.

I probably average, I don't know, let's say $25 an hour.

$5 go to my car, $5 go to taxes.

I'm left with $15.

That's basically a minimum wage.

So I know the giga companies charge 30% to the restaurant.

anywhere from 15% to 50% to the customers, plus $5.

I don't understand why they have such a hard problem paying us the minimum.

Like yesterday, I was stuck in traffic for 45 minutes.

I got paid.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have been.

And you just go out and get the orders, multi-app.

It's fairly simple.

It works for me every day.

I've been doing it for two months.

I haven't had a bad day yet.

You just go out and hustle.

That's all you have to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Jordan Green.

I'm a gig worker primarily on Instacart, but in total I have six ventures.

Starting gig work in 2020, being an independent contractor has been a main source of income since.

I'm here in support of the past based worker minimum payment that just went into effect January 13th because I'd love to see these companies being held accountable.

give workers protection when the company is retaliating, and be able to have a livable pay with transparency.

I feel orders may be paying better, but they've inserted outrageous fees.

They've made it difficult for customers to tip, and trying to get an order feels like it's almost impossible.

They're also telling people that we make $26 an hour, which is not true or necessary.

We are the ones putting in the work, driving the long hours, using our own vehicles, paying for our own repairs, paying for our own gas, using our bodies to transport these orders, big or small.

And most of the time the pay was laughable.

I think having a structured system in place, not only protects workers, accountable and hold those accountable and who are making millions and billions off of the backs of us for pennies, nickels and dimes, thank you.

Our next speakers are Kimberly Wolfe, Wei Lin, LZN, I believe, and Sullivan Swamy.

Kimberly Wolfe, gig worker.

$700,000 from Instacart.

That's how much OLS recovered recently from money that had been stolen from the workers and the very economy of our city.

That's money that is now going back into their pockets and our local economy.

It also made it right for previously exploited workers.

This law is working.

I would caution this council against setting a precedent of overturning previous council's decisions, especially since we're not even through the first quarter of the year this law took effect.

If you want to amend the law to make it work better, the only thing needed to correct the situation is to force the companies to not pass the small extra operating expenses onto the customer, restaurant, or gig worker.

It should come straight out of their huge growing profits.

That's the only fix needed for this law.

Before you begin, please have the next person, Salvin or Galvin, please be ready to maybe line.

He wrote a letter to me, so I will speak behalf of him.

But I'm speaking my part right now.

Hi, my name is Wei Lin, and I'm a Go-Gig driver since 2020 for GoPuff and Goobers.

I just want...

I just want to share this, that the Seattle ordinance states that minimum payments protection for us, for the drivers, but the company still so far not doing so by just using the low number instead of the greater number as the Seattle ordinance states.

We all know the Seattle ordinance never asked customer to pay the fee.

and the driver would never ever ask the customer to pay the extra fee for our service.

They passed down, the company does not just pass down the fee to the customer, and also they announced that we are the problems for all the fee adds up and the inflations.

And I just personally couldn't agree more, disagree more.

And I... I just want here today to show that how frustrated before the Seattle ordinance happens, we only make $7.

We're doing exactly same job for exact same hour for exact same times.

And my income is cut dramatically half because of that.

So I'm here to support.

And I'm speaking for the, now I'm speaking for behalf Salman Swamy.

Hi, my name is Salvan Swamy, and I've been a big worker.

Could you hold a moment?

I'm not sure what the rules are for allowing one person to speak for another.

He's, I just respect he's willing that he's not going to speak, but he's here.

Okay.

He's here.

Yeah, he's right here.

All right.

So my name is Selvan Swamy.

I have been a gig worker for almost four years now, working as a gig driver at many trials and tribulations.

I've been seeing several changes occur regarding my pay.

As a gig worker, I'm supporting CB 120294. This ordinance has increased my pay.

I now have opportunity to earn minimum payment for each order from these app companies.

Furthermore, this new ordinance has a dynamic pay structure where we are compensated for our time and mileage.

The issues we are facing with the ordinance is a decline in order values.

The order value is decreased due to the customers not being able to pay the increased costs associated with the ordinance.

The app companies are refusing to pay the new fees and positive costs on the customers.

In fact, the app companies are advising customers that they are charging these new fees due to the ordinance.

As a result, they are pitting gig workers against the customers and creating a divisive atmosphere.

If CB...

gets appeal, it will cause imperable harm to all gigadrop workers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just a reminder, when you hear that ding, ding, that means you have 10 seconds left.

I didn't explain that to begin with.

We will now go to Gary, Rebecca, and Ryan.

Council, my name's Gary Lord Azabel.

Thank you for your consideration today of the changes to be made to this gig ordinance.

Congratulations.

Know the outcome and you'll see the journey.

Thank you for coming along the journey with me, all my fellow bicycle couriers, who have been blood, sweat, and tears every day on the streets of Seattle.

Thank you for the restaurant that came here today.

You'll hear her perspective.

Thank you for the 200 letters from merchants to the city council and to the mayor describing their situation.

Everyone I've spoken to, they're losing money.

And I'll leave you with this.

Thank you.

Bad decisions will inevitably be made

be made it's a part of being in a democracy and that is what's happening today thank you and and going i i appreciate people's uh enthusiasm for the topic that we are discussing um please uh Please don't applause or verbalize in between speakers.

Thank you.

My name is Becky Yoshitani.

My husband and I operate Hurry Curry of Tokyo in South Lake Union.

We rely on a mix of dine-in delivery and takeout to operate, and delivery is a significant part of what we do.

With the start of the new year, we're faced with increasing costs, including minimum wage, which affects everybody on our payroll, not just people at the minimum wage level.

Also, the annual rent increase we get, all our food costs, everything's going up.

We need to increase year over year our delivery.

What we found, and I emailed all of you a chart that showed in the weeks leading up to this implementation of this policy, we were doing about 20 to 40% over last year.

It dropped even, we are now 20 to 40% below where we were last year.

So this is a significant drop for us.

It has totally ravaged our profitability, which is a .

So we really need you to reconsider this, take a look at this, and that's what I have to say.

Ryan.

Hello, my name is Ryan and I'm a delivery driver in Seattle.

And I'd like to start by clearing up some misinformation that's been going on in the media.

The reason for the slowdown in deliveries has nothing to do with this ordinance or $5 delivery fee.

Customers are used to the regular fees that's been in place for the last couple of years.

If they don't get those fees from DoorDash, they'll get it from the restaurant themselves.

This is a seasonal slowdown that's not specific to Seattle.

I could go down to Auburn, Everett, Bellevue during a lunch rush or dinner and still get almost no orders.

Okay, if DoorDash really feels that a $5 delivery charge is the cause of this, just take it away and charge me.

I will pay that $5 fee.

In fact, Uber Eats is doing the same right now.

Safe.

They pay us the difference, and then they take it right back in the form of a service fee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And then Robbie White, please.

And then we'll move on to the remote speakers.

and bring my safety poster with me.

Hi, I'm Robbie.

I'm a delivery customer.

I was before pay up and I remain so after.

I saw the news reports about price increases and compared my orders before and after the legislation.

It was expensive before and it's still expensive now.

I last night placed an order that had $30 worth of DoorDash fees.

I asked my driver Juan how much he received.

It was $12.

We know from history that efforts to increase wages are always met with cries of poverty from bosses and threats to workers.

We also know those are scare tactics.

None of you campaigned on the price of burgers and for a good reason.

You promised to focus your time and energy as legislators on critical issues like the affordability of housing and not burritos.

and certainly not kicking workers down to minimum wage for the sake of rich people out of state.

I urge council to end this embarrassing time so I can focus on homelessness and community issues.

Thank you.

OK, we will now go move on to online speakers and the order.

The first three speakers are Brittany Jarnot, Nick Haight and David Edmondson.

Remember, when you hear the you know, when you hear the when you when you're ready to go, press star six to be unmuted.

Go ahead, Brittany.

Good afternoon, Madam President and members of the committee.

For the record, my name is Brittany Jarnot and I am the public policy manager at the Washington Technology Industry Association.

I'm here today in support of the Council's efforts to amend the app-based worker minimum pay ordinance.

In the fast-paced technology landscape, it's become evident that even with the best intentions, policies sometimes have unintended consequences.

This has come into stark relief since the implementation of this ordinance.

WTIA firmly believes that it's imperative to reassess and adjust policies and regulations to ensure they effectively fulfill their intended purposes.

Moreover, we must ensure that they also foster an environment conducive to innovation, a vital contributor to our city's thriving economy.

We are grateful for the willingness to bring together all parties to consider incremental changes so that all stakeholders in this ecosystem, consumers, restaurants and retailers can achieve a solution that provides progress and prosperity for all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nick.

Hi, my name is Nick Pate.

I'm a gig worker since 2017 and I primarily do Instacart.

I feel it's important to really differentiate the gigs because they're not all equal.

We spend a lot more time and energy on Instacart orders than we do on DoorDash or Uber Eats.

They've also just done a lot of gaslighting in the term of a mass mail-out recently, saying that they've Tips are down, which they are down because they've gotten rid of the option to do so until after the delivery and they made it hard.

Business is down because business is down everywhere.

That's not new.

I've seen them go through many changes over the years.

And I honestly think that since they're forced to be kept accountable for pay, that pay is never going to be better.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

David Edmondson followed by Charlie Latham.

Hi.

For the record, my name is David Edmondson with TechNet.

TechNet is encouraged by Council's efforts to fix the unprecedented delivery pay ordinance, which has negatively impacted the city's app-based delivery workers, retailers, restaurants, and customers.

Prior to the ordinance's adoption, TechNet cussed into the previous council about the unintended consequences, and today we're seeing those concerns come to fruition in the form of lost revenue, lost income, and higher costs.

The abrupt economic impact of this ordinance in just a short time since it went into effect underscores just how vital these services are to Seattle.

Fewer smaller orders are being placed, and delivery workers are waiting longer for those orders and eventually receiving less income and fewer tips.

RECENT STUDY CONDUCTED FOR FLEX AND ASSOCIATION OF APP-BASED COMPANIES FOUND THAT THE APP-BASED INDUSTRY GENERATED $5.2 BILLION IN ECONOMIC IMPACT IN WASHINGTON STATE AND PROVIDED 150,000 WORKERS WITH FLEXIBLE EARNING OPPORTUNITIES, MANY OF WHOM ARE BASED IN SEATTLE.

COUNCIL IS RIGHT TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE ORDINANCE, AND THIS IS AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY FOR THE NEW COUNCIL TO GET THINGS BACK ON.

THE NEXT SPEAKER WILL BE CHARLIE LAPHAM, FOLLOWED BY LIN WIJAYA.

GOOD AFTERNOON, CITY COUNCIL.

MY NAME IS CHARLIE.

I'M THE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR AT MLK LABOR.

OUR LABOR COUNCIL REPRESENTS MORE THAN 150 UNIONS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WORKING PEOPLE ALL ACROSS KING COUNTY.

I WANT TO BE CLEAR THAT THE LABOR COMMUNITY IS OPPOSED TO ANY EFFORTS TO REPEAL OR TO SCALE BACK GIG WORKER PROTECTIONS IN SEATTLE.

especially right now.

It's just months after this law went into effect.

Let's be clear.

Gig companies are using the same playbook that they've used time and time again in response to any efforts to improve the lives of their workers.

They threaten to leave or they retaliate with superfluous fees passed on to consumers.

Their goal is to create this political pressure to get their way.

But in a larger sense, unions are also worried about this being the first step in a series of attacks on our labor protections.

We're prepared to fight back and protect the things that make Seattle a great place to live and work.

This includes minimum wage, health and safety, and funding for the Office of Labor Standards to protect these laws.

Thank you.

Uh, Lynn is currently not present.

Uh, the next three will be Katie Beeson, followed by Marcos Wanlis, and then it's gonna be Naisha Ray.

Madam President, members of the committee, my name is Katie Beeson, Government Affairs Director for the Washington Food Industry Association, representing independent grocers, convenience stores, and their suppliers.

WFIA is encouraged by the Council's efforts to fix delivery pay ordinance.

Our stores are continuing to struggle against the cost of inflation.

The cost of food, fuel, and labor has all increased, and our stores are doing everything they can to keep customers coming back.

Delivery is one of the important ways for them to remain competitive.

except now the new ordinance is deterring customers.

Our CEO, Tammy Hedrick, has previously testified in opposition to the delivery pay ordinance, cautioning the previous council about the negative consequences that would come from its implementation, including a reduction order from our stores.

What you're seeing now is the direct result of this untested ordinance.

This is damaging the economy in Seattle, especially for independent businesses like ours.

We encourage the council to consider fixes to the city's delivery pay ordinance.

Thank you.

Next is Marcos Wanlis.

Marcos, feel free to pitch star 69. All right.

Feel free to jump back on.

And then next we got, oh,

Are you there?

Press star six.

Star six.

All right, following that will be Naisha Ray.

Hi, this is Naisha Ray.

Um, I am here and I'm calling in support of this law.

I am a long time multi app shopper, but specifically I've been an Instacart shopper for the last few years.

Recently I was deactivated due to a glitch that left me off the platform, um, for roughly a week.

It was devastating knowing that I've been so loyal to this company for over five years.

I actually started from the ground up in Seattle and for them to just have the computer fire me for no reason.

When I appealed it, I got nothing but an automated response.

There was no human for me to talk to.

They actually treated me pretty poorly.

They told my family to call them and I said, I'm going to call.

I don't have a phone number.

They basically blocked me from everything.

I have been working for this company for so long and it was very heartbreaking and devastating for them to just cut me off with no incentive.

I would like the law to be kept in place for reasons just for this specifically.

Also, just for all the drivers moving forward.

Thank you.

The next remaining will be John Engber, followed by Ruth Todd, and then to final the first 10 will be Alexander Sanchez.

John, you're next.

President Nelson and committee members, my name is John Engber, and I'm providing comment on behalf of the Washington Retail Association.

We support this council's efforts to fix the city's delivery pay ordinance.

Washington Retail expressed concerns to the previous council about the potential impact of this ordinance on retailers, at-based workers, and customers.

Regrettably, those concerns have proven true.

Retailers and restaurants, especially small businesses, have reported unprecedented order reductions since the new ordinance took effect.

As a result, delivery workers, the people this ordinance was intended to help, had experienced longer waiting times for fewer orders.

Rewriting the delivery pay ordinance is a critical step to helping both small businesses and app-based workers.

We fully support your work to fix the city's delivery pay ordinance.

Thank you.

Next will be Ruth Todd.

MY NAME IS RUTH AND I DON'T WANT TO CALL.

I'M SURE WHY I SUPPORT THIS ORDINANCE THIS WEEK.

MANY SHOPPERS HAVE SEEN A DECREASE IN ORDERS AND LOWER PAYS IN ORDERS THAN MANY OF US CAN EMAIL UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS THAT CAN PAY THAT WERE EXPERIENCED AS MEANS TO COME TO CITY COUNCIL MEETING TO TELL YOU THAT WE DON'T WANT THIS LAW.

HOWEVER, THAT'S NOT THE CASE.

THIS IS ALL THE DEVICE PLAN OF THE PART OF INSTAGART.

THEY HAVE HELD BACK PEOPLE FROM GETTING THEM.

THEY HAVE TAKEN AWAY THE TIP OPTION SO CUSTOMERS AREN'T TIPPING.

THAT IS WHY because businesses is down and it's not.

The last two will be Alexander Sanchez, followed by Robert Singleton, Council President, for the first 10.

Okay, let's see if the previous speaker, Marcos, I believe is his name.

Okay, go ahead.

Alexander Sanchez, you're next.

Thank you, Council Nelson.

My name is Alexander Sanchez, and I I am deeply invested in the gig economy and the principles of entrepreneurship it embodies.

In the last 26 months, I have completed 6,872 deliveries and have been approved with five delivery platforms.

I've built my business around this, and I provide a service to the people of Seattle that is second to none.

And this isn't just a job for me, but this is a huge passion.

I love Seattle and its people.

And I really would like to keep this law, but maybe a few tweaks.

And what I'm really asking today is just to be a part of that.

I have previously sent an email with a couple ideas.

And just something that I'd like to do in the future is to be able to help out the workers.

uh council president the last uh speaker for online will be robert singleton for the first 10. go ahead robert thank you um my name is robert singleton and i'm the director of policy public affairs covering u.s west region at chamber of progress the tech industry trade association that believes in channeling the economic benefits of the innovation economy towards supporting a progressive vision for the future So speaking for you today, thank you for your efforts in consideration of changes to Seattle's app-based worker minimum payment ordinance, which, despite being well-intentioned, has actually led to less wages being paid to app-based drivers because the demand for deliveries has decreased in response to increasing costs.

Your commitment to changing or repealing the ordinance is truly deserving of praise because it's unfortunately exceedingly rare that elected leaders are so willing to engage in substantive changes to policy in the face of new information.

It's clear the ordinance is not working as intended, as demonstrated by the testimony heard today, from apps and companies alike and from drivers.

These changes are necessary in order to realize the original vision behind the ordinance, that is a law that effectively balances the benefits of app-based companies and the flexibility of drivers with moving wage and appropriate compensation for vehicle miles traveled.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much.

The next speakers will be in-person public commenters, starting with, I believe it is Alex Zimmerman, and then followed by John, and then Miguel.

You have one minute.

Please approach the podium.

Yes, I did.

That is disruptive language.

Please do not continue with that language.

This is disruptive behavior.

I am asking you to stop talking.

We are going to turn off the mic.

Where is the problem?

It's absolutely legal.

approved by Ninth Circle and another dozen U.S.

Supreme Court.

Where is the problem?

I don't understand.

Please give me my time because I'm doing absolutely legal everything for 20 years as I come here.

They give us one minute.

Why are you so quiet about this?

They treat you like a slave.

They cost us half million dollars.

We pay them salary.

Half million dollars each.

Hey, I'm going ahead.

No, why are you stopping me?

I'm doing everything legal.

I have 31 seconds.

No, it's everything legal.

You don't be quiet like a fish.

They can do everything to us.

They'll give us one minute.

We are moving on to John and then followed by Miguel and then Lily, please.

You pay them half a million dollars.

Not one person today who supports the pay-up bill has offered a solution to the lack of orders.

There's no evidence that waiting will help.

To say that sales are down because of the season is just plain ignorant.

Complaining about fees solves nothing.

Life is a negotiation.

Facts matter.

I have given the committee exact figures showing how food delivery market is down.

In 2023, I averaged exactly 130 deliveries per week.

Since January 13th, I have averaged 53 per week.

The proposed bill is a great start if network companies agree to remove the $5 fee.

I think it's a good rational compromise that makes sense, and I'm not hearing any better options.

Nothing matters, though, if those fees aren't reduced to pre-January 13th.

Miguel Bautista, and then Lily Hayward.

And remember, when you hear that chime, it means you have 10 seconds left.

Is there someone before me?

That was John.

I'm waiting for Miguel, Lily, and then Kyle.

All right.

Not seeing Miguel, we'll come back to you if you're in the room.

Go ahead, Lily.

Thank you very much and good afternoon, Council President Nelson and committee members.

My name is Lily Hayward and I am here on behalf of the 2,400 members of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce to encourage you to fix the delivery pay ordinance.

When this ordinance was passed back in 2022, its proponents did no outreach to local businesses.

And the results we see today make it clear that all stakeholders need to be engaged in the policymaking process.

The chamber recently surveyed over 100 restaurants in Seattle, and 88% of respondents were small businesses.

97% of them said that their sales have decreased since the ordinance went into effect, and the average reported decrease was 37%.

Eight in 10 of those respondents says that the sales decreased in quarter one 2024 compared to quarter one 2023, which means that this goes beyond seasonal slowdown.

Seattle small businesses already work on razor-thin margins, and good labor and security increases exponentially every year, and so too do the costs imposed by untested and irresponsible policymaking.

Please fix this ordinance today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kyle Graham, and then happy Israel.

And by the way, everyone is welcome to send in your remarks to us in written form if you're not able to finish your comments.

Hello, my name is Kyle Graham.

I'm an Uber Eats driver, Drivers Union member, and District 1 voter.

Uber Eats and DoorDash collectively saw over $20 billion in revenue last year and a 20% increase from the year before.

Yet during this time, they continued to underpay and exploit their drivers.

Now, despite the increased revenue, these companies are refusing to pay these reasonable wages themselves and are instead passing it off to customers with unnecessary junk fees that drive a wedge between the consumers and workers.

Uber Eats has even been extra malicious by removing the tip ask from orders, making customers go back into their apps afterwards to apply any tip, something many people understandably don't think to do.

Despite this, since the ordinance has gone into effect, I have begun to make an actual livable and fair amount daily.

The propaganda and lies I've seen have been ridiculous.

Daily, I see paid for ads that are clearly funded by these companies in order to strike down the ordinance.

Maybe instead of paying for all this ad space, they should pay their drivers a real living wage.

So I am asking the council and specifically to my district representative, Rob Saka, when these companies say we can find another way, remember that they have had years and years to pay a fair amount.

And clearly when it is left up to them, exploitation is their choice.

So maybe they should show anywhere else in the country that they can pay a more fair wage before we here in Seattle decide to listen to them instead of the drivers.

Hello, my name is Happy Israel and I've been driving for Instacart for five years.

This bill was written by workers for workers over years with lots of feedback from many different stakeholders and it is working as intended and it has improved my life and my job and the jobs of the other Instacart workers.

I can't speak for other platforms because I'm only working on Instacart.

I've seen my pay from Instacart increase substantially.

A year ago, tips were making up about 60% of my income because the Instacart pay was laughable, and we were relying on the generosity of customers in order for it to be a living wage.

Last week, tips made up 15%.

There are fewer orders, but every order I see is worth taking.

Now it's a matter of deciding which one fits with where I am.

Before, most of these orders we'd be losing money on.

Please do not change this law.

It just went into effect and it needs more time for all the bugs to be worked out, but it is working and you've done a fantastic job and I'm proud of this city for this law.

Umberto Souza, Josh Sadler, and Katherine Jensen.

I've been working for gig companies for a while, more than five years.

And it's been good for me.

I'm over here with Drivers Union.

And so this bill is good.

So it doesn't need to change anything.

So we are here in support of this bill.

But the increase of this fee is prejudicing us.

I'm not having many orders right now.

I have, like, $3, $6 order.

And, hardly, I have one order about $20.

So, um, just make a note that I'm supporting up this bill, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Thank you.

Who's the last one, Josh?

Okay, so Catherine and then Lynn, please.

And then we'll move on to Josh.

And then Josh.

Did we?

What was the?

Hold on.

Was the last speaker's name Umberto?

Yes.

Okay, so the next person is Josh, and then Catherine, then Lynn, and then we'll move to the remote speakers.

Hello, this is, my name is Josh Sandler.

I represent Mojave Industries.

What happens is I was trying, I put a proposition before you, if you would.

What happens is the proposition was just me trying to see if we can get the officers to patrol the areas, basically like areas that have been troublesome.

I think what happens is it's a way to help out officers, help out officers and whatnot.

I actually was, if you would look at it and give some time, it would be good.

Let's see what it says.

Yeah, what happens is the one.

So this is this gone?

Yes.

So it was just just one Sunday to look at to have you keep some time.

Thank you.

And thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much.

I didn't want to over, I didn't want to mess up your flow, but it is the rule of this committee that per rule 11C3, public comment must be directed to items on the agenda.

So I couldn't quite hear what you were talking about when you spoke, so I let you finish, but that is for the public, the expectation going forward.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is Katherine Jensen.

I'm a driver representative with Drivers Union as well as a former delivery driver.

Many of our members are working for the delivery companies in addition to their other driving work.

I'm here today on behalf of our union in support of the pay up ordinance.

We strongly oppose a rush to roll back wage protections for delivery drivers and encourage the council to consider voices on all sides of the issue.

Since the ordinance went into effect, the companies have colluded to impose junk fees on customers to spur backlash that they are now using as their chief argument for cutting driver pay.

However, if the junk fees are what's driving up prices and fueling backlash, they need addressing, not rights of the drivers.

Cutting minimum wage for workers while doing nothing about the junk fees leaves the companies free to keep imposing those junk fees that hurt customers, vendors, and drivers in Seattle alike.

Our union's experience is that policy is most effective and sustainable when all parties affected are involved in crafting it.

We urge the council to take the time to consider all voices on the issue and resist corporate pressure to rush pay cuts for Seattle drivers.

Thank you.

Hold on, sir.

Did I skip you?

I'm sorry.

The person that got up, did I accidentally skip your...

What's that?

Did I accidentally skip you?

No.

You can sign up to speak later, but we're going to continue with our order.

Sorry.

Yeah, we can put another sheet up there.

Go ahead, ma'am.

Lynn.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for hearing us today.

My name is Lynn Reed.

I'm sharing stories from some of our members at Drive Forward.

We have heard repeatedly how the pay up legislation has not only negatively affected drivers, but has caused widespread detrimental effects to most on-demand drivers.

Eli shared that the influx of drivers looking for higher wages in the city ends up spilling over to adjacent areas, creating oversaturation in those areas as well.

Overnight, he noticed a decrease in offers and loss of earnings.

Allison starts her day south of Seattle.

When an offer brings her into the city, it is exceedingly rare now to get another offer.

Her driver status is not active in the city due to unintended consequences of the legislation, which results in having to travel further to her next pickup point, and thus increasing her expenses.

Joey shared last January it is common to wait 30 plus minutes for an offer to come in.

These are just a few of dozens of stories we've heard from our drivers, and we implore you to make changes to this.

Thank you.

Okay, go ahead with the next.

We will have, go ahead with the next five speakers.

The front line?

Yes.

All righty, the next five virtual speakers are gonna be Scott Jensen, Wei Wen, Alberto Alvarez, Jafar Saeed, and Brandy Hernan.

Scott?

Press star six.

Hi, I'm...

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

Hi, I'm Scott.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Scott Jensen.

I am thankful for listening to me today.

This is new to me.

I want to take this opportunity to speak about the pay up law.

I'm asking the council to please fix this broken law.

As a door-to-door driver since 2020, I turned my dash into supplemental income while I was seeking a new employment, starting my own business.

I recently observed the changes in the amount of time I'm spent waiting for orders and worrying that the situation's getting worse.

Over the past few weeks, there's been instances where I've had to wait up for an hour to receive just one order and sometimes another hour upon completing the order.

I as- Next speaker will be Wei Wen.

I believe that speaker was spoken for earlier by someone in public comment in person.

Thank you, Council President.

Next speaker we'll have is Alberto Alvarez.

Alberto, please press star six.

All right, we'll be moving on.

Next speaker will be Jafar Saeed, followed by Brandi Hernon.

And Alberto, if you are able to jump back on, please let us know and we'll get you on the queue.

Jafar Saeed, you're next.

Jafar, you're ready to go.

Please say something.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Jafar.

My name is Jafar Saeed, a full-time dasher since the pandemic year 2020. I transitioned into this line of work and I have been a dasher for more than four years now.

I found delivering for DODASH to be the most satisfying job I ever had.

Not only does it allow me to provide for my family, but it also grants me the flexibility to remain engaged and supportive within my community.

However, today I'm facing significant challenges that threaten my livelihood, and the livelihoods of countless other doctors like myself.

Recently, I have experienced the long wait times for orders to appear on my app, leading me to drive aimlessly around rather than wait outside restaurants.

Despite my efforts to put myself in a busy area, success remains limited, leaving me feeling as though my income has been taken away.

I urge the council to please fix this helpful ordinance, which not only harms opportunities for youth like me, but also for the restaurant and other drivers.

Please fix this harmful ordinance.

Next speaker, we got Brandy Hernan.

Brandy, please press star six to unmute yourself.

Let's go on to Peter Pak, please.

All righty.

Peter Pak, you are up next.

Hello, Councilman, President Nelson and committee members.

My name is Peter Pak.

I'm the owner of a fast casual Korean restaurant in Seattle for 13 years.

And I just want to express that i do understand the intent of the the new ordinance um and do respect um you know the minimum wage but um just want to express our negative impact that it's had on our business um our orders have been down about 40 50 percent on this year um and it has significantly reduced our our sales along with as a result we've had to significantly reduce our staff our staffing hours, which has significantly impacted everyone just in general, including the drivers, which we've come in a relationship with, and they've also expressed the negative impact it's had on them.

So please, council members, please.

Thank you very much.

Has that been five online speakers?

Yes, I see that Alberto Alvarez is still online.

Please press star six, and then that'll be the last one.

Okay.

Go ahead, Alberto.

Oh, hello, hi, sorry about that.

My name is Alberto, I'm a driver.

I think I just wanna make it clear, no repeal on this law, it's working.

The problem is the fee, the problem are the corporations, and the problem is greed from these corporations.

No repeal, everything is working.

For the drivers that are doubtful of this, just drive out of the city, look for, in not even five minutes, drive around, you'll get orders for $2 or less, maybe $3, maybe $5, but you know how far you'll be driving?

10 to 12 miles, that's a reality.

No repeal, keep this law, it's working.

keep the money local because the 40 000 drivers in the region we are paying rent we are you know our expenses and so on so forth no repeal support the pay the corporations are the problem and the fee that is the last five are the the second wave of the five council president

Okay, so I am going to end public comment as I noted for this time being right now.

We do have one, two, we have about five people that are still listed online, and I believe five people left signed up.

So we will do that after this item is addressed so that Council Member Saka can take part in this discussion.

Okay, so I have said...

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Let's do that first.

Agenda item number one, app-based worker minimum payment overview briefing and discussion.

All right.

So let me make sure that everybody realizes right now this is a discussion.

We do not have legislation before us today.

You've heard me say pretty much every time, ever since the first public comment speakers began raising the issue to our attention, what was happening.

I believe it was Gary who is in the audience today.

He appeared on King 5 and then appeared in public comment the Tuesday following to talk about loss of income as a result of this wage, and we've heard public comment in every single council meeting, at least the full city council meetings and sometimes another council meeting since then.

So we are aware of the impacts on drivers and it's been a little bit more difficult to hear from small businesses because at this time in the afternoon, it's difficult for small business owners to come and give testimony.

I will thank the small business person that spoke earlier today and just we, some of us were copied on an email that was sent to Mayor Harrell just this morning that said, talks about disruption to business.

This is from Spicewalla who has been in business for about six years.

One of the biggest disruptions we have seen in our six years in business is the decline in our delivery business through third party providers.

Our business has relied on 30 to 40% of our sales coming from delivery partners and this year itself we have seen a 30 to 40% dip in that delivery business.

It has immediately taken us from barely profitable to unprofitable.

This is a huge impact as the revenue we receive from deliveries helps us sustain our employees living wage and benefits program.

There was a member from the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber who did give a couple top lines of the results of a survey of small businesses, and I believe that she mentioned that 70% have less than 20 employees.

And she noted that, let me see, and this was also, I believe, shared with some people, over 100 restaurants, nearly 7 in 10 with 20 employees or fewer in the city of Seattle responded to this survey.

97% of respondents reported a decrease in app-based delivery sales since the ordinance went into effect.

And those respondents were reporting sales decline by about 37% in the last 10 weeks.

And it goes on with more data points.

Interestingly, when asked what else they would like to share with the chamber, 97% of the respondents said that they wanted the delivery pay ordinance repealed.

And we have heard that from the drivers that have spoken to us in chambers as well.

So the options as I see them on the table right now is do nothing.

fix the existing legislation or repeal the legislation.

And the first option is not an option, as far as I'm concerned, given the catastrophic impacts that we've been hearing about for so long.

I'm not really sure what the executive's position is.

I do know that they are waiting for or that they would like more data from the app-based network companies to justify the increased costs that customers are seeing that is driving down customer demand.

I don't know how long that will take, and I feel a sense of urgency.

So that is not really an option for me as well.

And like I noted, the repeal has been spoken of often that would be That would be a big step.

So today we have option two before us.

And we will hear from Jasmine of Central Staff and Michael Wolff of Drive Forward.

For the past few weeks, the network companies and the drivers as represented by Drive Forward have been in talks uh negotiating some proposed um changes to what was originally drive forward's recommendation when this legislation came to council in 2022 i remember it because it was it was put forward and rejected back then and in those early council meetings i kept mentioning my concern about the impacts of the the pay up as it was branded back then the pay up legislation on drivers restaurants, and the customers that are ordering from these delivery apps.

And so here we are again.

This proposal has been brought forward with feedback from the network companies.

And we will hear first today a presentation of the existing law from central staff so that everybody is on the same page on what exists currently.

And then we will hear Michael put forward some of the elements of the proposal that is before us.

My hope is that we can come to a resolution quickly.

One of the problems is that this is complex legislation and there will need to be some review and we do not yet have legislation before us.

But without further ado, please present yourselves and walk us through your presentations.

Sure.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha on your council central staff.

Good afternoon.

My name is Michael Wolf.

I'm the executive director of Drive Forward.

And today my presentation will go over the background as Council President mentioned to what we're talking about today.

I'll attempt to summarize the current law in effect, which as you can see has multiple elements and then elements within those elements.

And then we'll switch to the current context, at which time Michael Wolff will present some of Drive Forward's surveys and what they're hearing in terms of the current context.

And then we'll switch back to me to go over the stakeholder proposed revisions.

And colleagues, I do want to ask that you hold your questions until central staff's presentation is done, or at least until you get through some of the main points.

The meet of the, or the summary of all of the combined proposals is on page 27, and so let's go through some of the initial, let's go through your presentation, but they're all together on that one page, so go ahead.

And I'm also always happy to follow up after the presentation, after the meeting with questions and conversation as well.

So yes, and then we'll end with the next steps.

So I should also note that my slides are pretty meaty.

And in the interest of time and where appropriate, I will summarize things at a high level and then have provided more details in the slides so you have them for reference.

Okay.

Okay.

So first off, as part of a grounding for this discussion, here's a simplified overview of app-based work using on-demand restaurant delivery as an example and hopefully illustrating some of the terms that are used in the ordinance.

This slide I added and may be posted to the agenda already.

If not, it will be posted after the meeting.

So basically what happens, my understanding is that customers place an online order on the network company platform, which goes to the network company.

The network company presents offers to the app-based workers to fulfill the online order, while the online order is also going to the restaurant to make the sandwich or whatever.

And then the app-based worker chooses to accept or reject that offer.

They then, if they accept, they then go pick up the order, and then deliver it to the customer.

The goals of the ordinance, as it currently stands, were to ensure minimum payment plus expenses for each offer, each of the yellow arrows that you saw, as well as to ensure workers have transparency, that they make informed choices about which offers to accept, and to verify compliance with the pay standard and other rights.

In addition, the goal of the ordinance was to ensure flexibility.

It was intended to protect workers' flexibility, including the right to freely choose jobs and hours, while maintaining the company's ability to provide services to end customers and third-party businesses.

As already noted, we're here today because there are questions as to whether the ordinance has lived up to these goals.

All right, so who are we talking about here?

Who's covered?

The ordinance covers app-based workers, those who use network companies to receive work assignments or offers, and those who accept a paid offer to perform those services in Seattle.

A covered network company is one that has more than 250 app-based workers worldwide, connects customers with workers, presents offers to workers through the app, and also companies that set rates of pay and monitor the workers' mileage and the time that they work.

and just want to give credit where credit is due.

This graphic is from the Office of Labor Standards app-based workers protections flyer.

I wish I was as good at making graphics.

Okay, so slide five, here we go.

The app-based worker minimum pay standard.

Here's a summary of kind of what are the different components of the minimum pay.

When considering this policy, there was at the time seemingly little debate that app-based workers should be paid minimum wage app-based value.

The question was whether companies should also be responsible for getting workers up to an equivalent minimum wage as if they were employees without opining on their independent contractor status.

That meant for the ordinance, accounting for payroll taxes, on-call time, rest breaks, mileage expenses, and other factors that are accounted for in the multipliers you see here, the associated costs, the associated time, and the associated mileage factors.

In following slides, I'll get into the details around each of these factors.

First, we have the associated cost factor.

This was intended to account for costs or benefits that an employee wouldn't otherwise have to pay for.

In other words, the associated costs of being an independent contractor.

The items listed here are some examples of factors that could make up those associated costs.

And some of these items are things that are directly paid by the app-based worker, like the payroll tax, miscellaneous expenses, paid family medical leave if they opt in.

And then some items are ones that an employer would have paid for if the worker was an employee and the additional amount was intended to provide some calculated benefit in the form of additional compensation in exchange for not having access to those benefits.

So it was a little bit, it wasn't an exact calculation, arrived at more from an art, as an art versus a science there.

And the associated cost factor that council ultimately landed on was 12%.

The associated time factor was intended to account for additional time workers spend in between offers that relate to their work.

That includes time reviewing offers, communicating with network companies and customers, relocating in anticipation of future offers in case they go deliver something to an address far away from other restaurants or places where they could get more offers that would account for time to come back.

conducting administrative tasks and taking rest breaks.

And that associated time factor was 17%, which means that for every hour or so working, it was assumed that about 10.2 minutes would be taking up with that work associated time.

And again, that was arrived at in conversation with stakeholders and not necessarily from exact figures.

All right, the mileage expenses.

The mileage expenses are set at the standard mileage rate that's been established by the IRS.

In 2024, it's 67 cents per mile.

The associated mileage factor was intended to account for additional miles traveled outside of the specific offers needed to perform the work.

So that means the mileage expenses incurred when relocating in anticipation of future offers, taking rest breaks, or finding a restroom.

And that mileage factor is set at 10%.

All right, so here we are pulling it all together.

It's $0.44 a minute and $0.74 a mile or $5 as the minimum per offer amount.

And the network company must ensure that the worker receives either that minimum pay standard or $5, whatever is more.

The payment is for an offer's engaged time and engaged miles.

For on-demand offers, where a performance is expected within two hours of accepting the offer, the engaged time and miles begins upon accepting the offer.

until the offer is completed or the offer is canceled by the company, the customer, or canceled by the worker with cause.

So it's, the payment is when they're, is for when they're actively, for a delivery service would be when they're actively delivering.

All right, it's time for a little math.

So let's say app-based worker at EVW accepts an offer to deliver from Jasmine's restaurant to a residence in Seattle two miles away from the restaurant.

The app-based worker drives one mile to the restaurant and spends a total of 30 minutes from the offer acceptance to delivery drop off.

they will be paid $13.20 for the engaged time, $2.22 for engaged miles for a total of $15.42 for that offer.

And that is assuming that the orders are not stacked, meaning if a worker is fulfilling multiple offers at once, the minimum payment is sort of calculated across the orders.

But for an individual, if we're talking about an individual offer, they'd be paid that amount.

All right, so that's the minimum pay.

The transparency standards include upfront disclosures and then receipts after the offer.

So first, we'll discuss upfront disclosures.

The network company has to disclose this list of items, which I may not, in the interest of time, want to sort of read.

Yeah, summarize or go on.

Okay.

And I will note that you'll see in the proposal that some of these will be reduced or removed.

So it's good reference to have going forward.

And then the slide 12 relates to the receipts required after the offer.

So within 24 hours, After each completed or canceled offer, there's a receipt given to the worker as well as a customer, you know, and there's a, in the ordinance, it lists out the specific items needed and there are some proposed changes to that.

There's also a weekly receipt to the worker to itemize their completed and canceled offers and the associated pay and other details.

In addition, the transparency standard includes disclosure to OLS of records to administer, evaluate, and enforce the provisions of the chapter.

Currently, OLS is undergoing rulemaking to determine the specific affirmative records that they'll be requiring.

And then we have the flexibility standard here.

The app-based worker can't be punished or subjected to an adverse action for limiting their hours of availability or rejecting offers.

The network company cannot restrict when an app-based worker can be logged into the app, except under certain instances of deactivation or when necessary to limit first worker safety.

And the app-based worker can't be subjected to an adverse action for canceling offers with cause.

And that is also defined in the ordinance.

Okay, so we have the current context.

I'm going to turn it over to Michael in a second, but in essence, the ordinance went into effect January 13th.

The network companies raised delivery fees and service fees, and some added a Seattle-specific fee.

There have been reports of fewer customer orders and longer wait times for workers to receive their offers, impacting their earnings.

There have been other reports of worker earnings remaining steady with fewer offers and even other reports that we heard today of worker earnings increasing.

There have been proposed revisions by stakeholders, which I will get into after we have the presentation from Drive Forward.

I will note that I am responding to the overwhelming reports that we have heard up until now of problems since implementation.

And I recognize that we have had information from the contrary, but we certainly have a lot of other work on our agenda.

We're supposed to address homelessness, public safety, housing affordability, and then deal with an upcoming budget decision.

So I believe that I speak for my colleagues that we are responding to an overwhelming number of reports that there are things to be redressed.

Good afternoon.

Council President Elston, thank you, and members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to present today.

Today, I just want to talk about the minimum payment law, what its intent was and still is, its impact, and how we move forward from where we find ourselves today.

But I know that some of us, many new members here on council who have probably not heard from us very much before, and so I just wanted to quick give a brief introduction There it is, sorry.

Give a brief overview of who Drive Forward is.

We are a gig worker-led organization formed in 2015 by a group of activist rideshare drivers, including myself, responding to another piece of legislation that the city council put forward then.

We are a nonprofit membership association with 2,500 members across the state.

Our mission is to shape the future of communities by supporting, educating, and advocating for independent gig workers.

We primarily provide valuable educational programming to help our members run successful businesses and to adapt to changes in our industry.

Along with our networking and social events, which allow members to share their experiences and information, our mission is to build a stronger gig worker community.

Additionally, we firmly believe all gig workers should be treated fairly, not just by the app companies, but also by government and the regulators.

I want to quickly talk about what the intent of the minimum payment law was when it started back with the stakeholder process, which we were involved in in 2021. I think Jasmine covered most of these, but it was to effectively create a minimum payment standard tied to minimum wage, reasonable cost reimbursements to boost sub-minimum wages of the workers.

It was intended to include transparency rights and flexibility rights around these key tenants.

However, back then, the process through which this law was drafted, discussed, and passed was not a fair hearing of all voices.

As a result, aspects of the law that were clearly problematic remained in the legislation.

Because of those problematic aspects, the following actions were taken when the law became effective on January 13th.

The companies imposed the regulatory fee, as we've already heard.

Some companies moved consumer-facing tipping in their interface to after-order completion, which caused a lot of consumers to tip less or not all.

They ended some very popular worker incentive programs, and then the customers faced higher prices.

They reduced their numbers of orders.

And also, we saw a flood of new workers into Seattle because of the promises of higher wages.

The impact of all of this was devastating to many app-based workers.

I do want to talk quickly before we talk about the impacts about how we can measure different impacts of this legislation.

The first would be by data, but unfortunately, the network companies are always very reluctant to release their data, normally citing competitive reasons, which makes data-driven decisions much harder.

We did collect some anecdotal evidence, many worker stories from those who were impacted by the unintended consequences in this law.

We found that on-demand workers told us of the most severe impacts to their earnings and ability to make ends meet.

Other workers mentioned that they were less impacted, if not doing better, because of the way those apps that they worked for were designed to work.

Those apps didn't change from before the implementation to the app after implementation, so those workers ended up better off.

that generally Instacart, Amazon, Flex, because of how those apps work.

However, that does not mean that the impacts are equitable.

They're not.

Unintentionally, the city council and these regulations you know, created a market winner and loser amongst the workers in pay up.

So we also conducted two surveys, one in 2021 and one in 2024. So we can get a good comparison of where we were then when this was all begun to where we are now.

So first of all, let's look at pre-tip earnings.

In this slide, you can clearly see the impact of on pay up of pre-tip earnings, which everyone agrees should be above the wage of 1997, which is Seattle's minimum wage.

But pre-tip earnings are down 36% from inflation adjusted numbers for 2021. This corresponds that 80% of our survey respondents reported somewhat or significantly fewer offers being available.

But before we move on, I wanna point something out on that chart.

That's gonna be consistent on the next two pages.

The top line in every chart will always be the 2021 inflation adjusted dollars.

The bottom line is always the 24 numbers because that's how bad it's been.

So when we look at tips, Again, you can see that it's down 50% compared to 2021 inflation-adjusted dollars.

This correlates with the 64% of survey respondents reporting a decrease in frequency of tips.

Total compensation is down 11% to 50% compared to 2021 inflation-adjusted earnings.

Some are even below minimum wage.

That's with tips below minimum wage.

Pre-tip earnings is a percent of minimum wage.

The red is 2021. The blue is after 2021. The 100% line running across, that represents minimum wage.

As you can see, almost everyone in 2024 is earning below minimum wage before tips.

Almost everybody.

In 2021, that wasn't the case.

So wait time and hours worked.

Wait times, you can see from the graph there at the end, many drivers are reporting waiting more than 30 minutes between offers.

Also, the hours, many people are working over 50 hours a week now that they weren't, just to try to make ends meet.

So, you know, these are all the impacts that we're seeing, you know, with at least survey data that we could gather.

You know, we also had anecdotal evidence.

I know you heard from my colleague Lynn in public comment, but these are some more of the stories we were told by our drivers.

Andrea noted losing half her income.

Matt underscored how bad the flood of new drivers in Seattle has been.

Sally illustrated the lack of tips.

And finally, Terry, who's doing better because he works for Amazon Flex, acknowledged the impact to his fellow drivers.

It is not the regulator's job to decide which workers are going to win or lose.

The law must treat everyone fairly and be balanced.

So where do we go from here?

I think it's important that we have to align the intent of the law with the impact of the law.

I know Jasmine will be continuing in a moment with how that can happen and the proposal that was made.

But I want to remind you first of what the original intent was.

You notice that that's the exact same slide as before.

The intent hasn't changed.

And I don't think there's a stakeholder in this room that doesn't agree that this is the intent of what we want to do.

So I will just say that I strongly believe that with the changes that Jasmine's about to tell you, we can achieve the results we all wish to see, which is app-based workers being paid a fair wage above minimum wage.

And I'll be happy to take any questions after Jasmine finishes her presentation.

I think now, just because of time constraints, I would like to just pause a moment and see if there are any questions up to now, either on the current law or on this presentation.

Go ahead.

I missed a page.

I'll get back to it.

No?

Okay.

Please continue.

We're just changing over here.

Pardon?

Just give us a minute.

I have to reshare the first presentation.

Yeah, I think we're getting it.

Okay.

Okay.

So I should preface this by saying that the stakeholders sent this proposal a couple of days ago.

And so central staff has not necessarily had time to evaluate or even like package this in a way that may be best digested.

But we did our best to at least put what the proposal was on the slides and to do, and we'll do our best to summarize as well.

And I can go, Chair, should I just gonna go through this or do you want me to go to the summary slide first or?

Should I just go through the details?

I'm trying to figure out if...

Why don't you go to the summary slide?

Well...

In the interest of time?

Sure, go ahead.

Go to the summary slide, please.

So, I have a takeaway slide towards the end.

Sorry, there we go.

And in this version, which will be posted to the agenda afterwards, I have made a slight update where I put the slide number on each bullet point.

for where you could find more details.

So this is just sort of like a one-page summary, which may not capture every single change, but sort of captures kind of the...

what I've identified as like the main takeaways.

So apologies in advance if there's something missing from here.

And, you know, definitely by the next committee meeting, we'll have a more detailed...

presentation and analysis of each of the changes.

But for purposes of today's conversation, I'm just kind of getting an overview of what the proposal is.

We can kind of go through this bulleted list and I'm also happy to take questions.

I know Michael is here as well to take questions on maybe the intent behind some of these.

So the first big change would be to mostly reduce or actually remove a lot of the minimum wage adjustments that I talked about, the associated cost factor and the associated time factor and the associated mileage factor.

And then also to reduce the mileage rate from the IRS rate to 35 cents a mile.

So, the resulting minimum pay standard would be $19.97 an hour and 35 cents a mile.

And the specific changes language would be on slide 15. And the other change would be that engaged time or the time that is paid would be calculated when a worker is en route to perform the offer instead of upon acceptance.

Now, my understanding is that for most offers that are like, for example, restaurant delivery, you are en route pretty much as soon as you accept the offer.

But there are other cases where there's more of a delay between the acceptance and actually driving to pick up something or to perform the offer.

And in those cases, you would be paid when a worker has indicated that they're en route.

The current ordinance that's in effect right now does provide payment for offers canceled with cause.

The change that is being proposed is that there'll be no payment for offers canceled with cause unless a customer substantially changes drop-off location after the item is picked up.

And you can see, again, see that specific language there on slide 16. Another big change is that earnings are offered over a pay period instead of per offer, meaning that, and the pay period can be any time up to 14 calendar days.

So let's assume that a pay period is two weeks The company can pay, can assess whether the worker has reached the minimum pay standard over the course of multiple offers across the two weeks, and then if needed, adjust accordingly to ensure that across those hours and miles that they've got the minimum pay standard.

The current ordinance has the calculation be at each offer.

That combined with incentive right now, incentives and bonuses must be in addition to the minimum pay standard.

The change being proposed by stakeholders is that incentives and bonuses can count towards the minimum earning standards.

It's possible that a network company across a two-week period will see maybe they're not quite up to the minimum pay standard and they can use incentives and bonuses to get them up to that standard and beyond.

Can you pause there a moment?

Because Michael, when you put this forward, why is this better than what exists right now with the way that the ultimate pay per offer is...

is calculated and delivered because it took me a while when you presented this a couple years ago to get my mind around the fact why is a pay period based and minimum pay per hour engaged better.

So could you please?

Yeah, I think the principle here is the idea is that the worker is never going to fall below minimum wage, right?

And so at the end of every pay period, if the calculation is made, hours plus miles comes out under minimum wage or under that calculation, then the company has to bump them up, true them up to what that standard is.

And if the worker's been able to make more than that, they get to keep everything.

The reason why I think it's important to do a per pay period instead of a per offer is the per offer then fixes costs on that offer and allows no flexibility in maybe promoting one offer with a higher payment than another offer because that offer may be something that's less desirable to some app-based workers to accept in the first place.

And then that provides better customer service and also probably lowers costs to the company so that they can get to the point where they can remove that $5 fee, right?

And that's one of the goals of Drive Forward here.

We've asked the companies three things.

Remove the Seattle regulatory fee, bring tipping back to the front, and bring back the very popular incentive programs that the app companies offered previous to the implementation of PayUp, such as the Top Dasher program from DoorDash.

We've heard from our workers over and over again that those were very important to them.

May I ask just a question?

Thank you, Michael.

I just want to confirm that the $19.97 per hour is actually a current minimum wage in Seattle.

Yes, it is.

And then the mileage is in addition to, and the mileage allowance is not calculated as part of over the two-week true-up, if you will.

Bonuses and incentives are, but not the mileage.

They still get the mileage.

No, the mileage is part of the calculation, just like it was in the previous law.

Oh, it stays the same.

Thank you.

Oh, I had a quick question, Council President, sorry.

Okay, go ahead.

No worries, I'll lower my hand on the screen.

A quick question, when the law was first initiated and it was decided that TaskRabbit was pulled out of like those types of those apps, Why wasn't it considered your batch ordering Instacart and Amazon Flex differentiated from on-demand ordering like Uber Eats and DoorDash?

My understanding is that at the time, I think part of the reasoning was that the sort of more on-demand companies or the non-marketplace apps it was set the rates of pay and the workers had less sort of bargaining power to set the pay to account for some of the expenses that they incurred.

Whereas in marketplace apps, they were able to set rates of pay.

And so at the time council members decided that they were less in need of these protections.

Got it.

So it's rates of pay.

And monitoring.

Monitoring that on TaskRabbit, you can kind of set what you, you know, what your fee is.

But then this is kind of a subset to that, understanding that like a batch ordering process of Amazon and Instacart is different potentially than an on-man process.

As we're seeing in this law, the impact of it is impacting a subset differently than the understated.

Okay, thank you.

And just to give more context, that was one of the problems with the original bill was that it was a one-size-fits-all regulatory framework that would apply to so many different kinds of businesses, different models.

So the TaskRabbit and the Rover and the services, the...

what I would call, called marketplace companies, but they were primarily services, very different from a delivery batch or otherwise were removed.

And that is why I ultimately voted for the legislation is because we were able to come to an agreement on removing those companies, but there are still very different business models that this impacts.

Go on.

Yes.

Madam President, if I may ask a quick question before I have to depart, unfortunately, and join our colleague, Councilmember Moore, for an engagement.

So, a lot of, so thank you both, and thank you for your work, looking at a potential fix for the challenges here with this current law and its current form.

It sounds like, you know, understanding the lineage and history of this ordinance, there are canaries in the coal mine, so to speak, warning of some unanticipated consequences or unintended consequences potentially anticipated consequences.

And I think we're seeing some of that right now.

But regardless, here we are.

We have a proposal.

I think, you know, personally, I would love to, you know, have more time to study the underlying texts of the proposal.

And I think central staff would probably appreciate that as well.

But where we're at now, And I appreciate all the time and thought that's been in the collaboration that's been put in to proposing the fix here.

But where we're at now, What is the greatest, we're not voting on it today, but if we adopted this current version of the fix in its current form, what is the greatest risk or unanticipated consequence that you see?

Which specific, I know it's complex and there are a number of dimensions related to transparency and regulatory oversight amongst other things.

And as I understand, you know, this law is carefully crafted to address each and every one of those elements.

But what is the greatest thing or potential risk that you see today?

And that's something that still might not be right.

This is primarily for you, Michael.

So, you know, thinking about this, I think...

The greatest risk on this is human behavior because humans are creatures of habit.

They got used to low fees that were honestly leading to sub-minimum wage for workers, which is why we were involved in the stakeholder and we agreed in principle that there should be a minimum earning standard in 21 and 22. We didn't agree with the format of the law that was passed.

And I think we are now at a point where if action isn't taken soon, this change in behavior of not ordering on the apps, not making these orders, is going to get locked in.

And that may be the biggest hurdle we have here is even if we do act, we may get consumers that just don't come back to the app.

We're hoping that if we act fast enough that there will be a return to the app because the costs will come back down.

and that orders will come back, drivers will be able to make their earnings again, tips would return because hopefully the companies will move tips back up to the front, those fees will go away.

These are the things that we're trying to do here to make sure that the intent of the law actually meets the impact of the law.

Thank you.

Chair, go ahead.

And Michael, is that because we already have a situation with the ride share, for instance, that is giving an example that's leading you to this concern?

Well, you know, yeah, I mean, the rideshare is always a little different than delivery, you know, and because it's people, there needs to be stricter regulations around safety, around a bunch of other things, vehicle, you know, stuff, and, you know, I mean, it's sort of a similar problem in that we're now starting to hear from a lot of our rideshare drivers that there's no work out there.

And it's not, like, seasonal because the prices have also gone way up.

Um, just a couple, uh, in January, I was on a vacation and for a weekend and I was going to take a Uber from my house in Columbia city to the airport, which is all of, you know, eight minutes, eight miles and 20 minutes and Uber one at $88 and Lyft one at 78. You know, this, some of these prices are starting to get a little out of whack.

Thank you, Michael.

And I just meant more seeing the ride demand go down.

So you're concerned about this?

So according to King County, they hold data on this.

In 2019, at the peak before the pandemic, the app companies Lyft and Uber and Hopskip Drive and the other ones provided 36 million rides in Seattle, King County.

I haven't seen fourth quarter numbers for last year, but estimate is going to be about 21.6, so about 40% off.

Still.

Who writes down and then orders down.

You're concerned about orders down and whether we can do something now to prevent that being a long-term issue.

Correct.

Thank you.

Right.

To her question, I remember you telling me about the fair share or the...

The TNC legislation that resulted in about a 15% drop in rides, and that ends up reducing the driver income no matter how the calculation is established for a per ride or per delivery payment.

And so we're talking about Go ahead.

Sorry, I do want to be clear that what we also saw with rideshare now is the ratio of rides to drivers has stayed about the same.

It's about 1,100 rides a year per driver.

And that ratio didn't change But what it means is that we have, you know, 2,000 or so less drivers on the road.

Opportunity was taken away.

People have to go find different work that maybe they didn't want to that doesn't meet their schedule.

So there are other impacts.

Right, and we're trying to preserve flexibility because that is the attraction of this kind of work.

And you mentioned the biggest risk being consumer behavior.

You're absolutely right, because people will either go and they'll buy food at the store, they will get takeout, et cetera, et cetera.

the greatest risk to me is that the drivers right now cannot pay their rent.

I mean, we've gotten emails saying, now making $9.85, $8.90, $8.93.

This is from an email from March 5th.

And so that's why I think that, that's why I'm feeling a sense of urgency.

I agree.

Go on.

Did you have any?

I mean, and I will add, we've heard from folks who are aren't able to go out and get groceries, for instance, seniors and such, have been impacted by this as well.

Right.

I mean, delivery services did take on a greater importance policy-wise during the pandemic because we wanted people not to have to go out and spread their germs.

And then people became...

dependent on these delivery services, especially people who were unable to go out of the house.

And so now we've got a lot of folks using them and that are suffering the consequences of not being able to afford them.

And ultimately what's going to matter is driving consumer demand back up.

So it has to become more affordable.

Go on.

We can move on to the transparency takeaways.

The stakeholder proposal proposes to remove some items from the upfront disclosure requirements, specific delivery locations, information about the accessibility or physical labor related to an offer, the unsealed contents of an offer, and the amount of customer tip if provided.

A couple of those are reincorporated back in the accessibility and the unsealed contents are reincorporated in the flexibility requirement, which I can get into when we get to that.

Then the other thing that's proposed to be changed is to reduce the time to review the offer.

Currently, it's two minutes, and the proposal is that it's 45 seconds to review the offer.

The other proposed change would be to reduce the information that's transmitted in worker receipts, both the one that's required 24 hours and the one that's required on a weekly basis.

It also eliminates any requirements for receipts related to the charges or the itemized lists in the ordinance.

It eliminates the requirements for the receipts to the customer.

It eliminates OLS's ability to get affirmative records from companies for the administration evaluation and enforcement of the ordinance.

OLS could still get information related to specific enforcement actions, but not affirmative data.

The proposal also allows ...

This is a little bit in the weeds, but currently there needs to be an accessible system for a worker to access their prior receipts or information about the offers, and the proposal is to allow restriction of of ongoing information about customers or third parties to the worker if the customer or third party requests that.

So that's a request from the companies around privacy.

I'll pause here if there's any questions on this.

There's a lot of really specific information required in the transparency section, so it can get a bit weedsy.

And so I'm happy to follow up with folks on this if there are further questions.

The folks are still digesting it right now.

Have you given briefings to council members individually?

I've had a chance to do a couple, but others, it's been, since we had a compressed timeframe from the time we got their proposal to now, I haven't had a chance to brief every council member individually.

There have been many drafts back and forth, I want to say.

We didn't just all of a sudden start working on this last week.

It's been a prolonged, a lot of work on your part and on both sides.

Go on.

Okay.

And then we have the flexibility bucket.

So one of the proposed changes is to clarify the requirements around flexibility to allow rewards or incentives for high acceptance rates or availability.

So right now, the network company can't initiate an adverse action for lower acceptance rates or availability.

And the proposal is to change that so that they can't terminate a contract, but they could take other actions, which could then allow for them to reward workers for greater availability and offer acceptance.

And then the second change in this area would be to allow the company to limit worker access to the app if they disclose the reason.

And this sort of relates to some of the concerns I think we've heard around wait times to accept, to get offers.

This change to the flexibility requirement would allow the company to disclose, hey, we're not letting you log into the app right now because there's too many workers in this area for the number of offers we're getting, as an example.

Right now, the ordinance says you cannot limit a worker's ability to log into the app at any time, except for a couple of circumstances.

And then the last piece here is to narrow and specify the list of reasons a worker can cancel an offer with cause and therefore not be deactivated for cancellation.

And there's a long list.

It takes up two of the slides, at least, earlier on.

So, you know, those can get pretty detailed.

And we can continue to go into that.

And I haven't had a chance to really dive into the details of that one.

Yeah.

And then lastly, in the interest of keeping this to one slide, I didn't bullet point this list, but they're all available on slides 25 to 27, that there are a number of changes to labor standards enforcement provisions.

including changes to retaliation protections, to eliminating the private right of action, and the records requirement.

And so those are all there on the previous slides.

All right.

We can go into next steps if there's no questions right now.

Yes, please.

All right.

The next steps is we'll all have more time to look at their proposal.

We'll have draft legislation for introduction referral for the April 25th committee.

At that time, there will be committee discussion, issue identification, you know, and depending on how the committee discussion goes, possible amendments or final committee vote over the next several weeks, and then we'll get to full council.

So the intent is to have a little bit more time to look at their proposal and for central staff to actually create formal legislation for your consideration.

Thank you.

Council Member Kettles.

Thank you, Chair Nelson, and thank you both for your presentation.

And I should also say thank you for all the comments, the public comments that we received of varying perspectives.

I really appreciate that.

As I look through this process and I think about the past year and the different things that we were looking to do as candidates and now as council members, and one of them is good governance.

And part of good governance is engaging with all stakeholders and importantly listening to all stakeholders.

And I get the sense that the previous council did not do that fully with the original legislation.

So I think it's really important for us to hear from all the various elements from like your slide here.

And I know the network companies are being heard in different ways and they have the ability to be heard, so okay.

And then we have the app-based workers from this slide.

And there's clearly, and I hear it, there's clearly different perspectives from whether It depends on which delivery program you're working with and the like, and I get that.

But, you know, I really think that we also need to hear from these other groups, the customers.

We really need to hear from the customers.

I think that is super important, and particularly those that are in need, which goes to the point of lessons learned coming out of the pandemic.

There are some customers who have grown dependent for various reasons for these deliveries.

So I think that is very important to listen to the customers.

And one other group I don't think I hear very much from either is the restaurants.

I know there's varying types of restaurants.

I mean, we've had a few here and there, but we've not really heard from the restaurants, and all restaurants are not created equal.

You know, some of these, if it's one Big Mac, that's one thing, but if you're going to Canlis and ordering, that could be, you know, the dynamics are different.

So I think we should hear from the restaurants and the varying types of restaurants that we have who may be engaged in this process.

because that would really aid our, you know, our understanding and the impacts of, you know, moving forward.

And so, you know, this goes to, like, next steps.

And, you know, again, we have to engage all stakeholders and, importantly, listen to all stakeholders.

It's just a matter of good governance.

And I think...

I think we have the potential to improve things.

And so I thank you for coming and I welcome the chance to make improvements because we should adjust if needed and how needed.

So thank you very much, Chair Nelson, for the opportunity.

Chair, yeah, I just want to echo the sentiments of Councilmember Kettle.

I want to say that oftentimes we do things that have unintended consequences and we're trying something new.

It's important to review and really hear its impact on the people that we are trying to help with this type of legislation.

One thing that's become clear to me, not just in my I appreciate all the public comment today and throughout the last few weeks that we've been discussing this particular legislation and the emails and phone calls that we've received in our offices is that I know workers were not clear when we talk about transparency about the impacts of this legislation.

Somehow I feel like workers thought they would, that orders would remain the same, but they would get paid the minimum wage.

And I think, I don't think that that was a fair thing to have told customers because we had the past experience that when we made a change, you know, ridership went down, for instance.

And I would have anticipated when this happened that orders would go down.

And so I'm very surprised to hear that somehow there was this perception that orders would not go down.

And we are seeing that orders are going down in various scenarios that we've heard about today.

And so it is important that we hear all sides, to your point, Councilmember Kettle, and also that we are ensuring that the folks that we are looking to help with this legislation, namely workers, that we are not having negative and unanticipated consequences for those workers.

And so I'm glad that folks are engaged, including Drive Forward in the conversation on how we go about making changes that will benefit the majority of the workers that utilize these platforms.

Thank you.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yeah, I just want to thank you both for the presentation.

I know I've met with labor unions, apps, drivers, a ton of folks, especially District 3 being very dense, and we have a ton of restaurants in our district.

And our district is very unique because a lot of...

I know that a lot of the carriers that we have are cyclists in our district because of the density.

They're the preferred carrier for our district, going from District 3 to District 7, sometimes just bouncing back and forth.

what I am hearing from drivers, particularly that are just DoorDash and Uber Eats, that on-demand drivers, because I've heard from Instacart and Amazon Flex that, hey, like, this has been successful for us.

But I'm hearing on the opposite side of DoorDash and Uber Eats that it's, you know, it hasn't been as successful as, you know, the law intended it to be.

And so our I know that our goal, my goal specifically, is how do we lower these fees that are not driving people away from ordering?

And then how do we continue to keep the same amount of earnings for our drivers so they're treated equitably and they have minimum wage?

And they're putting a lot on the line as well.

particularly also restaurants.

I don't think a lot of people know a margin for a restaurant is very minimal.

It's two to 6%.

And when you tweak it just a little bit, it causes, I know a lot of restaurants that are like, hey, I'm on a financial cliff right now.

And if something's not changed in a little bit, You know, I'm going to, and I'm talking about small businesses.

I'm not talking about the Domino's and the Pizza Huts.

The Domino's has their own app that they do their, I'm talking about like these small owned businesses that I've heard firsthand, have sent me emails, text messages, phone calls, whatever, about how their businesses have really significantly declined.

Obviously, food costs have gone up about 25% in our country.

So we know that a lot of people have lost their businesses to grocery stores, and specifically the deli.

But there's also this pattern where a lot of people have been ordering online and they rely on it, and dinner for kids or whatnot.

So I think our intended goal is to make sure that we can figure out how we balance it out, particularly to make sure that we can continue this healthy economic market for make sure our drivers are paid well, make sure the restaurants are being able to survive as well and look forward to hearing more of the proposals and figuring out, you know, what ways in which are there some amendments that we can be able to put forth, you know, for this law that we keep it, but also some amendments.

So thank you.

Okay, so just in closing, just want to wrap up.

When I hear you say three weeks, I am concerned about the amount of time it's going to take to get to a piece of legislation and then bring it back to committee and then get it before full council.

Because as I've said many, many times, people are hurting right now.

And it is our responsibility to...

It's one thing...

It's one thing to identify the reason why costs are higher is that networks have put an additional fee on the bill to recoup costs, but we do not really have the authority or the ability right now to define or determine or to regulate how companies recuperate their costs or allocate their risk.

And that is, that's just the way it is.

My interest is in making sure that, is to come to an agreement that makes those fees go away so that the cost of deliveries is lower so that it drives demand up so that there are more deliveries and so that drivers can get paid more and restaurants can bring back their revenue.

And so that is the end goal that I'm working toward.

And that is our responsibility.

When we passed, I believe that we created a problem and it's our responsibility to fix it.

We created a problem by not taking into account or taking seriously or really doing enough consideration about the unintended consequences in the front end.

And now we're dealing with those results in the back end.

And so I am arguing for, advocating for a speedy resolution.

And you and I can talk offline how, you know, at what committee meeting this could possibly come back for.

There has also been call for repeal.

I've asked, full disclosure, I have asked for repeal legislation to be prepared.

I don't really know how that would happen.

That is, I hope that we can go forward with legislation that both sides, when I say both, I mean the drivers as represented by Drive Forward and the network companies have negotiated.

So stay tuned.

Thank you very much for this conversation.

Let's see, we do have a one more item on our agenda.

What?

Go ahead.

Public comment.

Yes.

Right.

Let us finish the public comment before getting into the DAP presentation.

The next people, the remaining, we're going to move toward the in-person public commenters.

There are five.

Eric Franklin, Happy Israel already spoke.

Jason B, Madison, Zach, Wu, and Michaela.

Paul and wait, did this person not?

Eric Franklin, please.

And if the person whose name I'm reading has already left, I'm going to have to ask that they send in their public comment.

Is Eric here?

I can't.

Yes.

This is the continuation of public comment for the committee.

Yes.

Did you already provide public comment?

That's what I'm asking.

I did before, but after seeing this, I have.

No, we are continuing the people that were already on the list in an effort to get through all the names that we had.

Thank you.

But people can write in.

Yes, everybody is encouraged to please send in your comments to us directly also by email.

Eric, Happy already spoke.

Jason, Madison, and Michaela.

My name is Michaela Romero, and I lost my dad, uncle, and brother early in the pandemic.

I didn't go into the public for two years with my immune compromised son.

I relied on gig workers as the heroes that risked their lives so I could protect mine and my son's.

They made it so we could have groceries and creature comforts in scary and grieving times.

I'm disgusted these corporations have been allowed to profit in excess due to global loss of life.

and now are putting the burden on consumers like myself and the 115 people that I had emailed the entire council as well to pay these workers.

They cornered the market, pushed out all the competitors, and now are abusing consumers.

I am standing by the gig workers that stood by me until someone here has a backbone to stand up to the corporations on their behalf.

I and my disabled mother are immune compromised, and we still rely on gig workers and are struggling to afford these retaliatory fees.

gig workers.

Don't let corporations get away with greed and manipulation.

The Uber CEO made $24 million last year.

Are you going to protect their profits or us?

Are any of the speakers whose names I read here to make public comment in person?

Go ahead.

Sorry, I'm in my fatigue still.

Hi.

I'm just here to talk about something very quickly.

I was reading about Michael Berry, who is the chief CEO of Capital, Scion Capital, and he was the one who predicted the collapse of 2008. And he's basically talking about how the economy today is so top-heavy with a lot of the business models that have arrived over the past 15 years, as well as Tim Berners-Lee, who founded the World Wide Web, who was appalled at the kind of models that have been created by the appropriation of the Internet.

So the problem is what we're facing is a symptomology from all these things.

I'm very pro-cap.

It's very pro-business, but at the same time, we have to have a more equitable system that allows participation and not create the kind of headaches that everyone is dealing with.

And I think that's the problem, is we need to fix it at the top, aside from just fixing that pop up here and there, the symptomology from it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And there are three commenters online.

Go ahead.

Please read the names.

The last three public commenters will be Amy Storm, followed by Michelle Balzer.

And then the last would be Will Tisdale.

Amy, you're ready to go.

Amy.

Hi, I'm Amy Scott and speaking on the pay up ordinance.

I have been working with Instacart since and during the pandemic.

And over time, Instacart has then lowered the base pay to $5 outside of Seattle.

And with tips not being guaranteed, that's $5 for easily one to two hours of work.

When the Seattle pay of ordinance took effect, it became substantial to work back in Seattle and I could bring in what I need now.

The Seattle pay ordinance is proof anyone and myself is still protected while gaining financial independence with confidence.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next will be Michelle Blazer.

Hi, council members.

President Nelson, I just have a question.

I know you've been a big proponent of if there were unintended consequences, you would readdress the bill.

However, I don't know if these are unintended consequences.

To me, it feels like they were intentional on part of the companies.

I am just wondering, they have not said that they would get rid of these fees, and I'm not sure why.

Anyone would believe that changing this law or repealing it would make these fees go away.

They know that they're getting paid.

They're going to keep them.

You're just going to strip the rights or really the protections of all these workers for something that you cannot guarantee is going to go away.

And I think that that's foolish.

And I feel like you're kind of giving in to the bullying.

And I encourage everyone to really think about this.

These companies are not loyal.

They're not honest.

and drive forward, that's an Uber backed company.

They are pushing their initiative.

This is not a legit for the driver kind of organization.

So be careful what you believe in the proposal that they give because it is completely Uber backed and that's what they're pushing is what Uber wants.

And the last public virtual speaker will be Will Tisdale.

Good afternoon, council and committee members.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

So for the record, my name is Will Tisdale and I'm a gig worker and speaking in support of this ordinance.

This ordinance should not be repealed.

I've worked at Instacart since 2018 and Instacart used to be more transparent, guaranteed base pay, mileage commission, et cetera, which all adds up to make the IC pay for the order presented.

But over the years, I've seen Instacart transparency and their pay decline because of the bad business practices.

For example, using customer tips to supplement their pay.

As a result, we didn't get paid what we should have been.

And so now Instacart is trying to skirt around this ordinance by having Seattle orders done outside of Seattle.

So it's still a Seattle order, but we don't get IC pay or Seattle pay.

So the workers get the brunt of the bad business practices, and it's not fair.

So we need the ordinance to guarantee we get paid fairly.

And that is the last virtual speaker, Council President.

Thank you very much.

The public comment period is closed.

And will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Agenda item number two, downtown activation plan presentation from the Office of Economic Development, briefing and discussion.

While you are settling, thank you very much for your patience.

It's nice to shift to another topic that is forward thinking and hear what's going on.

I could add a whole bunch of words of introduction, but because you speak so well for yourselves, I will let you introduce yourselves and let us know what we're going to be talking about today.

Great.

Thank you, Council.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the Mayor's Downtown Activation Plan with you today.

My name is Marco McIntyre.

I'm the Director of the Office of Economic Development.

And we brought a whole team today.

So we have AP Diaz, who's the superintendent of Parks and Recreation, Edie Gillis from the Office of Sustainability and Environment, Tammy Canavan from the Visit Seattle, and Sierra Jones, who's the owner of Space Inside, which is one of our Seattle restored businesses and downtown.

So they'll each get a chance to speak.

But I wanted to start...

by just talking about why downtown is important and why so much emphasis is being placed on having a downtown activation plan.

Downtown Seattle is the heart of our city.

And as we all know, at this critical moment in its history, it's undergoing a metamorphosis.

So that gives us this unique opportunity to reimagine who's downtown for, what it means for residents, workers, and visitors.

For the Office of Economic Development, downtown is also the economic engine for our city, our region, and our state.

It accounts for approximately half of all the economic activity in Seattle, and it really is the tax revenue base for the city.

So as we're thinking about budgets and the opportunity to invest in projects across all the different neighborhoods about Seattle, having downtown humming is incredibly important.

Downtown is also more of a neighborhood than it's ever been, with a record number of residents.

One in 10 residents live downtown.

It's also a unique social gathering space, which really does foster a sense of collective belonging and welcoming throughout the city.

So downtown's complex, and it means many different things to many different people, and that's why we took the time to develop a multifaceted plan to address all those opportunities, something that would really revitalize and reactivate downtown.

It's also why we need a broad team effort.

This isn't intended to just be a city plan.

It's certainly not just an OED plan, hence why we have so many of our friends here today.

It truly is a team effort to revitalize downtown.

And the whole point of the downtown activation plan is to bring more people back downtown.

That's the fundamental currency of downtown.

It runs on people.

We also know that on the top of a lot of people's minds as we talk about downtown is public safety.

You guys are certainly thinking about this.

Councilmember Kettle, I know you've had some presentations in your public safety committee.

You've heard some of the different chiefs.

So it's a priority that's shared amongst the city family.

But I think a good example of the Downtown Activation Plan in action is the formation of the CARE Team, which is a new way of addressing law enforcement, pairing social workers and other types of workers with our police officers, trying to reduce the burden on the police officers, have a diversity of responses to public safety, mental health, and substance abuse issues.

So just as an example of kind of real progress that we're making on public safety, we know that there's more to do, but we feel like there's a good trajectory that has been real progress and it's something we're gonna continue to work on.

But I wanna move to talking about some of the other facets of our downtown activation plan, starting with kind of how it was developed across departmentally.

So I'm gonna turn it over to Edie Gillis to talk a little bit about how we all work together in a one Seattle fashion to craft the plan.

Awesome.

Thank you, Markham.

So you might be wondering, why is someone from the Office of Sustainability and the Environment sitting here talking to you about downtown?

But OSC actually sits at a unique position in the city, often driving collaboration interdepartmental coordination to achieve our goals.

And this plan was created by a deeply collaborative process, including a DAP steering committee of 11 city departments, of which OSE and Parks were two.

You can see how we engaged with community, with regional agencies, with residents, through surveys here on this list.

But that's not all.

I mean, there are a lot of conversations clearly that have been had, but Seattle is also not alone in our post-pandemic challenges.

So we actually also engaged with several other cities, namely San Francisco, Boston, and Atlanta, to hear from them about the implementation of their own revitalization, reactivation plans.

to see what was working and what was not working.

And all of this engagement can be seen and felt as we have been implementing this plan.

And then the next slide.

The plan was going...

This is a map of our downtown activation plan zones.

These are the areas that we are talking about as we were implementing strategies.

This plan was going to need to work for all of the distinct and diverse neighborhoods that make up our downtown.

From Belltown to the CID, this effort sought to ensure, number one, that downtown is a dynamic place to work, number two, as our fastest growing neighborhood, that it's a desirable place to live, that it continues to be a desirable place to live.

And then finally, it continues to be a world renowned place to visit.

And I'd be not taking my responsibility as an OSC staffer to also say a green and vibrant and connected to the waterfront, amazing place to live.

So with that, I'll pass it back to you, director.

Thanks, Edie.

So with all of that input coming from all over the city, as well as trying to learn from other cities, as Edie mentioned.

We crafted these seven goals.

Again, it's a multifaceted, complex problem.

There's no one lever that we can pull that's going to solve it.

We need to have a response to match.

And so even if we accomplished any one of these goals on its own, it really is the network effect that you get and the interconnectedness between the goals where the magic really happens.

So we talked about making downtown safe and welcoming.

We've talked about how it's more and more a lively neighborhood.

Certainly near and dear to OED's heart is thinking about the unique downtown retail experience.

Edie mentioned how we want downtown to be a place where people want to come to work and it reflects the future of our economy.

Downtown certainly is unique amongst our neighborhoods in its position as a leader and a gathering space for arts, culture, sports, and entertainment.

And then you'll hear shortly from Tammy about how Seattle is a top destination for visitors year round, both from the region as well as from the world.

And then finally, as Edie mentioned, we are still the Emerald City, and so we will always try to create a healthy, resilient, and green downtown.

So these are our seven goals.

This is how we're both organizing our strategies and our tactics.

It's also how we're measuring our progress over time.

Edie mentioned how much we went and solicited input to try to build the plan.

We also didn't want this to just be a list of things to kind of check off.

We wanted to make sure that we were soliciting input throughout execution of the plan as well.

So recently we went and did another round of public input to really kind of hone in on what do people want downtown so that we can deliver meaningful activities.

So we talked to residents, non-office workers, ground floor retailers, youth, families with young children, arts and culture community, and we heard some really clear takeaways.

First, and this is reiterating, you're gonna hear this theme again and again, is public safety and wanting to feel safe coming downtown.

Second is beautification, particularly of public spaces.

Third is improving the experience on public transit.

Again, as downtown becomes more of a neighborhood, more affordable housing options in more different parts of downtown, more amenities to go with that neighborhood, so grocery stores, pharmacies, childcare have really come up.

As much as we're trying to fill vacant storefronts and bring new businesses downtown, also thinking about what are we doing to...

support those businesses that have been there, and trying to make sure that they stay in place.

And then finally, people really want to root for downtown.

They want to be on the winning team here, and they want to hear more about what is positive that's happening downtown so that they can feel excited and enthusiastic about it.

And I'll give one example of just how we've been using public input to influence our decisions.

We heard from all of these groups, very loud and clearly, they want more lights downtown, both from a public safety angle, but also from a public space beautification.

So we've been working with parks a lot We also worked with our friends over Expedia.

They contributed some funding to put more public lights into the park spaces, and it's been a huge success.

If you've been down to City Hall Park or Hing Hay Park recently, there's a ton of stuff there.

That is amazing.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but those lights over City Hall Park, those are striking.

They're fantastic.

So more lights.

So that's, again, we heard that very clearly, and so we immediately kind of were able to flex and make that happen.

Sorry, let me catch myself up here.

So we heard from a lot of folks, but we've also been working with a lot of folks and our partners are incredibly important in this effort because the city can do some stuff, but our partners can do so much more.

So I want to turn it over to Tammy to talk a little bit about their organization and how they're figuring into the whole Downtown Activation Plan.

Lovely, thank you.

Thank you for having us here.

Just to, when one of the goals is to make Seattle a top destination, that is our mission, is to, we are the destination marketing organization for Seattle and King County.

Our job is to grow the visitor economy here and really to serve the business community as well as make this a better place to live.

So yes, a great place to live, to visit, but it's only a great place to visit when it's a great place to live.

So win-win for everybody.

We are, just a quick overview, responsible for the sales and marketing of the Seattle Convention Center as well as the city as a whole, as a destination.

Our target audiences are quite diverse and they include certainly convention planners, but leisure travelers, both domestic and international cruise ship passengers.

And of course, the voice of our locals is incredibly important as well.

Our stakeholders really are tourism-based businesses.

They're hotels and restaurants, of course, but also services, attractions, transportation, bakeries, all of the cool things that there are to see, do, smell, eat here in Seattle are really our stakeholders.

We have special programs that are launched in cooperation with Seattle Bank that focus on bringing in businesses to our programs that wouldn't traditionally think of it or be able to.

So we have scholarship programs that we've moved around from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Two years ago, started in the CID.

Last year was on Capitol Hill.

This year is in Pioneer Square.

And we'll take 15 to 20 businesses each year to bring them into the fold and help them understand how they can access the tourism market and how we can help them do that.

We also, I'm just going to give you a nod.

When we're marketing, we're telling the story of Seattle.

Our love for the stewardship of our community is really important.

That's a really important part of our story.

And it is important when we are marketing to a values-based traveler.

We don't just want everybody to come here.

We want people to come here that are going to respect the values and the beautiful uniqueness of our community.

Our primary funding is the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

I'm gonna come back to that in a second.

It's about two thirds of our funding and really the boundaries are downtown for that.

So that's where most of our funding comes from, generated by a levy on hotel stays.

In addition, we have about a third of our funding provided by the Seattle Convention Center.

We are not recipients of funding from the city outside of any special projects that we do together that are sometimes producing cool murals for the MLB All-Stars or things like that.

So just in short, we exist to benefit the small business community and the business community and the residents of Seattle with a major focus on downtown.

We shared yesterday at our annual meeting just to talk about why this sector matters.

We welcomed 37.8 million visitors in 2023 who spent $8.2 billion.

That's a whole lot of money.

That generated $787 just in state and local taxes, which is an offset of $859 for every single household in King County.

In addition to that, we put 65,000 and change of our neighbors to work in the hospitality industry.

So from its origin, we've been really pleased to be at the table with OED and the group in the formation of the Downtown Activation Plan.

As the listening tours began with community partners, we took a look at all of the elements.

And when you look at those goals, what we do and the tourism industry in general really touches all of those elements.

So we started working with OED and with BCG over a year ago providing data.

and helping to shape some of those plans and goals to make sure that we were all aligned and we were contributing as much as we could, not just in making this the top destination, but also in making all of the other goals successful.

So it's been wonderful to be invited to that discussion and to be a part of shaping what that has turned out to be.

We are a major driver of street activity and spending in our downtown, being that most of our assets in the industry are located here.

And it has been a really important partnership.

So I think the theme here has been this is a team sport, and we all say that all the time, but it really is very true.

What we do, we can't do without the lift of the city government, of the county government, of the DSA, of the chamber, of our local BIAs, and of course of our local business community.

It really can...

manifest, this plan manifests into some very tangible things.

So Markham talked about one of the things that has come to life, one of the other things, and Markham's gonna talk more about legislation passing, but the STIA is a business improvement area.

Last year, we took a look at it and said this, It is great, and it's producing some things, but it is restricted in its uses, and it is not structured in a way that will keep up with inflation.

So we knew we had to do something.

We had to do it quickly because when we are investing, we don't run an ad today and people come tomorrow.

This is a long-term investment.

So you invest money today in marketing, and people may come two or three years, or they might come in two or three months, or they might come in two or three weeks.

And conventions generally can take anywhere from five months to 10 years to manifest.

And that's just from getting to know the meeting planner to them actually signing a contract.

And then from there, the convention might also be another 10 years out.

It was important to act quickly to modify our resources so that we could play the most powerful role possible.

So as part of the Downtown Activation Plan that we were privileged to have some acceleration in that process, as well as the support of unanimous support of council.

Thank you for your leadership, President Nelson.

So this is an exciting time in how we move forward, and we're glad to be a part of it.

Love having you as a partner.

Thanks, Tammy.

So where are we?

We had about 46 initiatives spelled out in DAP.

We're about 83% of the way either completed or underway.

So we're making good progress there.

We know there's still a lot of work to do, but we do feel confident that our efforts are bearing fruit.

We're going to talk a little bit more about filling vacant storefronts with hearing Sierra's story later, but just very pleased with the Seattle Restored Program.

That's been a great partnership.

with our friends at the Seattle Good Business Network and Shun Pike.

We've also been able to work with JPMorgan Chase, and they've made a private sector investment into that program, so we're able to really kind of keep building and evolving that.

We've certainly been thinking about public space, and AP's going to talk about our parks in a moment, but I also want to just Give a shout out to our Office of Arts and Culture, who's done a fabulous job with the King Street Station and turning them into the youth-focused arts hub.

If you haven't been down there, I highly recommend it.

But they're doing a ton of cool stuff there as well as throughout downtown with additional murals and public art.

And then finally, you know, we've certainly seen some of our iconic spaces come back to life.

We've had the CIFF Cinema downtown reopen.

There's been new businesses like Home Team opening up in Occidental Park.

So certainly a lot of progress happening daily.

And hopefully you get our Good News Downtown newsletter, which helps kind of keep you up to date with everything going on week to week.

But with that, I want to turn it over to AP to talk a little bit about what's going on with our, how we're activating our public spaces.

Well, thank you so much, Director McIntyre, and good afternoon, members of the City Council.

You know, through our vibrant and inviting public spaces is really how downtown becomes alive.

And I think it's really important to continue to use in our vernacular when we refer to downtown, it's not simply a core, right?

It is a neighborhood.

And in the neighborhood suggests a lot of thriving spaces and places that come alive.

That's why Seattle's neighborhoods are so great, because it's where people can recreate and shop and do business and live.

And I think that's what's important about downtown and why the success of DAP is really focused around talking about a neighborhood It's also talking about what my colleague was just saying about teamwork and that it takes a village and all of us coming together.

The one thing I think we all share in common at this table and on the dais is that we love Seattle.

We wouldn't be doing the work that we do if we didn't love Seattle.

And it's also important to remember that, you know, that's, I think, the vision of Mayor Harrell when he talks about One Seattle.

He's talking about everyone coming together.

And his focus on DAP is not at the exclusion of other city neighborhoods.

It's really emphasizing that our downtown neighborhood is a regional destination, regional for the world, for the nation, also for residents of Bellevue and Mercer Island and Bainbridge where we want them to come into the city.

So when we talk about our public spaces, you know, we recently in downtown through our park system have been able to reactivate and regain control of our public spaces.

We just recently were named the eighth best park system in a country due in part to our vibrant downtown parks.

And it's the large success of our parks and the strength of our community partners and our diligent city employees that make these spaces come alive.

I believe that we all share a common understanding and importance of public safety and public safety comes through activation.

and through parks and spaces in the downtown area, being active, being illuminated.

We talked about lights.

Lights are some of the easiest things and improvements that we can do for our public spaces.

So the more that we ask you respectfully to support lighting, you know, it's an easy thing that we can do, but we need funds to do it.

And if we have those funds, we can continue to eliminate more spaces.

We see the success of that at City Hall Park.

By the way, So many people said we would fail when we removed the fence at City Hall Park.

They gave us 30 days, and it would be a complete failure.

And we're now almost a year into that park, and as you've noted, it's safe because it's well-activated, because we do movies in the park, because we invite vendors to come in, because we have lights, and also we have our downtown park rangers.

I can't emphasize enough how much the rangers are contributing to the success success and over-wellness of the parks downtown because of their presence.

So I just want to point that out, as well as all our other park employees.

And just to show you some of the success, we've been able to come through DAP and do fun things downtown, activating public spaces with downtown public pickleball, where we close down the streets, bringing in basketball tournaments, And we want to do more things that invite the businesses.

We've talked about some fun things about maybe even a downtown on-the-street yoga program or getting more food and business into the streets and doing these types of things.

So we can be creative with our downtown neighborhood.

And we're going to continue to do more of these things in 2024. Movies in the park, more concerts, more art, and also more of our...

partnerships with our native and indigenous programs.

We've just had a successful tribal summit with the tribal summit leaders and they want to do more things with us downtown.

So we just wanted to sort of snapshot and highlight.

I want to thank again OED for their leadership here and for inviting us to the table as well as our partners here today.

So we're excited to continue to activate our downtown neighborhood and look forward to working with you all on the next steps ahead.

Thanks, Director Diaz.

It's been a pleasure working with you guys.

Parks is so much fun to work with and they get so much done so quickly.

So it's been it's been a great partnership.

Legislative accomplishments Tammy talked about changing the steel legislation.

We also rezoned parts of downtown Especially long third to encourage more residential development.

We also made it easier To do that residential development.

So hopefully that happens faster And then we've also done some changes to permits around master use and building to try to make sure that we've got development still happening downtown, especially the residential developments and I'm going to keep moving quickly here.

This is gonna be of interest to you.

So we've already handed over some legislation that's encouraging office to residential conversions for council's consideration.

I believe the mayor just recently also handed over some legislation about changes to street use to try to make it a little more flexible for different types of tenants to come in in different parts of the neighborhoods.

More coming.

So we're certainly looking forward to partnering with you on policies.

That's gonna be a key strategy for uh, activating downtown, both in the near term, but especially as we think about kind of 10, 20 years in the future, what do we want to try to encourage, um, and see happen for, for future generations?

Uh, we'll continue making...

Before you combine...

Hold, Mark.

Oh, yeah.

Um, that last piece of legislation, is that going to go to land use?

Yes.

Okay.

And has it, uh, and I'm not on that committee, so has, can you just give me the, um, has it been well-stakeholdered?

It has been well-stakeholder.

I think it was transmitted maybe today.

I don't want to get over my skills, but I think it was today.

So you should be learning more about it very, very soon.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

We'll continue making progress on the 46 initiatives.

And then something I'm really excited about at OED is really working with our partners to do an in-depth analysis of the ground floor spaces and having it be really hyper local and specific and using that to inform how we evolve the Seattle restored program.

Every city that we've talked to both in the planning process, but also currently as we're kind of all going through this together is really rethinking how do we use space?

How do we use public space?

How are we using office space?

How are we using vacant spaces?

It's a really critical component to kind of the infrastructure of downtown, but also a huge opportunity for us as we think about how downtown is going to be different now and in the future.

That's why we've been so bullish about our Seattle restored programs, trying to connect entrepreneurs and artists with those vacant storefronts.

But I'm really excited to introduce Sierra Jones from A Space Inside to tell her story because truly that's the type of impact we're trying to have and the type of downtown we want to see.

So, Sierra.

Thank you.

And good afternoon, all of you.

And thank you for having me here.

Hello.

Um, hello.

So my name is Sierra and I own a space inside and I am a like Seattle born and raised wholehearted, like Seattle native.

And I really love my city.

And when I, when I applied to the Seattle restored program, for those of you don't know, they, you know, fill the vacant storefront spaces.

which not only improves public safety, but for us, for instance, our space, we haven't been broken into or anything or any damage done to our space, but yet the space next to us has boards up on their thing and they've been graffitied and have had issues.

And I say that to say that when you activate spaces and show that people are here and that you're doing stuff, Public safety comes as a small business owner.

But I want to speak a little bit about my dream that I had.

And when I applied to the Seattle Restore program, it was exactly that, a dream.

I didn't have a business.

I had an idea.

And I went to them and I said, hey, I have this idea of creating a space where the BIPOC community here in Seattle can feel like they belong, where they can come and find healing, where they can come and explore parts of themselves and try different modalities to reconnect after COVID.

I think a lot of people leaving COVID are looking to figure out what they're doing next with their life and to try and find ways to pour into themselves and pour into a passion.

And so I wanted to create a safe space where folks can do that.

And so I started a space inside where we do many events.

And looking at where we started two years ago when we joined this program, we started as a three-month pop-up.

And that was with partnership with the Seattle Restored.

And we sat down with the landlord.

And they said, you know, we like your idea.

Come view the space.

And I saw the space in Seattle Restored.

It's like, you better take it.

Just take it.

And so I was like, all right.

You know, we took the space.

And initially, like, I wouldn't have imagined my space being in the downtown core.

But now I can't see it anywhere else.

For what we do and what we're able to bring to the community, we bring like 400 to 500 people downtown as the destination to our space a month.

And that's by us doing our classes, our programming, our events.

We do paint and sips and open mics and whatever.

But we've been able to create a space where the community can come show up.

and to belong.

And something that I continuously say at our events is that it takes a community to build a community.

And I always tell people that, you know, when folks come up to me, they're like, wow, Sierra, like, thank you for the work that you're doing in community.

Or, you know, people come up to me saying, you know, thank you for giving me a space or a voice that I haven't been able to have before, or helping me to re-find myself.

And I always tell people that I would not be possible if it wasn't for the city of Seattle.

I would not be possible if it wasn't for OED.

And this space would not be possible if it wasn't for Seattle Restored.

And so when I have hundreds of people telling me thank you, I want to tell all of you thank you, because of what you guys have done, I've been able to truly live my dream to support my community and provide a space to do that.

But not only that, you guys are reactivating a space downtown, and you've allowed me, through the Seattle Restore program, I didn't pay rent for 11 months.

That is unheard of.

But because of that program, I was able to take that money and report back into my business and have working capital to now leave my day job and be able to focus solely on building a space inside and developing the community here in Seattle.

And wholeheartedly, the Seattle Restored Program was able to look at what I wanted and believe in a dream and then put me in a space to now be able to graduate from that program, secure a long-term lease, and then get additional resources and help from OED to make sure that my business is thriving, that we have the operational structure and whatever is necessary to be successful in Seattle.

so that I can still then continue to provide my services to the community here so that folks stay in Seattle, that companies are able to retain their employees of color because they're finding places where they belong, they're finding places where they can find community, and finding places where they can heal.

And so it's all a trickle-down effect.

It takes a community to build a community.

And so what you guys have done is poured into me so that I can also continue to pour into the community.

So that is my story.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for sharing that, Sarah.

And just congratulations again on signing that long-term lease.

Like that's so, so exciting.

You're going to be there for a while.

I mean, again, that's the downtown that we want to try to create.

And the opportunity created by the vacant storefront has now, you've now poured your dream into it and it's being realized.

And that's just so, so exciting.

So I want to talk a little bit about 2024. Again, we want to, I'll go to that last point, more of what's working.

So, Sierra's a great example.

Tammy's a great example.

What Parks is doing, we've got a lot of examples of what's working, so let's keep amplifying and scaling that up.

But we also want to provide some focus around some key areas.

And a lot of this is being driven by the fact that we've got the world coming to the greatest party in our backyard for FIFA World Cup 2026. So thinking about that main transit spine along 3rd and improving the street level experience there, particularly the four multimodal nodes of 3rd and Pike, 3rd and University, 3rd and James and King Street Station.

So really working with SDOT, Metro, and Sound Transit on those improvements.

Thinking about World Cup, what are we doing with events, festivals, and activations to really get the city pumped up?

to try to have some action in the streets, in our parks, really getting people fired up, as well as flexing our muscles as a city for how to put on really special, special events.

There's a lot happening in South downtown, a lot of public and private projects that all kind of overlap.

The city wants to make sure that we are aligning influence and accelerating those decisions so that they all fit together and we can really unlock some really incredible potential in south downtown.

And then finally, continuing to improve public perception about downtown.

So it's the good news, it's also making sure that we're being responsive to what people want and just telling our story about what's happening.

So that's what we've got in store for 2024. We're very much looking forward to working with you as a council.

As mentioned, there's gonna be some legislative priorities, but we're always open to your ideas, to conversations, to troubleshooting problems.

So please feel free to reach out to OED or any of the other departments on the DAP Sub-Cabinet.

to talk about DAP.

If you have any questions following this presentation, we covered a lot in a short amount of time.

Happy to answer any further questions, but I love finishing with this slide.

This is from the basketball tournament that drew in kids from all across the city to come play downtown, because this is really who we're trying to think about the future of downtown.

We're trying to design for that next generation and do everything we can to set it up so that it's inclusive, equitable, and a really, really special place to be now and into the future.

With that, we'd love to take any questions.

I defer to District 7 Representative Member Kettles.

Take the first one.

Thank you, Chair Nelson.

And yes, as your District 7 representative, thank you very much for this.

I really appreciate it.

You know, it's the little things too.

I like the fact you're talking about downtown or downtown neighborhood, as I usually call it, with a capital D.

It makes a difference.

Different things come from upstairs.

Capital D shows intent.

And so I like that.

And we just had our District 7 neighborhood council, our first one, and that highlighted to me that we need a downtown community council to really represent the voices of the residents in downtown.

And I realize this is a downtown activation plan, so part of me wants to give a shout-out to Uptown or South Lake Union, East Lake, West Lake, but I recognize this is the downtown, can't really have Uptown in the downtown program.

But arts and culture.

We have to keep an eye on the arts and culture piece, so there may be some spillage out of this if you really want to capture the arts and culture piece.

So I just ask for that consideration.

I really love the bullet point, key takeaways, public safety.

It is so key, and it comes up.

You don't know how many conversations I have.

It is so key.

And I want to pivot on that, just to put a shout out, because I know a lot of people watch, is that the comprehensive plan, policy element, it's got to include public safety.

And this is so important.

As a block watch captain, I have not given up that role in my neighborhood.

It's about creating community and having that voice from a public safety side.

It's about hardware.

It's the doors and windows.

But hey, we just gave some support to Wing Luke Museum.

Same kind of thing.

We have to improve.

And I heard a report about that.

They need to improve their public safety posture.

Hardware to support them to do that.

Lights.

You talk about the park.

The lights are so, you know, those are on all the time, but all those motion lights too.

But most importantly too, and this is people on the street, activation is so key.

We did that in Queen Anne related to parks.

We talked about that, Superintendent Diaz.

When we had issues in Queen Anne, it was all about activation.

and cleaning up the slight lines and all those things I just mentioned, but then the activation piece, it's so important.

And I bring that up too regarding the comp plan because we also need to support the fire and police, their ability to help us.

And this is where planning moving forward, I recognize this is short-term, but we also have to think long-term and planning for that to ensure fire can get in and out to these locations is so important.

But ultimately, In terms of DAP and the like, I'm having conversations.

I'm getting these questions about public safety.

You know, we talked about Pioneer Square and the neighborhood and the residential, the conversion to residential.

The dollars behind these projects are not going to be happening until we do that public safety piece.

And I think we've turned the corner.

We are turning the corner, and we'll continue to keep the press on.

But that's where that point about the public perception piece is so important, and we need to drive that home again and again and again.

And so I thank you for coming.

I guess that doesn't have a question, but it's to highlight the points within the briefing, and I really appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you very much.

Great.

Thank you.

I had a quick question, Council President.

I know I'll be really quick.

Please continue to use the basketball, girl with the goggles.

Women's basketball is taking over, 9.6 million viewers last year for the final four.

It's gonna be up this year.

Okay, two things.

I wanted to stress the importance of, you had it in your slide and we talked about this, Director McIntyre, the Pike Pine Corridor.

It goes from Pike Place and then it creeps up into my district, District 3. And it feels sometimes that we've stopped at the convention center with designing.

SDOT is making improvements.

They've changed which direction Pike Pine goes right now.

but stressing the importance of figuring out connecting District 7, our downtown, with District 3. I don't know if it's like what type of design or what that looks like, but I know that's incredibly important, like lighting, whether it's improvements to the street or just making sure that flow is equally just connected.

And I've heard that from a lot of business owners on District 3. They want to feel connected to District 7. So important.

That's why we sit next to each other.

Yeah, it's really important.

And then the last one that I'm, another street that's super passionate about that I've heard is Jackson Street and how it goes from Pioneer Square and then you cut through the CID and then you go into the Central District.

And we're trying to do some stuff on 23rd and Jackson, but how important that is. corridor that pipeline is that cuts through downtown and, you know, just creates that connective tissue with neighborhoods.

And then obviously Madison, which is my favorite street because it connects our freshwater to saltwater.

It's our only street that does that unless SDOT changes that.

That's my joke, but it will be that only street that does that.

But anyways, thank you for the presentation.

I'm really excited to get on whatever bandwagon to create, make sure that our downtown is is successful and activated because it is literally the engine of our city and could be arguably of our state as well.

Thank you.

Yeah, on that note, the city of Seattle relies, I think 50% of our general fund revenues might be more than that are generated downtown.

So clearly we need downtown healthy to fund the operations of government, but also because it is a neighborhood and its success IS CRITICAL.

SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

IT MUST BE DIFFICULT WHENEVER YOU START TALKING ABOUT THE DOWNTOWN ACTIVATION PLAN.

EVERYBODY PIVOTS TO PUBLIC SAFETY.

SO I REALLY DO APPRECIATE YOU PUTTING THAT FRONT AND CENTER IN YOUR PRESENTATION BECAUSE I THINK THAT WE AGREE.

I think you have to keep reminding people that the health of downtown is predicated on people feeling safe coming downtown.

And so you always do a great job of reminding people of that, and there is still more that we can do on that front.

The mayor is trying very hard to build back up the ranks of SPD, and there's going to be legislation coming forward next month that will that seeks to improve recruiting processes, our hiring process, hopefully that will help as well.

And in the meantime, there's a way to deploy police resources perhaps to address particularly troublesome spots downtown.

Emphasis patrols, et cetera, that's what I hear our constituents, residents and businesses bringing up a lot.

And I would also like to see the...

I've asked questions about how it's going, but more information for me to how is the enforcement of the public use ordinance going?

We need to get more people into treatment.

And if that is not the option that the city attorney goes, we need to make sure that there's a way to work better with the county on resources in the criminal justice system for, I'll just say it, the jail restrictions need to be addressed as well.

The point is that there's so much to do, and OED is the leading agency, the leading department of so many other...

initiatives that are happening across the board.

So thank you very much for de-silo-izing this work, presenting it in a way that we can see what's going on across the board.

I look forward to those pieces of legislation coming forward.

And I will put a plug in for Council Member Wu is doing some work on, as the Chair also of Arts and Culture, I attended a roundtable discussion with the leaders of Seattle's arts and culture and heritage institutions.

The ones that are located downtown, they are really suffering from the lasting effects of the pandemic.

And we know that creating a safer downtown will make people feel more comfortable coming downtown to patronize those those institutions.

And I know that you're working very closely with the office of arts and culture as well.

So looking forward to seeing what comes out of council member Wu's committee as well on that front.

And then finally, there are those other things that are sort of out there in sort of hanging there.

continue to support the consideration of a B&O tax exemption for new businesses that locate downtown.

Of course, they have to feel like their customers and staff will be safe coming downtown, so it's sort of a chicken and the egg thing, but there is that idea, and also a retail recruitment strategy I think would be good, too, once we create those conditions.

So now I have said what all needs to be done.

But you are working in the here and now.

And not only do we have FIFA coming forward, we've also got the opening of the waterfront.

Super exciting.

That will energize downtown and connect the waterfront with the rest of the city.

And we've got a game tonight at the stadium with the Mariners and the Red Sox on opening day.

So...

Count me as a steadfast fan and partner in all of your efforts.

I believe that the best way to, not the best way necessarily, but an important and often forgotten way of addressing the budget, the operating deficit that we face right now is to support and encourage create the conditions for increased economic activity.

And so to the extent that your work fosters that, I'll be doing a good job to advocate for making sure that we don't lose sight of the importance of that work as well going forward in discussions as the year goes on.

So that's a long way of saying thank you very much.

I know that you've got a lot on your plate.

And thank you, Tammy, for coming and representing Visit Seattle because you broadcast Seattle to the world.

And you bring in that activity and you also promote the neighborhoods across the city.

So all-star team here.

I'm sorry that you had to be at the end of a long meeting, but this is all very positive information.

And thank you so much for what you're doing for our city.

Appreciate all the input.

Appreciate the support.

We'll be certainly back talking about partnership and things we want to do together.

Want to thank this whole team as well as everyone else working on DAP.

It is truly a team effort.

And I'll close just by saying downtown runs on people.

We got to stay focused on getting more people downtown.

Yes, that's one other thing.

I should have given you the last word, but of course, that is key to everything because bringing people downtown makes the streets safer, but they need to be, et cetera, et cetera.

You're absolutely right.

And I'm, you know, in our little corner of the city family here, working on a return to work policy for the legislative department.

We'll be talking about that very soon.

I know the mayor has some similar thoughts because we need to lead by example as public servants before we try to encourage the private sector to do the same.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

All right.

Do any of my colleagues have any further business?

Okey-dokey.

Hearing no further business, this concludes the March 28th meeting of the Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development Committee.

I want to note that the April 11th committee meeting will be canceled, and the next Governance, Accountability, and Economic Development meeting is likely to be on Thursday, 25th.

April 25th at 2 p.m.

unless I can find an alternative date to have it sooner as a special meeting.

Stay tuned on that.

Okay, it's 4.48 p.m.

Thank you very much, everyone.

This meeting is adjourned.