Seattle City Council Briefing 4/7/2025

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today is April 7th, 2025, and the council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 2.04.

Council Member Strauss is excused from today's meeting.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council Member Rink.

Present.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Socket.

Here.

Council Member Solomon.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Kettle.

Here.

And Council President Nelson.

Present.

Seven present.

Thank you very much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of March 31st, 2025 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

All right, we have no proclamations, one presentation and no executive session today.

On tomorrow's City Council meeting agenda, there is one item on the introduction and referral calendar, the weekly bill payment ordinance.

And the consent calendar includes the weekly bill payment ordinance and six items.

one appointment to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission, and five appointments to the Urban Forestry Commission.

And there are four pieces of legislation from committees.

Clerk file 31451. My notes say 11, so that might be...

but anyway, application of the University of Washington to prepare a new major institution master plan for the University of Washington Medical Center, Northwest Campus, located at 1550 North 115th Street.

Council Bill 120963, an ordinance adopting a new major institution master plan for the University of Washington Northwest Hospital.

Council Bill 120771, adopting interim provisions to facilitate occupancy of street level spaces in the downtown South Lake Union and uptown urban centers.

And then resolution 32166, a resolution granting conceptual approval to install, maintain, and operate pedestrian sky bridge over and across 8th Avenue north of Cherry Street in the First Hill neighborhood.

That's what's coming up.

Okay, today we will have another state legislative session update and so I will thank our team down there for being present and keeping us informed as always.

So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves and begin your presentation.

Hi.

Good afternoon, Council President Nelson and council members.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Mina Hashemi, the director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and I'm joined by my colleagues Anna Johnson and Samir Jenejo virtually.

There are just 20 days left of the 2025 regular state legislative session, and the deadline for bills to be voted out of fiscal committees is tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8th.

The legislature is entering the final stretch of session and a crucial phase in the legislative process where lawmakers race against time to advance their proposals before critical cutoff dates.

Following tomorrow's deadline, legislators will shift their focus to intense floor debates and caucus discussions, working long hours to negotiate and pass bills before the opposite floor cutoff on Wednesday, April 16th.

As the session winds down, the stakes are high with advocates, stakeholders, and policymakers pulling out all the stops and closely watching the fate of key policies and measures that may either advance or pause until the next session.

Last week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee and the House Finance Committee held hearings on a series of revenue bills introduced by the majority Democrats.

These proposals sparked an extraordinary level of public interest, drawing a record-breaking number of sign-ins from individuals and organizations that are eager to voice their opinions.

The overwhelming engagement underscored the heightened work of business and advocacy groups on both sides of tax policy this year.

In the Ways and Means Committee, Senate Bill 5798, a bill addressing property taxes, attracted an astonishing 45,174 sign-ins, an unprecedented level of participation in state history.

and Senate Bill 5796 concerning payroll expense taxes received over 13,000 sign-ins.

By way of context, it is absolutely within the realm of normal to have a dozen or less sign-ins on a lower profile bill.

All of this is to say that these bills are contentious and conversations and advocacy is far from over.

Governor Ferguson also weighed in at a press conference last Tuesday where he outlined five key conditions that any budget must meet in order for him to sign it.

Rejecting the budgets proposed by majority Democrats, he stressed the following requirements.

The Rainy Day Fund, otherwise known as the budget stabilization account, must remain untouched.

While the Senate's proposal draws from these reserves, the House's version does not.

The budget must be based on realistic revenue projections rather than the legally permitted 4.5% projection.

The governor supports the Senate's approach in this regard.

New spending should be minimal due to current fiscal constraints.

He cautioned, this is not the time for major investments in any program, no matter how worthwhile.

The budget must include significant savings and efficiencies amounting to billions of dollars while preserving essential services like K-12, education, and public safety.

And it cannot rely on revenue sources that may face legal challenges and risk being overturned in court.

The governor's firm stance will add to the challenges that budget writers face as they work privately toward a final budget agreement by signing Dye on April 27th.

With that, I'll turn it over to Ana and Samir.

Thank you.

All right, good afternoon, council members.

We're going to start our briefing off today with giving you an update and status report on our city priorities based on the legislative agenda.

So for Bill 50, Senate Bill 5098, dealing with weapons in certain locations is scheduled for executive session out of the opposite chamber fiscal committee today.

House Bill 1112, dealing with pro tem judges and residency, passed the opposite chamber, the Senate, 42 to 7. So it's on its way to the governor's desk for signature into law.

House Bill 2015, dealing with public safety funding, is scheduled for executive session tomorrow in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Senate Bill 5595, which deals with legalizing shared streets, is also scheduled for executive session today.

And then House Bill 1423, dealing with vehicle noise enforcement cameras, is scheduled for executive session out of the Opposite Chamber Fiscal Committee tomorrow.

Moving on to some of our other priorities, House Bill 1515, dealing with outdoor dining and Seattle Center alcohol regulations, is scheduled for executive session in the Ways and Means Committee tomorrow.

House Bill 1733, relating to reimbursement cap for moving expenses for businesses that are being displaced, that is also scheduled for executive session tomorrow.

House Bill 1403, condo liability reform, is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.

House Bill 1516, also related to condo development, awaiting a vote on the Senate floor since Senate rules.

And then House Bill 1774, related to lease of unused highway land, is also scheduled for an executive session tomorrow.

Senate Bill 5284, dealing with recycling reform, is scheduled for executive session today.

House Bill 1253, which expands the ability for consumer-owned utilities to enter into joint use agreements, passed the opposite chamber, the Senate, unanimously, so also heading to the governor's desk.

House Bill 1409 dealing with making improvements to the Clean Fuels program is scheduled for executive session today.

Senate Bill 5509 dealing with child care siting is scheduled or already had executive session on the 5th of May or March.

House Bill 1314 dealing with early learning facilities grant and loan program.

has been delivered to the governor for signature into law.

And then House Bill 1648, dealing with child care workforce qualifications, is ready for floor action.

Senate Bill 5192, dealing with funding of school district materials, supplies, and operating costs, had executive session in the fiscal committee.

And Senate Bill 5263, dealing with special education funding, also had executive session in the fiscal committee.

The property tax bill, as I stated earlier, had hearings last week in the Senate and the House, and those bills are not subject to cutoff.

So no executive session is needed this week and is not expected until the end of session.

Now we're gonna give you an overview of what was in the capital budgets that were released last week.

So the House and Senate both released their capital budgets.

So this is the third budget that we've seen now.

As a reminder, there is a transportation budget and operating budget and a capital budget.

The capital budget typically deals with kind of shovel ready projects, construction of housing facilities, parks and things of that nature.

So starting with some of the highlights in the housing and homelessness section of the capital budget, some exciting news is that both the House and the Senate included $10 million for the city of Seattle to help with our infrastructure improvements for Fort Lawton redevelopment from the Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program or CHIP.

And then in terms of the Housing Trust Fund, both the House and the Senate had pretty sizable funding of that account at $600 million in the Senate and $598 million in the House, funding multifamily rental housing, Apple Health and Homes, funding for first-time low-income home ownership, funding for rapid conversion, of existing buildings and both budgets also include an urgent repair grant for affordable housing and then in the senate they included also a tod or transit oriented development specific grant program uh to 20 million dollars In terms of clean energy and climate, both the House and Senate funded grant programs for clean energy community grants.

They included funding for community EV charging.

The House and Senate both included weatherization plus health grants.

The House budget also included the clean energy fund program, whereas the Senate did not include that program.

Both budgets also included funding for energy retrofits for public building grants, and as well as the Senate included multifamily affordable housing energy efficient grants, and then the House included solar and energy storage grants.

both uh both budgets uh had funding for the world cup related items the senate funded uh four million dollars for lumen field security and safety enhancements and eight million for field improvements and infrastructure while the house uh only funded four million dollars for lumen field and both the senate and the house funded 1.7 million dollars for u-dub capital improvements for their practice field and hundred thousand dollars for gonzaga practice field improvements I'll move to a recap of the last week.

For climate environment bills that had action last week, we saw that Senate bill 5804, which is a new bill that concerns fish habitat restoration, have a hearing.

The city signed in con on this bill.

This bill essentially redirects revenue sources that are currently for the public works assistance account into the general fund.

It replaces a revenue source, a revenue source called the public utility tax that would be applied to Seattle City Light with a new tax that is dedicated to specifically salmon and seal head recovery and habitat restoration and mitigating the impact of fish passage barriers and then allows the state to issue bonds on that new revenue source.

Also, Senate Bill 5445 had a hearing last week.

We signed in pro on this bill.

This bill essentially is an incentive program for the development of distributed energy resources.

General government, House Bill 1576 passed out of committee last week in the Senate, and this bill relates a designation of historic landmarks.

It prohibits designating a structure of the historic landmark if it is less than 40 years old or if owner consent has not been approved with exceptions for buildings that are more than 125 years old or for buildings that are in designated historic historic districts.

Healthcare and behavioral health, both these bills have moved moved out of their committees last week in the Senate.

House Bill 1574 relates to protections for people who are seeking medical assistance for someone who's had a drug overdose.

So essentially ensuring that they're not penalized or arrested for possession.

Sending someone who has had a drug overdose.

House Bill 1432 relates to access to mental health and SUD care, relates to access in terms of insurance provisions.

So creates new standards for utilization, review, prior authorization, and definitions for medical necessity for insurance coverage of mental health and SUD care.

Housing and homelessness, House Bill 1353 allows cities to create a self-certification program for architects to self-certify ADU developments.

And this bill actually passed the House and the Senate is now on the way to the governor's desk.

House Bill 1621 allows superior courts to create housing court commissioners for unlawful detainer actions, which are also eviction proceedings.

The city signed in pro.

This bill also passed both chambers now as well.

And then lastly, Senate Bill 5571 prohibits cities from regulating exterior colliding material and is out in-house rules.

Two labor and commerce bills that want to flag House Bill 1213 had a hearing in Ways and Means last week, and this creates a whole host of changes to the state's paid family medical leave program, including extending the minimum claim period from eight to four hours, extending employment protection rights to employees who have worked at least six months before taking leave, and also extending access to grants to small employers to offset some of the PFML costs.

And House Bill 1622 requires public employers to collectively bargain over the use of artificial intelligence if that artificial intelligence adoption of that technology would impact employee wages and performance evaluations.

For public safety and criminal justice, I'll flag Senate Bill 5746, which had a hearing last week and the city testified pro.

This bill expands an existing electric vehicle work group within commerce to also have an ad hoc committee that is looking at EV charger property crime.

And then for social programs and education, House Bill 1177 deals with the child welfare housing assistance program out of DCYF.

It allows families to receive child welfare housing assistance even after a child is no longer in the child welfare system.

And then Senate Bill 5232 deals with the housing and essential needs program or HEN and it makes flexible uses to the direct cash assistance through that program.

And lastly, in transportation, a flying house bill in 1980, which had a hearing last week in the Senate Transportation Committee, this would allow private employer shuttles to use bus lanes in King County.

And I'm looking forward to next to this upcoming week and tomorrow is the fiscal committee cutoff and then they'll be on the floor voting on Senate and House floors.

And then that cutoff for those chambers is Wednesday, April 16th.

And we're all looking forward to Sunday, April 27th, which is Sunny Dai.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

And thank you, Director Hashimi and Ana and Samir, as always, for your expert sage counsel here on all the...

the hotness, the urgency going on right about now in Olympia.

So I have a question about slide 19. That transportation one was one that first came up on my radar now, that HB 1980. Can you talk a little bit more about that and its anticipated next steps?

Also, is this the first year it's being heard?

Anticipated next steps, et cetera.

Thank you.

And from my knowledge, it is the first years being heard, at least since I've since I've been working on these issues and it is.

And as I stated, it does only apply to King County and it is a bill that I know that.

Companies, especially in Bellevue and Seattle, have asked for this bill and would allow them what it would prevent it would give discretion to local authorities, though, to permit this.

So it's not a mandate, but if authorized by state law, then the city and the county, city and county would be able to allow private employers the shuttles to use bus lanes.

And that's something that I think it's have not been exact out of the Senate Transportation Committee yet, but certainly monitoring any amendments once it does.

So it has not made it out of the Senate Transportation Committee, you're saying, yet.

And then it would purport to authorize but not require these.

It would, at the end of the day, be up to municipalities, each city, jurisdiction themselves to make that determination.

And so more to come on that, I guess.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Thank you.

On the slide three, public safety slide, I note that the vehicle noise enforcement bill is subject to executive session, looks like tomorrow.

And I think members of the public are familiar with exactly what executive session is, certainly at a high level.

We have our own executive sessions here.

And this legislative body is authorized, expressly authorized by Olympia and state statute.

But just curious to better understand, so the executive session specifically called out for this particular bill, and then just more generally is that.

kind of routine for this type of bill?

I know there are other few areas where you flagged various other city priorities are subject to executive session this week.

Is that routine?

How typical is that?

That kind of thing.

yeah thanks for that question um oh i don't know if you know it's trying to jump in there but um executive session in the state legislative context is a little bit different i think than the term that you're used to at council in the legislative process context it means the committee is taking action to move the bill out of committee and that is a required procedural move for any bill that has been heard in a committee whether it's policy or fiscal Basically, it's the step that they take to vote it out and also take up amendments at that stage if they want to.

And it's routine, as you asked.

And so right now, as we lead up to the fiscal committee cutoff in the opposite chamber tomorrow, you'll see that a lot of bills are scheduled for executive action because the deadline for them to move out of the committee or go through executive session is on tomorrow at the end of the day.

Hopefully that helps answer your question.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so by the end of the day, tomorrow we'll have better certainty and clarity on the disposition of that particular bills and any number of bills that are listed as having to require executive session.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

If you could please keep my office updated on that, that would be on that bill in particular, that would be very helpful.

Awesome.

I'm looking to see if anyone else has their hand up.

Council Member Moore, please go ahead.

Hi, thank you.

Anyway, thank you so much for that.

I have a question about the property cap tax, raising that.

Where are we at on that?

The bills have had hearings, and the city signed in pro on both in the Senate and the House hearings, and now they're basically subject to negotiation between the two chambers.

Both bills are slightly different, and then the House bill allowed going above the 1% cap to 3%, whereas the Senate bill did not have a 3% cap, essentially said that you can go above the 1% um based on inflation and population growth as long as these the local municipality shows a has a finding of substantial need of public safety funding um and so there's no cap in the senate bill but there's a requirement for public safety funding determination, whereas the House bill has a 3% cap, but there's no public safety language, necessity language in there.

So that will be subject to negotiation between the two chambers and uncertain how that will play out.

Okay, so I'm trying that it has passed, but for that language that needs to be reconciled or?

The bills themselves have not passed, but the budgets have, like the two chambers have incorporated that revenue in their budgets that they have passed.

And so when they kind of come together and figure out what the final budget looks like, then they'll use that to determine whether a bill actually has to pass because the budget will incorporate the revenue, but then the actual statutory authority for the tax will have to pass in a bill.

Thank you.

Sorry, may I ask one more question?

There was some discussion about imposing payroll expense tax or raising that, whatever became of that.

Yeah, that's still under consideration.

It's something that they also they had a hearing on it, but they're not expected to take a vote on it until they actually agree on a final vote.

The House and it actually agree on a final budget and then they're expected to take a vote on what that actually looks like.

So we'll we'll kind of we'll find out closer to the April 27th, which is the end of session.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Okay, other questions?

Well, I'll give folks some time to think of something.

I have a question about HB 1576 sponsored by Wallen, designation of historic landmarks on page 13. You explained that it will require that a landmark can only be designated if it's at least 40 years old, I believe now.

And there were a couple other stipulations.

that you mentioned, is this also the one that requires consent from the property owner or is that a separate landmark bill?

Correct, it's the same bill.

So it says that the way it prohibits, it prohibits in two ways.

It prohibits cities from designating buildings as historic landmarks if owner consent has not been required or if the property is less than 40 years.

So there's two prohibitions.

OK.

And thank you very much for that.

That's an issue that I've heard a lot of issues about from actual property owners.

So thank you.

I'll be watching that one.

And then I would like to know more information about the substance use disorder care that you mentioned.

It's on page 14. I'm trying to find the bill.

Let's see.

Access to mental health and SUD care, HB 1432. Can you please give a little bit more detail on that one?

It does quite a lot of things related to insurance coverage, and so I won't be able to lay out kind of a full list of all the things it does because it changes some definitions for what is considered medically necessary care to ensure that care is actually covered by insurance companies and then creates definitions for prior authorization and utilization review.

And I can send you the specific definition and how those things are changed in that bill.

Got it.

Thank you very much.

I could also go to the link, which I plan to do as well.

So thank you very much.

That is included in our bulletin.

It's just that I'm seeing all this at one time.

Are there any questions from my colleagues?

All right, any closing words?

Council member Rivera, did you?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that you.

Okay, go ahead.

Just thank you.

We appreciate your continued interest and engagement in the legislative session.

And I'm not sure if we will be back next week.

It sort of depends on the status of some of these bills that we've been talking about since it will be floor action next Monday.

But we will stay in touch this week.

I think that our default was that there would not be a briefing.

What was our default?

Thank you for reminding me what our conversation was earlier today.

Yeah, we want you to be able to do your jobs and be there when time sensitive things come up.

So we certainly don't want to be the barrier to you getting your jobs done on behalf of the people of Seattle.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Moving right along, we are now in the, I believe, in our blue sky period, but just to make sure, yep, the preview of council actions, council and regional committees.

The roll call order starts with Council Member Moore.

okay uh thank you very much council president um so on tomorrow's full city council agenda there are no items from the housing and homelessness housing and services committee um i did want to say we tried uh valiantly to bring forth presentations for the next meeting but um people were unable to come forward due to being very busy themselves.

So we unfortunately are going to have to cancel a Council Housing and Human Services Committee.

So at this stage, our next scheduled meeting is for April 23rd.

I did want to note on tomorrow's full Council agenda, there is Clerk File 314511 for the University of Washington Northwest Hospital Major Institution Master Plan.

I think I mentioned in committee that I will be bringing a walk-on amendment to provide greater tree protection.

That includes the urban forestry's master plan as an appendix.

Oversight was not added as an appendix.

It makes the conditions in line with the recommendations of the advisory committee.

Apologies that I wasn't able to transmit this in time for publishing tomorrow's agenda, but my staff will be walking the floor with a copy of the amendment.

Please approach, feel free to approach me or anyone on my staff if you have any questions about the amendment.

Let's see, this week's Regional Policy Committee was counseled, although we may be having a special meeting.

I did want to say thank you very much to Councilmember Solomon for attending last week's committee while I was out of office.

And also wanted to thank Councilmember Solomon very much for bringing forward all of the U of C Urban Forestry Commission appointments.

Very exciting that that's going to be finalized tomorrow.

And then note that this Friday is KCRHA's governing retreat.

It's a first retreat since we have reconfigured under the new interlocal agreement.

And we will be discussing advancing regionalism and also doing a deep dive discussion about our data.

both locally and across all the various jurisdictions that are participating.

So we'll be happy to report back what we bring forth in those discussions.

So that's it.

If there are no comments or questions, I will turn it over to council member.

Council member.

Wonderful, thank you, Council President.

To start us off, my team had the opportunity to visit with the Duwamish Longhouse and Heron's Nest last week and had the opportunity to meet with some of our tribal leadership and discuss their ongoing work and learn about the exciting progress on the Heron's Nest Land Back project.

I did tune in to try and testify on some of our revenue bills, but was unable to be able to make it through because there were so many folks on the line to testify for some of the revenue bills in the state legislature.

And so was able to sign in for a couple of them.

But then going to the Regional Policy Committee meeting for last week, where I was joined by Councilmember Solomon, we took action on the King County Parks Levy.

This is going to the voters across King County in August.

There were amendments walked on by the Sound Cities Association, which represented approximately $23.5 million of cuts to the overall levy proposal.

There was much deliberation and discussion during the meeting on...

the amendments as well as I think it should be noted that there was preservation to earmarked funding for Seattle based regional organizations and pass-through dollars for Seattle parks ultimately there was an agreement struck within the meeting and the approved amendment would take out thirteen point five million dollars in levy spending across the King County space acquisition and as well as some funding reductions in dog parks, general infrastructure, regional trail rehabilitation, and then a move to preserve $10 million of the healthy communities and parks grant funding to being reserved for cities and towns.

So just by way of overarching, the levy that's going to be going to voters will be a period of six years of a total rate of 23 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

And so the RPC amended version of the levy will now go to full King County Council.

King County Council is in recess this week, so it might be another week before it's taken up there.

In the meantime, there is a special meeting of RPC that has been called for 8 a.m.

this Wednesday to resolve some of the outstanding technical questions about the levy ahead of the County Council discussion and final action.

Following that, I also want to express my appreciation again for everyone's participation in the Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes.

We had a fantastic panel on housing featuring KCRHA, Chief Seattle Club, DESC, Hunter Capital, Enterprise Community Partners, and found the discussion to be particularly informative for what we can plan for in the future and what our kind of vulnerabilities are when it comes to losses in federal funding.

Additionally, we had discussion on the resolution for a welcoming city, and I look forward to working with each of your offices so we can advance a resolution that does create supports and protections for our local immigrant and refugee community.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to join.

I participated in the hands-off rally in Seattle Center and would take a moment to thank the event coordinators for putting together such a great event.

Everything that I've seen from reporting has estimates of participation ranging from 18,000 people to 25,000 people, which is just incredible.

Truly, I know from a lot of the discussions I had that day, I heard a lot of people voice how affirmed they were by how many people came out to voice their discontent, to really demand the end of the chaos of destruction that the Trump administration has been bringing onto the country.

And I think that message of hope is particularly important, and I know I tell myself often and tell others that hope is a discipline, and requires constant nurturing to be able to keep it.

I know there's so much happening in this community right now across the country.

It's hard to capture in one meeting everything that's going on, but I think what is clear is that our community wants to see us stand up for our rights and for our way of life.

Truly, this isn't even about partisanship anymore.

It's about the courage to reject authoritarianism regardless of the political expediency.

And when the federal government abandons its responsibility to protect people, we here in Seattle won't just stand by, we'll organize and mobilize and fight back at the local level.

And to that end, I was just again honored to meet so many passionate community members of our city.

And I'll close by sharing that this morning I joined the Seattle King County Clinic and Access to Healthcare Day press event where I was standing alongside King County leaders and some Seattle leaders.

There was continued discussion in that event about healthcare access, particularly for more vulnerable community members and the precarity of what losses in Medicaid funding could mean for our community, and so was proud to stand alongside King County Councilmember Jorge Barron and the mayor in really standing in that event to make sure that we were protecting health care access.

And with that, I will pass it to Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rink.

All right.

Last week, I had a very productive meeting with the mayor following the presentation of the gun violence audit to the Good Governance Accountability and Economic Development Committee.

For reference, in the North Precinct, shots fired are up by 35% since last year at the same time.

I have been hearing from residents who are very concerned.

The mayor reached out right after that meeting, and we had a really great meeting to discuss the public safety concerns in the district.

I'm encouraged by his engagement.

The meeting was a good first step, and he said he would provide concrete action steps within a couple weeks.

really appreciate that partnership.

I also attended the PSRC meeting where we certified more cities comprehensive plans.

I really enjoy participating on the PSRC Growth Management Policy Committee and hearing from other cities as to their challenges as they're putting together their comprehensive plans and their strategies as well.

I also hosted the Cub Scouts, a Cub Scouts visit here at City Hall.

We gave them a tour of chambers and they had really great questions about the work of the council and the City Hall in general.

I always love meeting with students, no matter how young.

It's never too young to get engaged from a social, policy level and so really had a great meeting and they were able to come in here and get pictures in chambers and that was really great.

So really want to thank their parents for bringing them.

Last week, I guess this weekend is part of last week, I too attended the hands-off protests.

I saw former council member David Della there.

I really want to thank former council member Della for his leadership especially with all the public safety issues that are going on in the ID and up on 12th and Jackson.

He's been very engaged and I really want to thank him publicly for all that hard work he's doing up to help those constituents in the ID and in Little Saigon in particular.

Thank you, Councilmember Della, if you're listening.

This week, this morning, actually, I had my monthly meeting with the North Precinct Captain George Davison.

He updated me on arrests made in the D4 of significance.

SPD arrested the suspect in a horrible hate crime in the University District, and I'm grateful for how quickly that happened.

There's just no room for this level of violence, hatred, and bigotry in our city.

This week I'll be joining the Muckleshoot Council for a meet and greet with their leadership.

I really look forward to hearing about some of their priorities.

This week I'm also hosting a public safety walk.

As you might recall, colleagues, last year I did public safety walks in the district.

And so this is my third one.

This time it'll be in the U District.

I'll be bringing together representatives from the city, including Chief Barnes, North Precinct Captain Davison, the Mayor's Public Safety Chief Officer Walton Anderson, Chief Barden of the CARE Department, who now has an office.

The CARE has an office.

that they are borrowing from the UW.

They'll be located in the UW as they did that north expansion.

We'll also be joined by SPU and City Light, and we'll be meeting with some local residents and businesses to hear their concerns and experiences regarding public safety in the U District.

We're getting a lot of reports of open-air drug use and drug dealing, burglaries, assaults, and gun violence.

In the past, these walks have been very successful.

It's a great opportunity for constituents and businesses on the ground to meet and hear from our city departments and tell their stories.

And in turn, it's really beneficial for city departments to explain what they do, what possibly might be and make folks generally aware of resources or opportunities that are available to them and just really show their support for what they're experiencing on the ground.

I'm really honored to be able to connect constituents and the departments and I think it's a great way to build understanding on both sides and get folks engaged.

This next week, well, sorry, not next week.

This week, we're also going to be, I'm going to be hosting our first select committee for renewal of the Families Education Preschool and Promise levy.

On Thursday, the Department of Education and Early Learning will present an overview of our current levy.

that was passed in 2018 as a way to get background on this levy.

As we discuss the next iteration, possible iteration of the levy, and we start to do the work to review and work on this levy renewal.

So more to come on that.

And unless anyone has any questions, I'll pass it along to you, Council Member Saka.

Excellent.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

I'll make mine short and sweet today.

So colleagues, our transportation committee meeting that we had last week had a number of agenda items, including a presentation and briefing from SDOT on the deployment of automated traffic safety cameras in our city and legislation on the authorization to deploy that technology is coming in my committee.

as well, a sky bridge.

We pass out a committee as council president mentioned earlier in this briefing.

It's one of the things we're gonna be voting on tomorrow.

We pass out of my committee a permit, a resolution to authorize a permit sky bridge between districts three and district seven.

And our next transportation committee meeting is gonna be next Tuesday, April 15th.

The agenda for that is still being finalized.

So work in progress.

With respect to some of our regional committees that I sit on, later this week, bless you, was going to have an executive board meeting.

However, a internal city business is actually gonna take priority for me that, that day because I think we have a FEP renewal select committee meeting on Thursday instead.

And then exciting active week in the community, a number of fun community engagement opportunities that I'm gonna be participating in this week and also doing office hours this week.

So really looking forward to that.

If there are no comments or questions, I will pass it on to whoever's next on our list.

Let's see, I don't believe, Council Member Solomon is not here.

Go on.

Okay, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yep, hello.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Saka for the pass on.

So the Parks and Utilities Technology Committee will be coming up on Wednesday, April 9th at 2 p.m.

We will be voting on the Lower Duwamish Cleanup Waterway, which authorizes Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light to use funding towards this cleanup.

We have already had an executive session.

I know some council members have had briefings And we also had a presentation in committee.

So I'm hoping that everyone feels comfortable enough to vote on that this Wednesday.

I'll walk around just doing a double check, making sure everyone is comfortable.

But I feel like we have all the information before us.

And I feel like we had a really good use of the executive session to talk about that.

Next up, the comprehensive plan meeting.

Our next one will be April 16th at 2 p.m.

The agenda is being finalized, but it will be our central staff giving a presentation on our favorite topic, MHA.

And also, we will also have a conversation about trees and environmental protections, and there's going to be some other stuff coming down the pipeline.

I just have to check with central staff and make sure we're all on the same page.

But it should be a wonderful agenda for that.

And last but not least, I just wanted to highlight that I have received a number of constituent feedback regarding the state of Capitol Hill.

And so that is ground zero for me and our district regarding cleanliness, safety, just making it continuing to protect a lot of the people that live on Capitol Hill, work and play, and the people that go there to enjoy it for everyone.

And so just know we're going to be starting with the basics.

I want to thank our mayor's office for really engaging with the community on the ground level for our response.

And that's just, you know, some simple stuff is the cleanliness of some of the sidewalks, extra trash pickup, shout out SPU.

also some of the activations that have been happening, some lighting potential.

There's just a lot of great stuff that I know is in the works.

So thank you to all the departments.

But that is ground zero for me because right now there's a lot of activity going on on Capitol Hill and some public safety concerns that we've seen and people have reached out at and they are unfortunately just getting a little frustrated with going on and so we're going to make sure that we are able to you know kind of do the best response that we can and as council members kind of advocate for our community with that and i think the one thing that we all agree on is that we want it to be clean and cleanly and that is big for me so Anyways, we're working on that, and that's all I have.

And I will pass it off to Council Member Kettle.

Thank you.

Questions?

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth, Council President.

For this week, coming up tomorrow, actually, we have our Public Safety Committee meeting, which is our second reading and vote for our after hours establishment bill.

You know, it is a bill that we introduced two weeks ago in committee, and sadly, since then, we had some gun violence at an after-hours establishment, just highlighting the need for this piece of legislation.

I'm also, we're gonna have an agenda item two, just to, pretty much to set up, discuss OPA and the process to appoint its next director.

So I thank the mayor's office and Mr. Meyerberg for that.

And that's really to set up the following meeting will be with our accountability partners.

And as I've often said, to see what's happening with them and also see where can we assist them, set them up for success, essentially.

And so that's basically our next two meetings.

For this week, like apparently many others, I found out, including another person on this dais, I will be going to SPU tonight regarding inspiring students to serve in local government.

And so I will be doing that from my perspective of being a new council member, but also serving in community.

I also wanted to note on Friday, we have our next District 7 Neighborhood Council meeting, Council of Councils, including...

Magnolia Community Council, Queen Anne Community Council, Eastlake, Southlake, Belltown Downtown, Uptown Alliance, plus some other organizations to include the Greenways and focus on different areas and some department neighborhoods.

It's got a good cross representation.

And that's a reminder, too, by the way.

I just wanted to quickly note that we had a meeting at Pike Place Market related to Pike Place, and this was a meeting to follow up on the action that we took last year.

I started to pull Pike Place out of the Seattle Transportation Plan.

We had a very good meeting with strong representation from the Department of Transportation and really want to Thank Director Emory for her support and her team support for being there.

It was really good to have a good mix of stakeholders there to discuss the future of Pike Place and get a comprehensive stakeholder-involved decision.

So I really want to thank that.

That's an addition from last week's schedule.

From next week...

Sorry, the allergies are hitting me hard after Saturday.

I wanted to note for next week, I'll be meeting with the honorary council of Ukraine.

Valerie Golobarongo, also on Tuesday, meeting with emergency hubs.

And then Thursday, meeting with the North Seattle Industrial Association and also the alarm companies.

I just wanted to say this as a follow-up.

Oftentimes, we talk about public comment.

We had the alarm companies speak at public comment multiple times.

And out of that process came a meeting with Chief Rohrer, who signed off on the position related to alarms and SPD responses.

And that meeting was good because, again, bringing the stakeholders together, and kind of highlighted that, yes, there may be some actions that can be taken to facilitate and ameliorate the situation.

So we'll be meeting with SPD IT on that.

And then finally, there's going to be a meeting on AI House that's kind of a combination of Washington Department of Commerce and city-involved effort.

And I just wanted to add...

I'm asking for your support to link one more way, D3 and D7.

I know Council Member Hollingsworth is not here on the dais, but to link not just side by side here on the dais, but to have the Sky Bridge cross the border between D3 and D7 at Skyline.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Kettle and Council Member Sokka, I did have a question and I forgot to ask you when you were talking about this, but what we'll be approving is a resolution that authorizes the entering into of a permit or that grants a permit.

Is that correct?

And I ask because I just want it known that I fully support this project.

It makes complete sense.

And I just wanted to know, is this the one and only action that this city will be taking to make it real?

No, you shake your head.

So this is just the beginning I'm getting.

Please give more information.

Thank you for asking.

So, yeah, this is the beginning of a process.

The resolution, we'll talk more about it tomorrow, but high level, it would authorize the city, in this case, the department, to work with the community, the site, and...

ultimately bring this to life and go through an analysis for public benefit, there has to be sufficient public benefit.

And so this would be, this would represent the start of the process.

And then so via vis-a-vis a resolution towards the end of the process, if granted, there would be an ordinance to officially seal the deal, so to speak.

Okay, and what is the timeline for that last part?

It varies depending on any number of factors.

I'm not sure the department's timeline here, but I understand it varies from a few months to a few years, so.

Okay, got it, thank you.

And to that point, Council President, I just wanted to also thank, initially it was like Council Member Hollingsworth and I, working, but SDOT has joined in in a very collaborative way.

And so now it's just not the Skybridge.

It is a combination to bring in the public benefits in terms of that area of First Hill.

And so I want to thank SDOT in terms of improving intersections and then the, you know, 8th Avenue, just the whole host of about four or five things that were added as part of the collaboration that started, you know, from beyond the question of the Sky Bridge itself.

So I want to thank their participation.

Of course, the Skyline community as well for them engaging with SDOT on these different pieces.

So thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I believe I am the last person in the roll call.

So I'll just start with last week.

We will be having a, well, first of all, let me say that the Governance Accountability and Economic Development The committee will be meeting this Thursday and we'll be finishing off, perhaps there will be a possible vote on the democracy voucher legislation.

Anyway, last week I joined representatives from the Office of Economic Development for a tour of the M5 space at the Seattle Center.

And remember, M5 is the name of the building that used to be occupied by Cascade Public Media slash KCTS 9. This is on the corner of 5th and Mercer, and the land is owned by the city, and the Cascade Public Media has relocated elsewhere across the freeway just on the other side of, sort of on the south end, in sort of the central district.

This is a collaboration between the Seattle Center and OED's, the folks that are overseeing film in the major industry sectors division.

I have to say that It is long time in coming that we have a space that's dedicated for creatives and especially with a particular note of film because we pass the, one of the reasons I wanted to establish the Film Commission was to be able to attract production here and provide more jobs to our local people in the film industry.

And this is one of the first, if not the first, major productions to occur in Seattle.

You know how it's frustrating to see a movie or a TV show that features Seattle, but you know it was filmed elsewhere, like maybe Vancouver, BC, or whatever?

Well, this is a film that Paramount Pictures has been filming in in Washington and in Seattle, but that represents a trip across the country, and so there are other places in the country that are represented in this film and all filmed in Washington using...

Lots of local talent and generating business for local creatives as well as all the things that benefit from a production being in town down to the restaurants and small businesses.

I highly recommend if anyone can go there, this is a lease that OED has with the Seattle Center and it will be ending at the end of this year and it's my impression that at the end of this year, the Seattle Center will be letting out an RFP for permanent usage.

I would just like to put in a plug for the continued use of this space for the creative industry because it's already a space that was made for production, having been the home of where KCTS did a lot of its programming as well as special events.

It right now houses a lot of, it houses small businesses and nonprofits that create digital content, podcasts, and so much else.

And so I would just say that This is an asset that we have.

I know that we have to balance the benefits of many different uses, but I will say that this seems like it is a hub for the creative sector.

We always say we want to grow the creative sector, and here we have facility that is perfect for it so I recommend that anybody if you want to visit it there are still even though Paramount Pictures was packing up their their stuff to to leave town there's still a lot of great nonprofits there that I'm sure that you would be welcome to have a tour of the facility my I would just simply say that we need more spaces like this and whether this is located in the future or in the future at M5 or elsewhere that's what we need to keep on doing All right, moving on.

On Saturday, I attended the grand opening of the SAR Super Saver in the Oak Tree Village.

I have to say thank you very much, Council Member Moore, for bringing this to my attention.

Your invitation was really an opportunity for me because this is a...

It's a space that had had a grocery store in the location that closed in 2022. And since then, the area has been basically a food desert.

We lost a cornerstone of the community and it made neighbors travel far from their homes just to buy groceries.

and bringing back local grocery builds relationships with neighbors and allows Oak Tree Village to return to being a place that people travel to instead of just through.

And this should be the core of an urban village, and SARS coming to this space is the first step in bringing back that community core.

There's a lot more to be done to make this community one that is safe and enjoyable to live in, but rebuilding a sense of community through food is just as important as the public safety improvements the council has been working with SPD on and the community planning projects that we have been working on with the mayor's office.

So I wanna thank SARS for stepping up and filling this much needed role, hole in the community and make it clear that the city is here to support you and ensure that you're able to be successful.

So on Saturday was the grand opening.

The store actually opened, I believe it was in November.

And SARS has seven other stores in Western Washington.

And what I learned is that they really seek to meet the needs of the community at hand.

And so they did a study of the neighbors within a mile of the store.

The community is largely Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, and you should see the produce sections of this store.

I mean, they really do devote a lot of space and expertise to meeting the needs of many different ethnicities and cultures that live close there.

There is a very large halal meat section, and you can even buy a whole goat or lamb.

So anyway, check it out if you can.

Right after that, I headed to the Seattle Center for the hands-off protest, and it was great to see Seattleites come out in such force to protest, well, pretty much everything that we're experiencing the Trump administration doing that people are quite upset about.

Anyway, I really do also thank the organizers because it was a heavy lift to do this across the country.

And so thank you very much.

All right, finally, yesterday I attended an event that celebrated 50 years of community contribution by the Viet Hoa group and proclaiming April 6, 2025 to be Viet Hoa day.

If you don't recall, or let me just remind you that Viet Hoa was a market in little Saigon that did close.

for various reasons and then ended up burning down.

But there is a store in Renton and the mayor of Renton was there along with several city council members and representative of Executive Constantine's office.

read a proclamation.

Anyway, it was really moving to see so many people come out in appreciation of Uncle Duke because it was recognized that he was a refugee, came to the, well, to Seattle in 1976. And it was at a time when there wasn't, one could not procure any staples from Vietnam, of course, but he set out to make sure that he could provide that for the community and give people a sense of home as they got used to a new country.

So I have to say it was really moving for me to hear about how important Viet Hoa Group is to not just Renton, but to the whole region.

All right, I'll be joining Council Member Solomon for the 34th Annual Taiwan on Luncheon, which serves as a rite of passage for approximately 85 young men who successfully complete the Project MISTER program that addresses the needs of teenage fathers and high-risk young men of high school age.

The program works with the Seattle Public Schools to increase the number of teen males returning to and or remaining in school.

It also has a marked effect on reducing the incidence of abuse among high-risk teen parents, enhancing self-esteem, life skills, and assisting the prevention of teen pregnancy.

And the core programs are based at Garfield, Cleveland, Rainier Beach, and Franklin High Schools.

That's it, except for next week, I, along with Council CRHA governing board retreat in Redmond and both Councilmember Moore and I also, we serve on the governing board of KCRHA and I would have to say that this is going to be a, it'll be an informative and a lot of hands-on work to coming up.

And so Councilmember Moore, I recognize, I can empathize with the regret of having to cancel your committee, but this will be, I think, it will be good to preserve some energy and some mental space to be able to focus a lot at this retreat coming up.

Is there any further business to come before the council before we adjourn?

All right, hearing no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

I think Council President, I'm so sorry to interrupt you.

I think Council Member Moore has her hand up.

I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah, thank you.

Actually, I just want to say thank you so much, Council President, for covering the SARS opening.

I wasn't able to attend because I was out of town on emergency family business.

But thank you very much.

It sounds like it was very, very interesting, and I will definitely be checking it out.

So thank you.

Well, I again appreciate the opportunity.

Ask me any time.

Okay.

Thank you for that, Council Member Hollingsworth, because I have my script, and it covers part of my screen.

All right.

Hearing no further business, this meeting is adjourned, and it is 310. Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you.