Good morning, everybody.
This is the July 1st 2019 Council briefing meeting at Seattle City Council Chambers.
The time is 933 a.m.
I'm joined by Council members Juarez, Bagshaw, Pacheco, Mosqueda, Gonzalez, and O'Brien.
Thank you for being here.
In the absence of President Harrell, I will be serving as president pro tem today.
And if there is no objection, the council briefing minutes of June 24th will be approved.
Hearing no objection, the minutes are approved.
Today we have two executive sessions and these combined sessions are allotted for about two hours and it's likely that at least one of them, if not both, will go a little longer.
Before that, we have a preview of today's city council actions, council, and regional committees, which we hopefully can complete efficiently.
There are no items on today's council meeting agenda from the Human Services, Equitable Development, and Renters' Rights Committee.
The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for its regular time next week, July 9th at 2 p.m.
We had a very successful meeting of the committee last week discussing with Margit Argo and her fellow tenants at Bryn Mawr apartment building in Skyway, which was facing eviction notices from their landlord for no cause.
And she and her fellow tenants and community supporters spoke up about this, spoke up about their landlord terminating their tenancy or wanting to terminate their tenancy with 20 days notice with no cause or explanation.
Through our organizing, we demanded the landlord retract this, what we considered an immoral decision, and urged King County to pass just cause eviction protection so that people living in unincorporated King County regions could be protected from these injustices.
I'm delighted to report that as a result of this renter organizing, the landlord has retracted the eviction notices.
We will continue to organize to promote just-cause eviction protections beyond Seattle, including the cities in King County, which will have to pass their own just-cause legislation.
And also, as informed in my press release, my office will also be submitting legislation to close some of the weaknesses that we have in Seattle's just-cause eviction protections.
That's all I have, and Councilmember Juarez will be reading for Councilmember Herbold, who is unable to make briefing, but I will pass it on to Councilmember Juarez.
Thank you.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning.
Hopefully, everybody has a wonderful 4th of July.
Issues, plans, events lined up.
Issues, plans, whatever.
I miss selling fireworks.
That's all I'm going to say.
Anyway, so I got a bunch of stuff here.
I got my stuff, and I got Council Member Herbold's stuff, and then we've got some exciting other stuff that we're going to do together.
Okay, so we have a Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities meeting on Wednesday, July 17th at 2. On Friday, from my district office, we met with five of our community center recreation leaders who are members of Teamsters 117. We discussed their summer program, upcoming needs for our community centers, and the parks budget.
That's the Metropolitan Park District budget, as you all know.
I appreciate you being able to hear their concerns and learn more about the work they do to serve our community.
As you all know, we met last week with the Metropolitan Park District, and we also received the report of their 2018 activity, their financial report.
Thank you, council members who attended.
Seattle Parks District MPD will be transmitting their six-year plan, I believe, summer of 2020. Next, for Councilmember Herbold, I have two items.
So the first one is the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee has one item on today's full agenda, the reappointment of Byram Simpson as a member of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission.
And lastly, this is exciting.
This is a Lunch and Learn for the AIDS Memorial Pathway promo.
If you remember a while ago, we worked with former Councilmember Rasmussen on this matter, and I'm happy to see it come to fruition.
Exciting news, I'll be co-hosting a Lunch and Learn with Councilmember Herbold and the Civil Rights Utilities Economic Development Arts to enshrine the historical and current efforts of Advocates Fighting to End HIV-AIDS Discrimination.
This is otherwise known as the AIDS Memorial Pathway, which will be held next Tuesday, July 9th, from noon to 1.30.
Community members and members of the interdepartmental team will be presenting.
It would be great and important to have as many council members present to participate.
There will be an email invite from Dimitri in Council Member Herbold's office.
Questions can be directed to him.
And right now, I will pass out the information for the Lunch and Learn.
And that's it for me.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
And good morning.
Happy to be here with everybody on this short Fourth of July week.
We've got two things on the agenda this afternoon.
First is a landmark designation for the Ainsworth and Dunn Warehouse, which is the old spaghetti factory for those who aren't clear of where it is.
We're also going to be voting on an ordinance that is a proviso lift on the Yesler Crescent Improvement Funds.
We talked a lot about this at the committee the other day, and I'll speak more about it at 2 o'clock, but I'm very pleased with all the work that's gone on with City Hall Park, with Prefontaine Fountain area, all down to Fortson Square.
So those are what we're voting on today.
Bobby Humes, who is our designated human resources director, his nomination was also voted out last week unanimously, but he's not going to be here for the next two weeks.
So, his designated appointment will come to full council on July 15th.
That's two weeks away.
So, colleagues, if you have any expectations for human resources that you would like to add, please let Allison in my office know.
We'll make sure that that's on his expectations letter.
So I know that you're all really excited about budget and finance issues, but we have a number of things that are coming up on July 10th, and that's obviously 10 days away from today.
We're going to have further discussion and possible vote on the sweetened beverage tax and short-term rental tax ordinances.
Council Member O'Brien, thank you so much for all your hard work on that.
So if there are issues, amendments, anything that you want to discuss, please make sure we get them this week.
There are several that are in the queue right now and Council Member O'Brien, I'll be back and talking with you about it.
So you've got an alert this week.
Now, also back to exciting budget ordinances and budget updates.
We've got on the next several, like the next six weeks actually, we're going to be having budget-oriented items.
The 2018 exceptions ordinance, those are things that happened in the last few weeks of December.
We also have a 2019 carry forward ordinance.
We'll have a 2Q second quarter supplemental.
We will have a second quarter grants acceptance and a 2019 capital abandonment.
Those are projects that are done but are in the budget, that will be transmitted to us this week.
So we'll probably be having special meetings on July 31st.
My office has alerted your offices as well to get on your calendar to hold August 9th and August 14th.
We hope that we won't have to have all those meetings, but we want to make sure that they're held so that we have an opportunity to talk in full council and have them voted on prior to our recess.
So, Alison McLean in my office is the person to have your staff talk to if you've got any questions.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Council Member Pacheco.
Good morning.
There are no PLEZ related items in the full council agenda today.
The next PLEZ committee meeting will be, the next PLEZ meeting on July 3rd has been cancelled and the next meeting will be on July 17th.
I am very excited to be voting on the ADE legislation this afternoon.
As a heads up, I'm proposing one amendment to the legislation at full council today.
It would incentivize bike parking in DADUs by allowing for up to 35 square feet of bike parking to be exempted from the square footage limits, subject to certain requirements.
It would also request that SDOT look into opportunities to expand public bike parking in single family zones.
The amendment was distributed last week.
Please feel free to touch base with me or Noah in my office if you have any questions.
And that's all that I have for today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Mosquito.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam President.
Good morning.
There are no items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's full council agenda.
The Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee will have a public hearing on four pieces of legislation tomorrow evening.
That's the four pieces of the hotel workers' legislation that Council Member Gonzalez and I are co-chairing and that many of you showed up to hear the public testimony.
Thank you very much for coming.
Councilmember Sawant, Councilmember Pacheco, Councilmember O'Brien, Councilmember Gonzalez, and Councilmember Herbold who were there.
It was a very robust discussion and we recognize that there's more public hearing that could potentially be had if folks weren't working full-time.
So we are having a hearing tomorrow evening.
I want to clarify it is at 5 p.m.
5 p.m.
tomorrow night.
So if you need child care, there will be free child care provided.
Feel free to email my office or directly to ashley.harrison at seattle.gov.
We will make sure that you have your complimentary child care spot reserved.
If you do show up, we will also make accommodations.
Also want to recognize that not everybody can use public transportation.
If you do need to drive, we're going to have subsidized parking at the Sea Park Garage located between Cherry and James Street on 5th and 6th Avenues.
And it's going to be discounted for a rate of $5.
That begins at 4.30 p.m.
And the garage will close at 10 p.m.
So we'll try and get folks out of there before 10. Our next regularly scheduled meeting was going to be July 4th, this Thursday.
And for obvious reasons, that's been canceled.
So we will be meeting next Thursday, July 11th at 9.30 a.m.
I want to note for folks that there is a long list of items that we will be discussing, including the Domestic Workers Standards Board appointment, the Office of Labor Standards race and social justice presentation.
possible vote on provider wage inflation legislation, the hotel workers industry standards discussion, and the notice of intent to sell ordinance.
So for our regularly attending committee members, we're going to be checking in with your office to see if there's a possibility of extending that a little bit more for Thursday, July 11th, and always welcome everybody to attend as well.
Want to highlight today is the first day of the implementation of the domestic workers Bill of Rights and we're going to be taking off around Just before noon to go celebrate that with a handful of domestic workers themselves just as a reminder for folks minimum wage rest and meal breaks the right to take a day off if you're working consecutive days in the week and protection from retaliation, harassment, and protection from having your documents withheld begins today.
So Office of Labor Standards is going to be doing that enforcement and we will make sure that that information gets out to both workers and hiring entities so they know their rights and responsibilities under this new law.
I want to note that For the good of the order, we are going to be working over the next week or two with our friend Cindy Domingo, which many of you have organized with her in the past.
She is the leader of the effort to bring delegations to Cuba every year.
My parents just went on one this year.
Some good friends have gone past years.
I know many of you have friends and colleagues and maybe have gone yourself with Cindy Domingo or other delegations down to Cuba to ensure that people are having the chance to learn directly from the Cubans there about health care and education and workers' rights and the history of the revolution.
It's been a great collaboration with Cindy and others.
And what we've seen across the country is many cities standing up to support the Cuban people and also to call for reducing the embargo and the oppression that's being imposed.
One of the things that we're really excited about is bringing forward a resolution this month that will be similar to what St. Paul has done, what Detroit has done, what's being called for in the capital of Minnesota is to support the folks in Cuba.
So we'll be bringing that forward and look forward to working with all of you on that.
My office is going to be closed on Thursday and Friday.
I assume many of yours will as well.
And quick note to say happy birthday to Michael Maddox.
He also has a birthday on Friday, July 5th.
Thank you, Madam Chair, Madam President.
Thank you.
Council Member Gonzalez.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone.
And early happy birthday to you, Council Member Mosquedo, who's having a birthday on July 4th.
So I have, that's the real reason for fireworks, by the way, it's her birthday.
Exactly, every time.
We only have one item on this afternoon's agenda from the Gender Equity Safe Communities, New Americans.
and Education Committee, that is agenda item number seven, which is an ordinance related to the Community Service Officer Program.
So this particular ordinance will lift a proviso that the City Council placed on the 2019 budget in order to allow the Seattle Police Department to engage in some community engagement to better define the program.
and to also take that work and create job descriptions, job postings, and give us a better sense of how that program would be re-implemented in the new iteration of the community service officer program.
So this afternoon's action on full council will lift the proviso and will allow the Seattle Police Department to move forward with hiring community service officers, For those of you who attended committee last week, you heard that in about a month and a half, the police department received 300 applications for 12 positions.
And I just got word late last week that the Seattle Police Department decided to reopen applications, not for a lack.
of applications or quality of applications, but because they feel it's really important to just continue to take applications on a rolling basis to make sure that they have the best qualified pool of candidates.
For any of you who are interested in the job description, I will bring a copy of that to this afternoon's full council.
They are prioritizing folks who have experience in social work, for example.
in sort of other soft skills, including community engagement to make sure that this position is really gonna focus on addressing a lot of the conflict resolution issues that sometimes come up that don't necessarily require a law enforcement approach.
So really excited about taking this final action and that is all from my committee.
Thank you.
What's going on today, Mike?
Let's see today.
The Sustainability and Transportation Committee does have an agenda item.
I've been anxiously awaiting this agenda item for, I don't know, four years or something now.
So this afternoon's agenda, we have legislation around the backyard cottage ADU and detached accessory building legislation.
Thank you for all of your engagements over the years, and particularly the last couple months as we've really got into the legislative work on the final drafting.
There are three amendments that I'm aware of.
The first is simply a cleanup amendment, so we'll just introduce a substitute that cleans up the language, but there's nothing substantive in there.
Councilmember Chico mentioned his amendment which I support which would As you mentioned would allow a little bit extra space for bicycle storage, which I think is a great thing And I really appreciate your work on that the version that was in committee Didn't quite get out.
I think what you're trying to do and I I had kind of given up as a thing that couldn't happen And I appreciate you you and your team digging in and finding a path that actually makes a lot of sense So I think that's a great amendment And then finally I have an amendment that just is some language amendment that that asks the city to It builds on what's already in there about asking the city to look at how these accessory units are being used specifically short-term rentals versus long-term rentals And stating that that if it turns out that a significant portion of them are being used for short-term rentals going forward that the City Council would consider Modifying regulations to shift that our hope being that we would like to see them mostly used for longer-term rentals And I believe that's what's gonna happen.
That's tends to be what happens to the market anyways, but we'll be watching that So if anyone else has any other amendments, I would love to hear about that, but I'm not aware of anything else on that The Sustainability and Transportation Committee also meets tomorrow on our agenda we have Let's see if I can pull this thing back up.
We have a couple appointments, one to the Sweet and Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board, one to the Urban Forestry Commission.
We also have a couple grant acceptance ordinances, one specifically for Dell Ridge, the Rapid Ride H line project, and another is a series of projects, I believe.
Then we'll have a presentation on commuter benefits.
As folks may recall, we passed legislation, I think it was last year, that will ultimately require employers in Seattle over a certain size to provide pre-tax deductions for bus passes or transit passes for their employees.
And we want to talk about what other options are there, and so we'll get a briefing on that.
And then we're going to have a briefing on congestion pricing.
In the budget a year and a half ago, we set some money aside to study how congestion pricing would impact folks.
That study was finally released in the last month, and so this is a chance for the executive or the department to come present what's in that study.
And it's the first of what will almost certainly be many as we go down this path, but it's important as we go along to be up to speed on that.
The last thing I'll just mention in committee, I talked briefly about 35th Avenue Northeast.
I saw another video.
It appears that SDOT has gone out and put some, well let me back up a second.
We watched a helmet cam video in committee about a month ago after they had done the redesign and essentially eliminated a lane of parking to add a traffic travel lane, so there's now three lanes.
And what the video showed was a lot of high speed illegal passes that people were making in the center turn lane.
I saw a video that was put up over the weekend.
I think it may be the same rider with a helmet cam.
It appears that SDOT has gone and put some barriers between the center turn lane and the travel lane to prevent that.
This one particular video shows someone passing at high speed through the intersection and then coming back before they hit the bollards to get back in the lane.
and so it's a really tight pass and it just unfortunately at least in that video it makes it look like the solution has made it less safe and so we've taken a couple steps on this what was not a great street to bike on to begin with and now we've made two sets of investments to make it worse each time and so I'm gonna in my chair's report We'll show that video and just have a discussion about that briefly.
There's no particular action about that, but it's really disconcerting.
We have such a great track record of doing some really good safety work in the city, and I just think we're getting it wrong on this one, and we seem to be doubling down on some bad investments.
Let me ask a quick question on that.
I've not gone out and looked at it since the bollards went up.
Can you tell me, have we looked at the neighborhood greenway expansion?
I know there was some extension on 39th, but that's four blocks away and down more in a valley there.
Is there anything going on right now with the uphill streets?
I think 34th, maybe.
Do we know whether there'd been discussion about having a greenway there off of 35th and whether that's even available?
Yeah, those are great questions.
I don't have the answers.
I don't believe a lot's been done on 39. I know people have said that there is a greenway there, but there haven't been really any improvements as part of this package.
There's the ongoing question of, You know, my belief and I believe in city policy is that we make arterial safe for folks to bike on and we give them alternatives.
It's not an either or, it's a both and.
And I know there's been discussion about 34th.
I don't, I'm not a, we should, we should get asked out to the table to address those questions.
And I'll be.
Take a field trip out and take a look at it in the next couple of weeks.
Okay.
Thanks.
Thanks, Council Member Bakeshaw.
Thank you.
There are no further comments.
We will move to the executive session scheduled for today.
There is a standard script for starting the executive session, which I will read now.
As presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.
The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.
The council's executive sessions are an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.
A legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure the council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.
I expect the executive session to end by 11.40 a.m.
If the executive session is to be extended beyond that time, I will announce the extension and the expected duration.