Seattle City Council Briefing 6721

Thank you so much, son.

Really appreciate it.

Good morning, everyone.

The June 7th, 2021 council briefing meeting will come to order.

The time is 9 30 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Mosqueda.

Present.

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Present.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Gates.

Present.

Thank you so much.

If there's no objection, the minutes of June 1st, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are now adopted.

Thank you.

I don't have anything to report out this morning so we will move right on into our discussion on the preview of today's city council actions council and regional committee.

somewhat, and then I will conclude this agenda discussion.

So without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Morning.

I thought Councilor Kerbel went first, but okay.

Oh, you know what?

I am noticing on the script that, um, Councilmember Herbold's name was accidentally erased.

So that is wrong.

Thank you for correcting me, Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Herbold is first, and then we will hear from Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

Good morning, Councilmember Herbold.

Good morning.

I think that's probably just because I'm excused from full council today and maybe didn't get the message that that wasn't the case for the morning.

So my apologies on my end if I contributed to that, and good morning.

So just very quickly, there is a Public Safety and Human Services Committee tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.

Items on the agenda include a roundtable with city and community partners to discuss the crisis response continuum that is currently operating in Seattle, with an emphasis on those that respond to low-level crimes and behavioral health crises.

This is part of the Council's work to reimagine community safety and better understand the possibilities of non-armed response.

We expect participants from the Downtown Emergency Service Center, Crisis Connections, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program, HealthONE, and the Crisis Response Team.

We're also going to be receiving a presentation from the Office of Emergency Management on their all-hazards mitigation plan.

And then finally, we'll be hearing a presentation from Council Central staff, Carlos Lugo, on the criminal legal system realignment work that he has been pursuing.

There are no items on the full Council agenda from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, at today's 2 p.m.

meeting.

And then quickly an update from the Human Services Department.

I just want folks to know, both on the Council and in the public, because there's a lot of interest in this RFP, the department has released an RFP for proposals regarding 2021 Asian and Pacific Islander resiliency.

The background on this, of course, is racism and violence against the API community increased throughout the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the City of Seattle responded to the racism and intolerance with Ordinance 126308, the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community Investments Ordinance.

Through this ordinance, the Seattle Human Services Department received $300,000 to allocate to community-based organizations to address the issue of racism and intolerance.

toward the API community.

Up to $50,000 may be available per organization, and you may be a fiscal sponsor or for other organizations and propose your own activity.

On June 10th, staff will host an information session for the Asian American and Pacific Islander Resiliency RFP, and community agencies will learn about that RFP, potential outcomes and activities, and have an opportunity to ask questions.

So you can join the information session at seattle.gov forward slash human services and click on funding opportunities.

The RFP is open through June 25th at noon.

quick update from public health.

We are, of course, learning more positive news about the ability of coronavirus vaccinations to protect people from COVID hospitalizations.

But it's concerning news for anyone who is not yet vaccinated.

In Washington state, over a two-week period ending May 9th, the hospital admission rate for unvaccinated people, 45 to 64, was about 21 times higher than the rate for fully vaccinated people of the same age.

Among people aged 65 and older, the hospital admission rate was about 13 times higher in unvaccinated people than in those who were fully vaccinated.

So if you're not vaccinated, please go to Seattle.gov forward slash vaccine defined city run vaccination sites.

You don't need an appointment.

You can just walk out, walk up without one, and it's always free and open to everyone regardless of immigration status.

meetings this week.

We have a Regional Policy Committee meeting on Wednesday, and then on Friday, I'm participating in the second Clean Water Plan workshop of the Regional Wastewater Committee.

In addition, I'm a member of the Leadership Intervention and Change Link Group.

We're having a multidisciplinary team meeting.

It's an organization of county-wide folks involved in crime prevention.

Then Thursday, we have the Lead Policy Coordinating Group meeting, and on Wednesday, the West Seattle Bridge Community Task Force meeting.

And that is all I have this morning.

Thank you so much, Council Member Hurdle, for that report.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line and hear now from Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues, Council President.

So let me hold up here.

Now all of a sudden I'm not ready.

Okay, so there are no items of the Public Assets and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

The items from last week's June 4th committee meeting will be held on Monday, June 14th at full council agenda.

Parks, just a quick update.

And without going through all the stats again, I'll wait till next week to bring you all up to date on that.

The parks department is continuing to hire for seasonal staff positions this summer, as I shared last week.

So hopefully we can get people to get to the website.

The jobs postings can be found at the parks website.

Www.seattle.gov slash parks.

Let's see.

And in regards to Sound Transit, last Thursday, I attended the Sound Transit Board of Directors meeting where we received another PowerPoint presentation from Sound Transit to consider complex realignment scenarios.

What has become clear since we first learned of the first affordability gap, which I believe was $11.9 billion, which is now been reduced to $7.9 billion, is that there are significant unknowns that are changing with the new federal administration.

And I think we've seen a good trend here as far as potential opportunity for new state and federal revenue sources, because right now our program is now unaffordable based on the pandemic and the recession and the cost of construction.

And acquisition of land.

So anyway, the board may consider delaying a realignment decision to focus on what is absolutely needs to get done as determined by state law.

And there is a draft resolution, which we discussed, but we have not passed because I'm guessing there'll be a lot of amendments to this draft resolution, which is now pending before the board for our next meeting.

And with that, I'm done.

And Council President, do you want me to read Council Member Strauss' notes now?

Oh, sure.

Yeah, why don't we go ahead and do that now?

That's great.

Okay, great.

I'm stepping in for Council Member Strauss today, proudly representing District 6. Let's see, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.

There are five appointments to the Seattle Chinatown International District Prevention and Development Authority Board on today's introduction and referral calendar.

Number two, there's one item from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on today's full council agenda.

Council Bill 120080 extends the moratorium on the redevelopment of the manufactured mobile home parks for another six months.

The time added is necessary to conclude SEPA, the SEPA appeal process, which is temporarily hindering progress on the mobile home park district overlay legislation.

to create more protections for mobile home park residents.

And as you know, we've been working on that for a couple of years.

It looks like District Six had a town hall.

Last week, Council Member Strauss held a virtual town hall with District Six residents focused on ARPA funding in his office's response to the homelessness.

Council Member Strauss was joined by Director Noble and Director Alvarado, as well as the new CEO, Mr. Mark Jones of the Regional Homeless Housing Authority.

Councilmember Strauss would like to thank everyone who attended and submitted questions at his town hall.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Juarez.

Any comments or questions on Councilmember Juarez's report?

Great.

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

Next up is Councilmember Lewis, and then we will hear from Councilmember Morales.

Good morning.

Morning, Madam President.

Thank you for the opportunity to jump off here on what's going on this week.

So there are no items on this afternoon's council agenda from the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

I will, however, be walking on a bill that I will discuss later in my presentation this morning.

I do want to speak briefly at the front and to a letter that my office distributed that I wrote in coordination with Councilmember Herbold regarding the agenda of the Overdose Emergency Innovative Recovery Task Force, or OEIR.

And while this may be the first time many folks in the public have heard of this this coming task force, so I'll just I'll try to keep it to foreshadowing so as not to get too far far ahead of it.

But this is a task force that's going to be convened by the Public Defender Association, among other public health experts.

In order to discuss our response to overdoses of.

and overdoses of drugs and related societal issues stemming from substance addiction.

Councilmember Kerbold and I have been working on the formulation of this task force with the Public Defender Association, and we've also been in close contact with the advocates organizing around the decrim nature movement to reassess public policy in a progressive direction around entheogens, also known as psychedelics, and the city policy related to entheogens following the lead of a number of jurisdictions around the country who have either made it a low law enforcement priority or even legalized or decriminalized the substances.

Based on some of the scientific research around entheogens and their possible application in the treatment of behavioral mental health conditions and substance addiction, Councilmember Herbold, myself, and the DCRM Nature movement came together to work to get this on the agenda of the Overdose Emergency Innovative Recovery Task Force, which will be meeting throughout the summer and remitting recommendations to various bodies, including the Board of Health.

which I work on and serve on as a representative from this council, and the county and city councils, in addition to the state legislature, we believe that the issues the Decrim Nature movement have raised are very relevant to the work of this task force.

And we believe that this is the appropriate way to manage this scope of work and drive towards a city revision of policies relating to entheogens.

It's the time to act on this.

And the timing is fortuitous that this PDA task force is ginning up at the same time that this Deep Room Nature movement has started in the city.

And Council Member Herbold and I would like to invite folks to join us in signing on to this letter.

in order to make sure that this important issue is part of the work plan of this task force, which will be reporting back to us in the fall.

So I don't know the procedure here, Madam President, if we want to just take a moment to go through that letter now, if people want to affix their signature, or if we want to do it at the conclusion of my briefing.

I'm happy to do it either way.

I think it might make sense to just do it now since you just briefed the letter.

And so what we would do is have an opportunity for people to ask questions and then sort of have that conversation.

And then we would have the clerk call the roll.

If that works well for you, we can do that now.

Yeah, I think that there will probably be questions that I'm happy to answer from colleagues.

I do also want to flag, I know that Council Member Sawant has been interested in this policy area as well.

And I do want to recognize the email I received from Council Member Sawant this weekend inviting collaboration on this.

And I do intend to follow up with Council Member Sawant to try to unite our efforts on this important issue.

I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge that in the initial briefing.

I see Council Member Sawant with her hand raised now, but I'm happy to turn it over to questions from colleagues and then proceed with the signing before closing out my briefing.

Great, thank you so much Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Sawant, I see that your hand is raised.

Thank you President Gonzalez and thank you Council Member Lewis and Herbold for circulating this letter.

to the overdose emergency and innovative recovery task force.

I'm absolutely happy to sign this letter in support of the demands of the decriminalized nature movement.

I wanted to thank all the activists of the decriminalize nature movement, both in Seattle and nationwide, who are advocating for various psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, mushrooms, and peyote cactus to be decriminalized.

And just wanted to share with members of the public that I support their demands for several reasons.

First, the general reason, even for harmful and addictive drugs, Data has shown just absolutely overwhelmingly that the criminal justice system is a terrible response.

We know Reagan's and the neoliberal era failed war on drugs, did nothing but expand mass incarceration, decimating especially communities of color and working class communities.

The criminalization of psychedelic drugs is only a small part of that mass incarceration problem, but it is a part.

But more specifically, there is now significant research showing that these psychedelic drugs are very harmful, sorry, are rarely harmful and can have very significant benefits.

Research has shown that they can have a powerful benefit in some circumstances to treat PTSD, depression, and addiction.

And my lay person's understanding, obviously I'm not a medical expert on these issues, but my lay person's understanding from having talked to a couple of people actually in Seattle, in fact, one of them right in district three, who has a lot of experience and is doing a lot, and are doing a lot of research on these issues is that we're only at the, a tip of what actually is probably going to be uncovered in the future in terms of correcting some of the complete misunderstandings and misconceptions about many of these issues.

Psychedelic drugs also have a long history of use in religious ceremonies, which is the meaning of the word used in the letter antheogen.

And in addition to supporting this letter, as Council Member Lewis mentioned, my staff and I are currently working with Council Central staff in collaboration with Council Member Lewis's office to develop legislation to decriminalize psychedelic drugs in Seattle, using the same legal approach that Seattle used to decriminalize cannabis shortly before it was then legalized statewide in 2012. essentially, Seattle has no power to legalize these drugs because it's not a city law that makes them illegal, but the city does have the power to essentially decriminalize them by making their enforcement the last priority of the Seattle police.

As I mentioned, this is what Seattle did with cannabis in the past, and this is what this proposed legislation will do.

Thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Council President.

I just wanted to weigh in with my support for this letter and thank Council Members Lewis and Herbold for bringing forward this letter and also the members of the Public Defenders Association for the new table that they're convening.

I had been in touch with them as well about this upcoming new task force that's being convened and very excited to also be advocating for this to be a component of those discussions.

and look forward to the legislation that Councilmember Sawant just noted as well.

Folks, I also wanted to really highlight something that Councilmember Lewis noted in his comments, which is that this is an important and emerging area of treatment for those with traumatic brain injury.

When I had the briefing from the folks from Decriminalize Nature, they talked about how access to this type of treatment medicinal option is actually very much promising for those with traumatic brain injury, including those who are, have suffered from severe concussions.

I have a very dear friend who three and a half years ago suffered an incredible accident and had an undiagnosed concussion at that time.

It, um, it has led to her not being able to keep her small business, not being able to be employed.

And she is the sweetest, kindest person and continues to be so.

but needs access to treatment that is actually going to result in changes to the chemistry in her brain.

And hearing that, I sent the information over to her.

She's shared it with her medical provider community as well.

And her response was that her doctor said this is one of the most promising areas of research that is coming forward on traumatic brain injury.

And I'm happy to offer some citations for folks who might be interested.

But in summary, the folks from Decriminalize Nature have said that neural inflammation seems to be impacted in loss of cognitive function and psychiatric disorders following a traumatic brain injury.

We know that psychedelics reduce neural inflammation based on the receptors they target.

So many neurologists are beginning to explore the ways that we can put together the pieces of the puzzle and use this important treatment.

I'm going to be signing on, and thank you for bringing this forward.

I just wanted to elevate that component as a potential area of treatment for those who are suffering from the consequences of concussions and traumatic brain injury.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Council Member Esqueda.

Are there any other comments or questions on the letter before I ask the clerk to call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

I just want to make a few comments about this particular new entity, just as one way to underscore how, not only how important this work is, but what a good fit this particular request is in that work.

So, this is the, again, the overdose emergency and innovative.

Recovery Task Force.

The origins really are credited to Deontay Demper, the board chair for the Seattle-King County Black Lives Matter, as well as the Public Defender Association's Yes to Duh, that is Yes to Drug User Health Project, and they have requested that elected leaders in the region provide leadership in convening and establishing this task force.

They say that the continuation of the status quo is unacceptable, and I agree, and that the region needs to advance solutions for both local impact and informing statewide strategies.

Again, many of the efforts here are really designed to focus on informing statewide strategies, again, much like the requests from decriminalized nature.

The Public Private Task Force is the most effective approach for successfully advancing these goals, says the conveners of the task force.

And the intent would be to convene local experts, relevant community leaders, and people who are impacted to evaluate, recommend, and promote interventions with a focus on marginalized people who use drugs.

I just wanted to give additional context for this particular request for this letter, as well as the broader work that the Overdose Emergency and Innovative Recovery Task Force will be taking on.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Hurdle.

Any other comments or questions on the letter before we call the roll?

Council Member Peterson, please.

Thank you, Council President.

I just need more time to review this letter.

I'm not prepared to sign it this morning, but look forward to getting more information from Council Member Lewis's office.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you for that, Council Member Peterson.

Appreciate it.

Any other comments or questions before we call the roll?

All right.

So let me pull up the script here.

So again, colleagues, we did have an opportunity to ask questions before I requested the roll call.

This is, as Commissioner Lewis described, a letter that is being presented for Councilmember consideration.

And if you vote yes, then your signature will be added to the letter.

So without further ado, will the clerk please call the roll to determine which Councilmembers would like their signature affixed to the letter regarding Overdose Emergency and Innovation Recovery Task Force.

Yes.

Thank you.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Seven in favor.

Thank you so much.

All right, so we have now done the roll call for the letter, so I'm gonna hand it back over to you, Councillor Lewis, so you can finish going through your report.

Thank you, Madam President, and do appreciate Councilmember Peterson's comments on that.

On the letter, I'm happy to provide more information about the task force and some of the conversations we've been having, and appreciate you mentioning an interest in having this conversation, so I'm happy to follow up with you on that.

Moving back to my report on the legislation that I'm introducing and walking on today, which is Council Bill 12-0096.

So today I'm introducing legislation amending the spending authority that this council passed earlier this year for emergency shelter.

This $12 million of spend authority was originally intended to be largely reimbursed by FEMA.

To my knowledge, the spend authority has not yet been utilized by the Human Services Department, although there may be some efforts that are in the planning stages to utilize some of that money.

But what this legislation really hopes to do is broaden the conditions under which this $12 million in spend authority can be distributed to service providers.

This does not mean the executive departments should not continue to seek FEMA reimbursement, but it no longer makes seeking that reimbursement a strict requirement to distribute the funds.

There are two reasons to make this change and broaden this authority.

First, we have more resources at our disposal than when the bill was originally passed.

For example, we know next year the city will be receiving ARCA 2 dollars in the spring.

We know that 2021 city revenues will be $40 million higher than we originally anticipated, and we did not have the fortune of that revenue forecast at the time we originally crafted the bill.

We now have the benefit of a $10 million state insurance fund that Representative Macri crafted in the last legislative session, specifically designed to compensate cities in the event that FEMA reimbursements come up short.

These new factors give the city more leeway to respond to the greatest emergency we are facing, which is the crisis of homelessness.

The second reason is as of June 30th, we are anticipating a broad reopening of Seattle's economy.

And we only get the chance to reopen our economy once.

Without a doubt, one of the biggest obstacles that I hear from folks in the service sector and in the business community is the presence of unsanctioned encampments.

We have a legacy over the course of COVID of our already scant shelter system being hit and our neighbors experiencing homelessness no longer having that resource or access to shelters that used to provide the critical dignity, privacy, and services necessary to mitigate or escape their condition of homelessness.

By the same token, People who used to take advantage of that shelter system that has now been de-intensified and was never really successfully scaled back up to compensate for that lack of capacity are now living in unsanctioned encampments, which have created issues for our business districts across the city.

There is one response that can help take care of everybody's issue, whether you are on housed, whether you are a small business owner.

which is to scale up the amount of emergency shelter we have available to compensate for the lack of capacity in our shelter system.

I hear that this is one of the biggest obstacles when I talk to people in the business community for our return to work and our revival of tourism.

I have also heard from our service providers that during COVID, irreparable damage has been caused to a lot of our neighbors experiencing homelessness who have high barrier public health needs and have been living without care or support now for the last 18 months in a lot of cases.

We have seen throughout the pandemic several examples of successful interventions that have been able to adapt to these conditions and move our neighbors experiencing homelessness into well-resourced, enhanced shelters, particularly hotel-based ones, resulting in public spaces no longer being utilized for tenant encampments, and resulting in people, in some cases, being able to move into market-grade housing, let alone permanent supportive housing, because of the assistance that they have received from these enhanced shelters.

We heard a presentation from Just Care in the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments last month, indicating that very few individuals had refused offers of assistance to their efforts to get people inside, and that they are getting their needs met, and in many cases have moved on to the placements that I just discussed.

This model works, and we need to lean into it.

The clock is ticking down and thousands of our neighbors remain without any shelter other than a tent or a sleeping bag in the doorway.

And we know that well-resourced shelters like tiny house villages and hotels can stabilize people with the high barrier public health challenges that can also, in some cases, lead to public safety challenges.

We also know that if we fail to provide that service, removing an encampment will simply create another encampment somewhere else, and will move the hazards that our neighbors experiencing homelessness experience themselves, but also the hazards that our business districts trying to reopen are constantly complaining about to our offices, to the mayor's office, and to every public official in the city.

We cannot seek to solve the problem of one of these business districts merely to create another one for someone else.

All stakeholders need to acknowledge that our interests are the same, that providing dignity, stabilization and healthcare, because really fundamentally this comes down to healthcare, is the same interest as wanting to restore business district order for reopening.

That interest requires standing up adequate shelter on a truly emergency basis and doing it before the summer of reopening.

Tiny houses are slow because they need to be sited and go through extensive pre-planning and be constructed, but we have some in the pipeline.

Enhanced shelters similarly need to be sited and built out, but hotels are fast.

They're turnkey operations.

They don't require siting.

They don't require the same level of planning or construction.

They require a lease and they require a plan from a service provider.

This is what we should be leaning into before the end of this month to reopen downtown and our other business districts in a way that will make a good first impression for the return to work and the return of tourism.

I know for a fact that we have providers who could secure hotels if they had cash in hand.

This spend authority can be used immediately.

We must use it immediately.

Many of our shelter assets in the pipeline are coming online later this summer or even in the fall.

We need places for people to be able to go now, this month, before the economy reopens.

We are running this bill through the full council.

I hope to vote this out of council on June 14th, commensurate with the emergency we're facing.

I wanna thank Council President Gonzalez, Council Member Mosqueda, and Council Member Morales for their co-sponsorship of this critical legislation.

And I'm happy to answer any questions about it over the course of the next week.

Just to pivot to my last item that I'm really happy to announce, I want to express my really, really deep appreciation and congratulations to Jessica Doe, who has been a graduate student intern in my office for almost my entire council term so far.

That means Jessica, you've basically spent two-thirds of your time at the Evans School working in our office, so I hope it was formative and helpful.

I want to congratulate Jessica on her graduation from the Evans School and really, really profoundly thank her for all of the great work that she has done in my office in constituent casework, in developing policy around transportation, around workers' rights.

And I want to really congratulate her on what no doubt will be a very successful career going forward.

and really appreciate her commitment to public service and for really going out there proud as another UW grad out in the workforce.

So I want to just finish with that note and turn it back over to you, Madam President.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis, for those remarks.

Any questions or comments for Council Member Lewis?

All right.

Hearing none, I look forward to this afternoon's walk-on of that really important legislation, and thank you, Council Member Lewis, for the opportunity to be a co-sponsor.

Really appreciate your leadership in this space.

Next up, Council Member Morales, and then after Council Member Morales will be Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Good morning, colleagues.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Looking forward to that, hearing a little bit more about that legislation in full council and really proud to be joining you in sponsorship of it.

There are no items on the full council agenda from the Community Economic Development Committee.

Last week in my committee, we heard 16 commission appointments.

Those will be coming to us for confirmation on Monday, June 14th.

And our next committee meeting is next Tuesday, June 15th.

We will be hearing from a community panel to discuss strategies for an equitable economy.

We'll be hearing about ways to prevent disaster gentrification and invite my colleagues to join, whether you're in the committee or not, if you're interested in that discussion, hoping to use that as sort of a foundation for following through on the conversations that we're having related to the ARPA funding.

So invite everybody to participate in that if you are available.

On this afternoon's full council agenda, we have two bills to consider.

Council Bill 120077, the sound at home eviction defense for renters who are facing financial hardship during the pandemic.

And Council Bill 120090, the right of first refusal that I'm joint sponsoring with Councilmember Sawant and Councilmember Lewis as a co-sponsor.

That bill has several proposed amendments that are being brought by my office and Councilmember Sawant.

These are all technical in nature.

and really meant to clarify the intent of the bill.

Asha is here this morning to provide information about those amendments and answer any questions colleagues may have.

So I'll keep my remarks brief, reserve most of my remarks for this afternoon.

I do want to acknowledge that many of us have had conversations over the last few weeks with small landlords.

My office has had a few conversations with folks, and we know that like thousands of renters in the city, some landlords have lost their income during COVID.

So these bills, I just want to say, are meant to protect renters from losing their homes.

They are not meant to put landlords in jeopardy of also losing their homes.

And that's why I want to urge these landlords to take advantage of the rental assistance dollars that both the city and the county have made available.

The county has an eviction prevention and rental assistance program.

It's funded at $145 million from the Federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriation, and it is intended to help residents paying past, current, and future rent.

Seattle also has about $20 million available in rental assistance.

So I do want to urge renters or landlords, before they consider an eviction response, I want to urge them to take advantage of these dollars so that they can be made whole.

That's what they're there for.

I'm also happy to co-sponsor Council Bill 12096, which Council Member Lewis has summarized already.

My office has worked directly with Just Care and really seen how effective this program is.

We talked with neighbors who've seen CoLEAD and Just Care in action.

And as Council Member Lewis said, the bottom line here is that these programs have universal support from small business, service providers, our housed neighbors, and our unhoused neighbors, and many on the Council.

Folks who want to see unhoused people move from the streets and towards stability, need to take a look at this program and understand the value that it has and the real comprehensive support that it provides to people.

This is what we mean by finding an effective and comprehensive way to address homelessness.

So I look forward to supporting that and hope that we can really move that forward.

Moving on to department updates.

The arts department, if you haven't been in the Chinatown International District, you should go and check out the Slurp mural that was installed last weekend along the Maynard Alleyway across the South King Street.

These are images of painted noodles that were created by Akira Ohiso.

The project is a culmination of engagement with the Chinatown International District communities and work by the Maynard Alley Partnership to reimagine Maynard Alley as a vibrant community-focused pedestrian space.

And I will say that throughout Chinatowns across the country, the alleyways have always played an important role in community space as well.

This is just an opportunity to highlight that and really try to get some of the alleyways back to active spaces.

The project is funded through the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and the Department of Transportation's 1% for Art program.

And I do want to thank the Northwest Asian Weekly for highlighting this project.

Another art project, the AIDS Memorial Pathway installations up in Capitol Hill have begun.

I want to encourage my colleagues to take a look.

If you take the light rail up to the Capitol Hill stop, as you emerge from underground, you'll see the installation called We're Already Here.

It's a series of tableaus that use protest signs and their accompanying messages, like Dream Big, End AIDS, who evoke historic moments of public convergence.

These different artworks lead visitors through the pathway at the AIDS Memorial, and are really a powerful message.

So I encourage everybody to go check it out.

As we know, and as Councilmember Herbold highlighted last week, the creative economy itself drives about 18% of Seattle's GDP.

The majority of creative workers in our city, and there's close to 70,000, 67,000 creative workers who we know are running low on reserves.

Many of them were very hard hit by COVID.

and they don't have enough cash on hand, the organizations to cover some of their operating expenses for the next year.

So as we move forward with discussions about the ARPA funds, we need to make sure that we are addressing the role of the arts sector in our economy and ensure that we're including them in our rescue plan efforts.

And I know we will be talking more about that later.

Moving on to EDI and the Office of Planning and Development, Community Development, the Strategic Investment Fund application is now open.

As a reminder, the city will spend $30 million to help groups buy land and buildings to be used for affordable housing and other community benefits such as affordable space for business, community centers, cultural space, child care, open space, There is an RFP process set up for that and RFPs are due July 14th.

The first of three information sessions on how to apply is this Wednesday from noon to one.

You can register at Seattle.gov slash OPCD slash strategic investment fund.

So you can get more information about how that process will work.

Additionally, the equitable development initiative fund request for proposals has been extended to June 20th.

For 2021, the EDI funding, which is approximately $6.8 million is available for organizations working on anti-displacement efforts in high displacement risk neighborhoods.

So there continues to be an emphasis on serving black and brown communities that have been targeted by systemic and institutional racism.

And the funds will be used for organizational capacity building, property acquisition, and capital expenses.

And if folks have questions about that, you can contact Michael Bloomson at OPCD, or michael.bloomson, B-L-U-M-S-O-N, at seattle.gov.

I will be holding office hours again this Wednesday at the Columbia City Farmers Market.

We'll be there starting at 3 o'clock.

Constituents are invited to come stop by and talk about issues that are important to them.

I also do have virtual office hours on Thursday from 10 to noon and folks can request a meeting via my council website.

Last week I met again with neighbors from the Mount Baker neighborhood who are still trying to be in touch with our departments about how we create community-driven safety improvements, particularly around the light rail station.

This week I'll be meeting with Sound Transit and with folks from the Mount Baker neighborhood so that we can talk about ways to make sure that the station area itself is safe.

And the folks in the neighborhood are also organizing because they wanna make sure that Mount Baker is a more walkable, dense and affordable urban environment and have been working very hard for years.

So they are reviewing some of the neighborhood plans that they've created over the years and are looking to sort of revisit and elevate that conversation in the community.

And I look forward to participating in that with them.

Finally, on a bittersweet note, I want to let folks know that my legislative aide, Lakeisha Farmer, will be leaving at the end of June.

Lakeisha has been an invaluable part of my office and really helped hold things together for us as we launched this new team last year.

I will say we were just kind of settling into a rhythm in my office when COVID sent us all home to learn how to build a team remotely.

That was fun.

So Lakeisha has been great.

She's been with the city for some time, as you all know, also worked in Council Member O'Brien's office.

We will miss her, but she has been accepted to graduate school.

So we're very excited for her and look forward to hearing back from her about what she learns on her new journey.

and colleagues, that is all I have today.

Thank you so much, Council Member Morales.

Any comments or questions on that report?

Hearing none, we're going to go ahead and go down the line.

Next up is Council Member Mosqueda followed by Council Member Peterson.

Good morning, Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

Just one second here.

My screen is doing something funny.

I think so much for the time.

I want to let folks know that we do not have any items on today's full council agenda from the Housing and Finance Committee meeting nor on the introduction of our full calendar.

But we do have some items that we will be discussing in a week from now.

Folks, remember that we have the Finance and Housing Committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 15th at 9.30 a.m.

We're going to have a briefing discussion and possible vote on the Seattle Rescue Plan Act.

This is our federal American Rescue Plan Act ordinance that Seattle is moving forward to implement critical assistance to small businesses, to working families via cash assistance, child care assistance.

making sure that we have investments for a more equitable recovery, which we discussed on Friday last week.

I want to thank everybody for the robust discussion that we had and to central staff for walking us through the presentation along with the CBO.

And I will have some more comments on that momentarily, but I do want to remind folks that if you have any amendments that you would like to see to this iteration, this first tranche of Federal Rescue Plan Act dollars, please note that the deadline for sending in those amendments to central staff is noon on Tuesday.

That's tomorrow.

That helps give us a full week to work with central staff, to work with all of you, and to the extent that you all need to also stakeholder the amendments that are being brought forward for us to all have sufficient time to make sure that they get published on the agenda in advance of our June 15th meeting.

As a reminder, amendments do need to be self-balancing.

That is, if you want to increase or add funding to a certain category, we are asking that you propose what you'd like to see it reduced from so that we have a balanced proposal that we can have in front of us to make sure that all of the math works out by the end of the meeting so we can pass a bill out.

All members are welcomed and encouraged to attend the Finance and Housing Committee meeting, and this is perfectly consistent with Council Rule 6.B.3, which allows for non-committee members to quote, participate without voting rights in a standing committee meeting.

Thanks so much to Dan Eder, who is working with Elizabeth Atkinson, Gary Smith-in-Law, and Cody Ryder in the Council President's Office about how to make sure that the contours and limitations on what it means to, quote, participate without voting can be adhered to, while also allowing any council member to bring forward possible language.

So to clarify how the process will work, Dan Eater is sending out a memo that at least today, I don't think it's in your inboxes yet, but it's coming today and I want to thank him for his work on that memo that will clarify the process.

And in the memo, it will clarify that central staff and law have come to a process that non-committee members can use to bring forward amendments.

This includes First, non-committee members can author an amendment to legislation and advocate for the committee to take the amendment by being recognized by the chair to do so, which I will definitely do if you come to our meeting and you are not a standing committee member.

Non-committee members cannot make a motion, second a motion, or vote on a motion, either to amend the underlying legislation.

And non-committee members can be an author of an amendment, but not a sponsor of an amendment.

Up to two committee members can sponsor a proposed amendment, limiting the maximum number of co-sponsors to two, avoids the appearance of any rolling quorums, which we are very sensitive to and want to make sure that folks know that three is a quorum for our committee.

During an open public meeting, the committee can, at any point after the initial proposal is announced, add any other committee members to the list of sponsors if they desire to sign on as a co-sponsor of an amendment.

As the chair, I will be in the position to decide whether or not to bring forward an amendment on behalf of anybody who is not in our committee.

And I have committed to you that I will do that to make sure that all of your ideas do get reflected in the committee and in our discussion.

Folks, all of that will be in a memo that's circulated again by Dan Eater very soon today so that you'll have that in front of you.

But the takeaway is if you're not a standing committee member, you are still welcome to help us craft the proposal as it leaves committee so that your ideas are fully reflected in our discussion and debate.

This will be up for a briefing discussion and possible vote for amendments again on the 15th.

And if we need additional time on the ARPA legislation, we will be holding a special meeting on June 16th at 2 p.m.

That allows for us, like we've done in previous budget discussions, to roll into the next meeting if we don't have the opportunity to finalize the discussion in that first committee meeting.

I wanted to also note that in the meeting on the 15th, we do have two other items.

We may start with those just to get those out of the way, but we'll make sure to give you an update on that for our staff meeting later this week on Thursday.

We also have a briefing discussion and possible vote on the housing levy administration and finance plan and the housing funding policies.

legislation, which will be on the introduction and referral calendar on the 14th.

We got a preview of that legislation and the package in the presentation that Office of Housing provided.

We did not have a chance to walk through it in detail, but there was no legislation in hand to begin with.

So please reference that as background information as you anticipate the legislation being posted on the June 14th introduction and referral calendar, which again will be published on Friday this week.

And we will also have a panel on the grocery worker hazard pay.

If you'd like to attend next week's meeting, please do let Aaron House from my office know in advance so we can make sure that you have all the information and that we've included your name in the script to make sure that we are referencing all of the folks who are present in our committee.

Councilmembers, last week in activities that I participated in, we met with a number of stakeholders and organizations, community members to talk about the urgent needs being addressed in the Seattle Rescue Plan Act proposal that we've crafted and discussed on Friday.

We had an hour of public testimony and we heard very positive comments.

We heard a lot of suggestions for some small tweaks, and mostly what we heard during the committee discussion was a strong desire to make sure the funding gets out the door in an equitable way directly into communities most impacted and directly into the hands of individuals most impacted by COVID.

This is a really important element that we've tried to craft within the legislation.

and we heard a desire from council members to make sure that we're lifting up the how the funding gets out and noting that the how it gets out is just as important as the what we are funding.

I did summarize some of the language that we've included in Section 8 of the Seattle Rescue Plan Act and just to flag in advance since I'm excused from next Monday's meeting, I want to let folks know we are working to try to add additional clarification to that Section 8 per some of the conversations that we had in committee meeting last Friday.

and from some stakeholders as well to make sure that it's very clear that we do want these dollars to go directly into the hands of those most directly impacted, including into organizations, small businesses, and community-based, community-led efforts to make sure that they are being deployed directly to those directly affected.

So we are clarifying in both the language in ARPA and also in the cash assistance dollars, the language that you see in Section 8, The city will prioritize and partner with local community-based organizations that are culturally relevant, historically rooted in and founded by communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID and have organizational staff and board composition that reflect the communities they serve for the purposes of direct grants and or allocation of grants to community.

This is a really important component.

Again, I want to thank Council President as co-sponsor of this legislation as well.

This was a driving pillar, a driving value of our discussion to make sure that there was immediate assistance that was received by those directly impacted.

So look forward to continuing to hear more from all of you.

And again, tomorrow at noon is the desired due date for your amendments to central staff.

In other updates, I wanted to offer some clarification.

There was a statement that was sent around from the mayor's office on Friday morning, which announced that the Strategic Investment Fund is seeking proposals of $3 million for land and property acquisition to respond to disproportionate displacement pressures impacting Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities.

And it went on to say that this investment is part of Mayor Durkan's commitment for $100 million.

funding allocated to support Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities who face inordinance disparities due to systemic racism and oppression.

Unfortunately, the announcement, while it's really great news and I want to make sure that we continue to amplify the opportunity for folks to apply for this 30 million, the announcement failed to make note that this was actually funding from the Mercer Mega Block that the council members here have really prioritized in last year's budget that we made sure went directly to the commitments that were already specified by the council in the 2019 budget and in the 2020 budget.

We work to make sure we're protected.

in making sure that those dollars went exactly to where the community had specifically asked.

It's important to recognize that the original purpose of the $30 million came directly from community organizations and folks who were concerned about a large swath of public land being sold to the highest bidder.

And many of you who were on council at the time worked to strengthen the language to make sure that we had accountability.

So at least $30 million.

$30 million would go to a strategic investment fund specifically to address displacement and gentrification concerns, recognizing that when we have public land, it should be going to the highest public use.

This is part of the conversation that led to our land disposition bill that made sure that in the future, land that was owned by the city was first prioritized for public use among departments for things like housing and child care and community centers, and to the degree that the city doesn't need it or believe that it was still surplus land that we were not going to be able to put into action, that we instead prioritize working directly with community organizations, again, rooted in historically underserved communities so that we could invest in housing and child care and community centers and other public goods.

So I think it's important to just offer that additional clarification.

We are very excited about the strategic investment fund, but I do want to note that this was the $30 million that the community had advocated for from the Mercer Mega Block sale.

And this is funding that the council reprioritized and protected in last year's budget to make sure it went directly to the commitments that the community had called for since the sale of the Mercer Mega Block.

I'm going to reiterate this notice is important that folks should know that the city is now accepting applications for this fund and will make awards of $5 million per project.

Applications are due on July 14th.

Requests for proposals are being prioritized for organizations.

who worked with high displacement risk neighborhoods, areas with low access to opportunity, and places where future public investments are likely to spur transformational change.

So again, congratulations to all.

I remember working closely with Council Member Gonzalez on this was we included additional language related to childcare.

So I just wanted to make sure we didn't erase that history and really applaud the folks who had advocated so hard for that 30 million from the Mercer Mega Block Sale.

Speaking of clarification, this is my last update.

The court offered clarification on Friday about 5 p.m.

The court offered clarification that Jumpstart Seattle Progressive Tax is legal, is sound, and is the law of the land here in the city of Seattle.

This is a huge victory for housing advocates, for those who need housing, and to make sure that we have increasing housing investments going to one of the declared states of emergency in our city.

This is a huge victory for equitable development initiatives, economic resilience funding and green New Deal investments.

It was this council who worked very closely in developing the jumpstart proposal to make sure that we received over $214 million a year, every year for the next 20 years.

and that we had a very tight spend plan to go to these much needed priorities that are often put on the back burner with so many competing needs.

This is a major victory for the coalition who spent many, many years working on this, the community organizations.

and advocates in the community who have been calling for years for progressive revenue and the passage of the progressive payroll tax in Seattle is something I think we can all be proud of.

We are looked at across the nation as an example of a city that did not have to resort to austerity budgeting as many other cities did.

because we were able to rely on the funding that will be coming from this very important tax that goes just on the largest businesses, over $7 million in Seattle payroll, and just on the largest salaries, over $150,000 in pay with a progressive taxation on those larger salaries.

It's important to note that the judge, King County Superior Court Judge Mary Roberts, sided with the city, ruling the tax applies to businesses, not their employees.

And quote, it is a constitutionally permissible excise tax on the privilege of doing business and the city has the authority to tax all business activities.

This is not a tax on employees.

Roberts wrote, quote, employees do not pay the tax.

So I hope that offers clarification that this is a tax on corporations.

This is not a tax on jobs.

This is a tax that is legally sound and is quite literally going to help us build a more equitable economy as we seek to recover from COVID.

And every data point shows that when we invest in workers and making sure that they have greater housing stability and economic stability, That type of investment goes directly back into making a more resilient local economy, which is good for small and large businesses in our region.

I'm excited about the ruling, as you can tell.

We are very thankful to City Attorney Pete Holmes, to Assistant City Attorney Kent Myers for his successful defense of the legislation, and the entire city team, and to all of you and the members of the public who put trust in us as we crafted the jumpstart proposal and got it over the finish line.

and we are now looking forward to making sure that the over 60% of the funding that is coming in is going directly into housing solutions.

And that we stay true to our spend plan as directed by this council to make sure that we continue to keep the trust with the public who advocated so strongly for progressive taxation.

And I'll be looking forward to working with you to make sure that we have assurances that those dollars are going directly in to the categories housing, economic development, excuse me, equitable development, economic resilience, and Green New Deal priorities, as you all specified in the spend plan.

Congratulations, everyone, and thanks again to the attorney's office for their great work.

It's something I think we can all be very proud of.

News came at five o'clock on Friday, so I wanted to really lift it up here Monday morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Muscair, and of course, congratulations to you and everyone who voted in favor.

of and sponsored Jump Start Seattle, huge, huge victory, and really proud of the work that we all did as a council and as a coalition, and also really proud of the work that the city attorney's office did in defending one of our policies.

So I know more to come there, and congratulations to you, Council Member Skada.

All right.

Any comments or questions on that report?

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

Next up is Council Member Peterson.

Good morning.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

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

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9.30 in the morning.

And so our next committee meeting is next Wednesday, June 16th.

The committee agenda will include a discussion of a strategic plan for Seattle City Light.

Regarding transportation issues, I want to offer my sincere condolences for the family of the construction worker killed by a steel beam while working on State Highway 520 last Wednesday, June 2nd, as reported in the local media.

This death caused on the construction site will be investigated by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries.

In District 4, I visited many residents of Magnuson Park last Wednesday during the vaccine pop-up clinic hosted by Seattle Firefighters, the Art Club, the nonprofit Solid Ground, and the African American Health Board.

In addition to the life-saving vaccines, they offered food and prizes to attract folks to the clinic at Santos Place.

located adjacent to the community center in the heart of Magnuson Park in District 4. Over 850 low-income residents, 70% of whom identify as BIPOC, call Magnuson Park home in these apartment buildings operated by the nonprofit Solid Ground and Mercy Housing.

Congratulations to Roosevelt High School's Jazz Band for earning seven awards at this year's 26th annual Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival.

Essentially Ellington celebrates the music of Duke Ellington and other classic jazz composers and has been open to bands west of the Mississippi for a few decades.

Roosevelt High's Jazz Band has made the finals 21 out of the last 23 years and has won the competition four times.

You can hear the Roosevelt Jazz Band using the link in today's Seattle Times article about this, or you can see the band live this coming December for their annual jazz nutcracker performances during the holiday season.

The Wallingford Farmer's Market restarts this Wednesday, June 9. The Wallingford Farmer's Market will be open every Wednesday evening from 3 p.m.

to 7 p.m.

through the end of September.

For more information, you can read their neighborhood blog, Wallyhood.

This is in addition to the University District Farmer's Market, which is year-round every Saturday morning.

I think those, that concludes my remarks.

Thank you.

Short and sweet.

Thank you so much, Council Member Peterson.

Any comments or questions for Council Member Peterson?

Hearing none, we'll go ahead and go down the line and hear from Council Member Sawant next.

Council Member Sawant, please.

Thank you and good morning, everyone.

First, I also am happy to add myself as co-sponsor to Council Member Lewis's ordinance, Council Bill 12096, to support making hotel rooms available for the Just Care program to make a safe and humane place for our homeless neighbors.

It is outrageous that the mayor has done nothing with the available FEMA resources for the last year, while thousands of our community members throughout Seattle were forced to find whatever shelter they can find in parks and at the sides of the roads.

I also noticed that when the mayor's office announced the RFP for the strategic investment fund, that her office totally ignored the fact that she had cut the $30 million from the budget until the council restored those $30 million in the budget amendment proposed by my office and the People's Budget Movement.

And as I had explained at the time, the mayor sat on the $30 million for all of 2020, refusing to let it be used to build housing and community centers, despite getting numerous requests from nonprofit affordable housing providers like the like Lehigh and others.

We have, we warned during the last budget that it was essential that the city council restore that $30 million.

Otherwise, the mayor can continue to issue press releases announcing funds for affordable housing and for communities of color that are never actually used.

The co-stooling on upholding the Amazon tax is a huge victory for thousands of ordinary people, activists, union members, and socialists who actively fought in the tax Amazon movement.

The tax Amazon movement won a historic victory last year during the height of the nationwide Black Lives Matter street protest.

But this movement has been fighting since the autumn of 2017 when we When our people's budget movement at the time, did a very successful overnight peaceful occupation of city hall against the sweeps of our homeless neighbors and we connected that to the fight for.

the Amazon tax.

And in fact, it was at that time that the movement started calling it the Amazon tax.

And we as activists and my office included, opposed the shameful repeal by the city council at the time of the Amazon tax that we had won at that time.

But it laid the groundwork, the work that activists had done at that time laid the groundwork for eventually winning the Amazon tax last year, last summer, after the historic victory that we had in the 2019 elections.

Just like in the case of the 5 to 15, the $15 minimum wage in Seattle, the most critical reason why the city's big business establishment and political elite were forced to concede to the tax Amazon movement was the very successful ballot initiative tactic.

And in fact, you have it straight from the horse's mouth, the big business entities who were themselves, who are fiercely opposed to both $15 an hour and the Amazon tax themselves publicly admitted that had it not been for the credible threat of the ballot initiative, They would not have relented on having a city council measure on both $15 an hour and the Amazon tax.

And in fact, the tax Amazon movement collected a total of 30,000 signatures on the ballot initiative 20,000 of those.

30,000 signatures were collected at the BLM protests in Seattle at the rate of 1,000 signatures a day.

There was such overwhelming support at the Black Lives Matter protests for the Amazon tax because people understood that it is the same system that creates the deep oppression, the mass incarceration system, police violence, racism that also deprives the some of the very same communities of affordable housing and as and the for profit housing market that has led to such intense gentrification and displacement of working class communities of color, but working class communities as a whole.

So I wanted to congratulate everybody who signed the ballot initiative petition and also everybody who fought in the movement, all the thousands of people who attended our mass action conferences, which was a shining example of a democratically organized mass movement.

And in fact, the most democratically organized movement that I've personally been a part of where thousands of people had a chance to weigh in on the key elements of the political debate and discussion, and then all of us together voted on it.

I think that example should be carried forward in order to build on renters' rights victories.

Many of the bills are coming today, but we have much more to win, including rent control and canceling of COVID debt.

There are three items on today's city council agenda related to those renters rights issues that were voted out of the Sustainability and Renters Rights Committee on May 25th.

Council Bill 120046 is the legislation from my office banning the eviction of school children, their families and educators during the school year.

As I've said before, it is common sense, but there's mountains of research showing that when children are evicted, it has devastating impact on their academic achievement, and development.

And, you know, it's really, as many have said, many educators and parents have said to us, just imagine trying to focus on your schoolwork as a child while losing your home.

And I've read those statistics many times, so I'll skip over them for now, but also just mention that we know the statistics also show a very important dimension of the crisis, which is that it's a racial justice and Black Lives Matter issue, And overall we see that Seattle landlords evict black tenants at much higher rates and other tenants.

Similarly, even on this specific issue we see that black students and other students of color disproportionately face homelessness.

The 2018 state data found that fully 40% of homeless students were black.

And 23% of homeless students were Latinx, even though those communities constitute only 14 and 12% respectively of Seattle's public school student population.

Preventing school year evictions will reduce at least this one form of systemic racism that is affecting our students.

And I really appreciate the overwhelmingly strong support that we have received from the Seattle Education Association whose representative assembly voted with near unanimous support for a resolution in support of this legislation.

And I also strongly appreciate the letter that was jointly sent by the SCA and by the Martin Luther King County Labor Council in strong support of this bill and rejecting any loopholes that will water the bill down.

And this is the kind of advocacy that we need from the labor movement and the labor leadership.

And I wanted to thank them all for playing this important role in helping to push this forward.

We've seen that the reality of eviction and housing instability not only affects the education and learning of young children, it also affects their mental health and social outcomes, even related to lower vocabulary skills, problem behaviors, not to mention, of course, grade retention and also being connected to increased high school dropout rates.

It follows them throughout their life with lower adult education attainment.

So we can see the deep connections between housing stability and overall well-being in life.

We also know that research shows turnover in school staff significantly harms the school's effectiveness in educating children.

And that is why our bill is a very strong bill which also offers school year protections to all staff in public school, on public school campuses.

Last week, Jeff Sims from City Council Central Staff sent to all council offices one technical amendment to this legislation, adding a severability clause, which we have discussed in consultation with Council President Gonzalez's office, and we support that amendment.

Last Tuesday in City Council briefing, I appealed to all council offices to send out any amendments in advance so renters have the opportunity to review them and that renters can let council members know how they would be affected by potential amendments.

I appreciate a conversation that Council Member Mosqueda and I had about an amendment that she's planning to bring forward that she has shared at least a draft of with the council offices.

As I better know, it will add a small loophole to the bill, which I don't support.

And of course, I can explain my reasoning once the amendment has been described.

But so far, I've not seen any other amendments.

So either that means that there are going to be last minute loopholes proposed, or there are not going to be any amendments.

I know Council Member Peterson had proposed four amendments that would have watered down the bill.

in a way that I would completely not support.

But thankfully, none of those amendments were passed by the committee.

But of course, amendments can come up in the full council meeting as well.

And so I would appreciate some advanced notice of those amendments.

I appreciate, as I said, the organizing by the Seattle Education Association, but I also want to recognize School Board Director Zachary DeWolf, who originally suggested this legislation to the city council and who sent to the city council a letter last night that read in part, quote, preventing evictions prevents trauma and homelessness.

Prohibiting evictions of those connected to school can focus on school.

This similar law has survived legal challenges in San Francisco.

Seattle's is stronger and better.

Imagine for a moment if a student and or their family or an educator was to be evicted on a day like today.

Immediately traumatic but even worse if the student needs to be able to focus at school tomorrow.

They won't be able to.

Too much stress and pain.

Please support this smart policy.

Thanks for your consideration and thank you for your service." Also in today's agenda, is the Council Bill 120090, which is the legislation jointly sponsored from Council Member Morales' office and my office as two prime sponsors and co-sponsored by Council Member Lewis, creating a right of first refusal for renters to renew their lease unless a landlord has a just cause for refusing to renew the lease. This issue has been discussed by the committee, the Sustainability and Renters Act Committee since March. The committee heard from two panels of impacted renters and renter rights experts. It discussed two previous drafts of legislation that were developed by Council Member Morales' office and by my office. And through those discussions and technical feedback, it became clear that what renters really need in this situation is a right of first refusal where a landlord is required to give the current tenant the first chance to sign a new lease before offering that lease to any other prospective tenants, unless there is a just cause. We know renters need a new lease long before there's any question of eviction. Few renters who are told by their landlord that they will not have their lease renewed will refuse to leave just because Seattle's law says that they cannot be evicted in that situation. Because in real life, we know renters would start looking for a new place to live, even though they may even be aware that it's unjust and they cannot be evicted because they understandably simply don't feel confident to potentially have to fight it out. in court. And in the course of discussing our bill in committee, we heard from dozens of renters who called in during public comment, several of whom who testified at the committee table itself. I won't read their quotes in detail right now, but I wanted to thank all of them, including Star Willey, who is a Starbucks worker and a trans activist, and also Matt Mailey and Bruce Jackson, who are both public school educators and members of the Seattle Education Association. Our new bill puts the right of first refusal into the part of the Seattle's law that the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections has the power to enforce. That means that if a landlord does not offer a new lease and does not have a just cause 60 to 90 days before the end of the lease, then the SDCI has the power to follow up. investigate, tell the landlord that they either need to offer a new lease or present a just cause not to. SDCI can issue a citation or a notice of violation and start issuing fines if a landlord refuses to follow the law. All of this can happen before the lease ends, so ideally these issues can be resolved and the renter can get a new lease without anyone going to eviction court. Besides discussing with many renters, my office also had the opportunity to discuss with several landlords who contacted us. Several small landlords actually have spoken to my office in support of the renters life legislation that we've brought forward and some even signed our community petitions. And in fact, renters and union members who are part of our struggle for an overall renter's bill of rights are also fighting to cancel COVID debt, which is rent, mortgage, and utility debt faced by renters, and also struggling homeowners, struggling small landlords, and struggling small businesses. And we believe that big banks and corporate real estate, along with big business as a whole, should pay for the crisis, not working people and others who are struggling in our community to survive, including struggling small landlords and small businesses. Some of the landlords at my office talked to oppose this legislation. One landlord made an argument to us against this legislation that I would like to respond to publicly. He said that some renters are a quote-unquote headache and the end of the lease is a convenient time to get rid of them. Over the last five years or more, my office has supported many renters and groups of renters facing abuse from their landlord. So when I hear that some renters have a headache, I have to ask, what does that actually mean? This legislation allows landlords to refuse to renew a lease if they have a just cause. By law, there are just causes that the landlord can use if that's actually true. So the legislation is, is consistent with the existing law, which has, you know, so landlords can refuse to renew a lease if they have a just cause to refuse to do so but there's a clear list of what counts as a just cause, not some so called headache, which is, which, which is not actually documented in in the law. If a renter reports a landlord to the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections for housing code violations or for violating renter's rights, that might be a headache for the landlord, but it's not a just cause to kick out the renter, and it's the renter's right to complain about those things. This is not a hypothetical example that I just used. Over the years, my office has spoken to many renters whose landlords have retaliated against them for reporting housing code violations. My office also spoke to two representatives from Windermere Property Management who object to being called a big corporate landlord. To be precise, they do not own buildings. They are a property management corporation managing over a thousand rental housing units. From the perspective of renters, I've spoken to people, you know, renters are rarely in a position to make a distinction between building owner and the property management company because to them, they are the landlord. But I'm happy to make this clarification so that it does not distract from the main point that big business use small landlords as a fig leaf to oppose basically any of the progressive renter's rights bills that we have brought forward. And last week Council Member Morales in my office distributed four technical amendments to this legislation clarifying the language. The amendments are of course attached to the agenda. None of them make any substantive change and are simply technical in nature. Also on today's City Council agenda is Council Bill 120077, the legislation Council Member Morales' office, which I welcome, and I have co-sponsored as committee chair to create a defense against eviction for renters facing rental debts during COVID emergency that was described earlier. Finally but not least on today's city council agenda is resolution 31998 which is the resolution from my office urging the mayor and the governor to extend the eviction moratoriums through the end of the year. Council members will remember that this resolution last came for a vote on March 13th, two weeks before the city and state eviction moratoriums were poised to expire at that time. Minutes before the city council meeting where the resolution would have been voted on, however, Mayor Durkin relented The community to the community pressure and extended the moratorium for another six months, I'm sorry three months and later the governor also did the same. In response, I proposed, and the Council unanimously agreed to delay the vote on the resolution until today, June 7, because the eviction moratoriums are now projected to expire on June 30. which would be a real disaster for renters. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, 270,000 Washington state renters have little to no confidence that they will be able to pay a rent next month, which is 18% of all state renters, and 98,000 Washington state renters think it is very or somewhat likely that they will be evicted in the next two months. We have fought for and won the right to counsel for renters facing eviction, eviction defenses for renters, rental assistance money. All of those are extremely important, but none of them are an excuse to fail to extend the eviction moratorium. When the eviction moratorium ends, literally thousands of Seattle renters could be served with eviction paperwork known as unlawful detainer. And this is not ideal speculation. This has been confirmed nationwide through economic projections. An unknown number will self-evict, meaning that they will move before they are even formally served with eviction paperwork, because that's what they're anticipating. And I appreciate the MLK Labor Council and 46 other organizations who had sent a joint letter in March urging the mayor and the governor to extend the moratorium to the end of this year, precisely for this reason, that we don't even have proper data on how many renters will end up self-evicting. Then statistically, half of those actually served with formal eviction paperwork will be evicted by default because they are unable to respond to the paperwork or appear in court. Only those who make it to their eviction hearing can potentially avoid eviction if using Seattle's eviction defense, right to counsel and rental assistance funds. I oppose evictions because housing should be a human right. At the very least, however, the housing emergency that renters are facing due to the economic shock of COVID-19 and the real collapse in their financial situation that they experienced over the last year needs to be resolved before elected officials even consider lifting the eviction moratorium. Two weeks ago my office sent all council member offices amendment language to update that resolution to account for the changes over the past three months. Hopefully council members have had the chance to look at that. The amendment adds up-to-date statistics and also language on recent community organizing including important courts from, which I'll just mention, I won't read, from the Washington Community Action Network and also from the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, both of whom, both the organizations are advocating for the extending of the moratorium to the end of this year. So I really hope that the City Council will vote yes on this amendment. The amendment also accounts for the amendment resolution, also accounts for the provision in Senate Bill 5160 that shamefully ends the statewide moratorium on June 30th. To be clear, while the statewide moratorium is scheduled to end on June 30, according to that bill, there is nothing legally stopping Governor Inslee from issuing a new proclamation reenacting the eviction moratorium. And the legislation says nothing about the city's moratorium. So the amendment language that we've sent is fully consistent with all of those issues. So I once again urge all the council members to support this. The next meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee will be at its regularly scheduled time at the end of the month, Tuesday, June 22nd at 2 p.m. The full agenda of that committee meeting is still being developed, but it will discuss renters' rights legislation from my office requiring landlords to pay relocation assistance if they economically displace their tenants by forcing them out with unconscionable rent increases and the legislation from my office originally proposed by the Seattle Renters Commission to give renters a six-month notice for rent increases. Finally, I'm circulating for signatures a proclamation brought to my office last weekend by Seattle's social equity educators in support of the National Day of Action organized by the Zinn Education Project and Black Lives Matter at School for June 12th. The Day of Action is to raise public awareness of educators pledged to teach the truth across the country. Right-wing Republican lawmakers are pushing legislation to restrict how educators can teach issues related to racism, sexism, and other social issues, the pledge to teach the truth says, quote, we the undersigned educators refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events, regardless of the law, end quote. In Seattle, the June 12 event organized by social equity educators, Washington Ethnic Studies Now, Seattle Center for Racial Equity and Seattle Council PTSA will begin at the Medgar Evers Pool at 1.30 p.m. It will have speakers and a youth-led tour of culturally and historically important Seattle landmarks. I will be happily joining them myself at the event and I thank all the educators and organizers who are responsible for the event and also who brought the idea of the proclamation to my office. This proclamation designates June 12, 2021, to be pledged to teach the truth day. The language of the proclamation was sent to all council offices somewhat late because it was drafted by community organizers over the weekend. But unfortunately, it cannot be delayed because the event is on this weekend. So I hope that council members will support it with signatures today, and I'll leave it to President Gonzalez to decide how to bring it forward for the vote. Thank you.

Great, thank you so much Council Member Salant.

On the proclamation, we'll go ahead and open it up for any questions and discussions on the proclamation and then do the roll call now during council briefing.

So colleagues, any comments or questions on the proclamation as described by Council Member Salant before I ask the clerk to call the roll?

Hearing none, I don't see any hands raised either.

So will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation regarding a proclamation for a pledge to teach the truth day.

We're bold?

Yes.

Juarez?

Council Member Juarez?

Lewis?

Yes.

Morales?

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Yes.

Sawant?

Yes.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Seven in favor.

Okay, sorry, I wasn't sure if you heard me.

Great, thank you so much.

Thank you Council Member Sawant for that.

Colleagues, any comments or questions on that report.

I know there are several, there are some amendments that are being proposed that Council Member Sawant gave a nod to in her comments.

So if you do have amendments that you'd like to queue up for preview today that we'll be considering at the full council, now would be the time to do that.

Also as a reminder, Asha Venkatraman from Council Central staff and Jeff Simms are both on the I'm going to scan the room here.

Thank you, Council President.

I do not have any amendments to bring forward today.

Just to clarify for folks, I proposed and put forward amendments at the committee level, which seemed the appropriate time for me to do that as a member of that committee.

But just wanted to clarify, I wasn't planning to bring them back a second time today.

OK, thanks for clarifying.

That'll help us manage this afternoon's I'm going to hand it over to you.

have kiddos during the school year.

I'm very much appreciative of the work that we have been able to do in the past and continue to do on this legislation and just overall supportive of the three pieces of legislation in front of us today.

I know that we've received a number of emails from stakeholders and community groups that we all very much respect.

and looking forward to passing the legislation today.

I also do have a possible amendment that I'm working on right now, and we are in conversation with Council Member Sawant and the central staff team that is on the line here as well.

I did send you a draft of that amendment that we're massaging a little bit here to make sure that we could address one of the issues that we have heard about the underlying bill related to the school year.

My office has been working closely to try to understand some of the potential unintended impacts of the housing instability that may come up in very rare situations where there is a homeowner who does not have a large amount of wealth, has financial limitations or other life I did circulate an amendment that I'm considering and will make sure to share with you all any changes before, well before the meeting this afternoon to get at the one concern that I think has come up that's resonated with me and I want to see if we can try and address it through this ordinance without creating any There's a handful of folks who have written in about wanting to have a carefully crafted amendment that applies specifically to owner move-ins as an exemption in the school year evictions moratorium.

I want to note that this is owner move-ins is a exemption that is exactly modeled off of the language in the just cause statute that this council passed in previous years and with the support of advocates and tenant rights folks in that period.

So the language that we are potentially looking at including is from the Just Cause ordinance that lists owner move-ins as a just reason for eviction.

This is not a loophole as there are lots of reasons why an owner may need to move into their home, including life changes like the birth of a child, loss of a job, illness, or disability or relocation needs.

In these very few cases, it is expected that an owner is going to have to wait up to 10 months to move in or could, if they have additional housing instability, that this could potentially cause housing instability for those specific folks who have a rental unit that they would need to move back into.

And in an effort to make sure that we're not creating additional hardship or housing instability for that specific small landlord, We are trying to look at modeling the language exactly from the just cause statute to make sure we're not creating additional housing instability.

I want to underscore the importance of creating stability for families, especially those with kiddos during this time.

owner move and exemption for owners to give 90 days notice prior to the move as in the Just Cause legislation to make sure that if they move that this is their principal resident.

We don't want people moving in and then not staying there and not having it as their principal resident, meaning they actually have to live there.

this narrow amendment is intended to be in response to some of the concerns that we've received about the potential impact of housing instability for a few of the low-income or income-restricted small landlords with just one single residence and that they rent and are dependent on that rental unit for their own families to be able to move into potentially if they're facing hardship.

During, excuse me, due to Seattle's high housing costs, there are a few circumstances or an owner of a residence may not have the financial means to line up another housing options or to wait for the length of time required in this legislation.

And in some circumstances, families would need to wait for them to move in and that would create additional hardship.

So one example is the correspondence that we've received related to one owner and their small children who've been living with other family members and have since welcomed a baby they had always wanted and intended to move back into their home and do not have the means to pay for both their mortgage and an additional spot or take on additional debt and housing.

So under this legislation as currently written in this circumstance, these owners would have to wait until the year is up, and what we're trying to find is language from the Just Cause ordinance that's already in place to apply in this situation, so that if there's owner move-ins that are allowed in Just Cause, that we can apply it to this situation, or then that would be a just reason for ending the month-to-month rental agreement.

I do want to note that Councilmember Morales and Councilmember Sawant's right of first refusal legislation also has, that's also up for a vote this afternoon, which I'm very supportive of, also includes that all leases automatically convert to month-to-month.

under this situation, and therefore the Just Cause Ordinance protections would apply to all of these leases.

So regarding the school year, again, I want to say how important this legislation is, how much I support the folks who've been writing in in support of this legislation, and I just want to see if there's a way to pair the language that we have from the Just Cause Ordinance with this piece of legislation in front of us to make sure that we are creating housing stability for all, especially those who are income limited, may have a life-changing circumstance that necessitates them to move back into their rental unit and also requires that 30-day notice.

we are looking at with the support and direction of Councilmember Sawant is ideally finding ways to strengthen the requirements, especially recognizing that there are clear reasons.

There has to be a justification to use the owner move-in language here, and we are very concerned that there may be lisa smith, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB And I think that that's just a note to the overall need for us to strengthen the Just Cause move in, owner move in language overall, which I'm very much committed to doing, but wanted to see if in this narrow situation there might be support for that.

So again, thanks to Council Member Swamp for the feedback on the initial language that we sent and looking forward to seeing if we can strengthen this.

I think it's a very important component with a very important note that we have more work to do on owner move-in language overall to make sure it's being appropriately applied.

But I think it could potentially help here, especially with some of the stories that we've heard from folks who really are meeting these hardship requirements and do need to potentially move back in.

So there's that.

You specifically requested Council Central staff be on the line today to describe your amendment.

So I'm going to ask you to queue up that opportunity for, I think you specifically asked for Jeff Sims to be on the line.

So I'm going to queue you up to sort of have him explain any other aspects of your amendment that you'd like him to explain.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

Thanks for your work on this as well as we have been hearing since over the last week and apologies that I was not able to offer something via the committee discussions.

But as we've been trying to find a narrow solution to the issue that's come up for these specific.

circumstances that a homeowner may find themselves in that need to move back in.

Jeff has offered some language that has been circulated and is working with us on the possibility of strengthening the damages so that there is true enforcement that could be built upon in this language.

Jeff, did you want to offer any clarification or you're welcome to also show the language that you have provided to me if that's helpful to folks, but I'm happy to have you walk through and offer clarification on what I may have said.

Sure.

I didn't really have any major clarifications.

I can walk through it.

Am I able to share screens at this time or will that require special permission?

If not, Jeff, you can just walk us through what it says as well.

Just a moment.

This should be sharing now.

Did that work?

It appears that I'm having a problem.

I'm not able to hear anyone either.

Can you hear me still?

We can hear you.

Okay.

It's not highlighting the right screen, so I'm not able to actually scroll or control it, so I'll just describe it.

As was circulated already to all the council members, if you look at what would be subparagraph 10B, in the school year eviction moratorium, there's just a simple reference that's added in what has been distributed.

It refers to 22-206-160C-1E.

Subsection B already, as I previously noted in some materials provided to council, lays out the few times where the school year eviction moratorium would not apply as a defense against eviction.

Those few circumstances are generally when a unit does not comply with the land use codes, such as the condition of the unit or how many people are occupying it, if there has been criminal activity on the part of the tenant or an operation of an unlawful business.

So adding that small additional piece just adds to this, that if the landlord was looking to move into the unit for his or her own occupation or their immediate family member, that would be permitted.

So that's the piece that has already been seen by all council members.

And the language that we're working to develop, but it's not yet final, would also refer back to the Just Cause Eviction Ordinance, actually for the large part, copying and pasting it, and noting that in subsection B, in that very narrow piece that's added, if the conditions that resulted in the tenant being removed or vacating the unit were not met, then the tenant could, pursue a private action for either $2,000 or three times the rent that had been charged to the tenant, whichever was greater, and any fees associated with either the suit or arbitration, such as the cost of an attorney.

That language is still being finalized, so I won't share it at this time and also not having trouble with share screen.

Okay, great.

Thanks, Jeff.

Sorry, you're having some technical Technological difficulties there.

Okay, colleagues, any questions or comments on that particular amendment?

Okay.

All right, so we'll sort of look forward to getting the official word from your office customer mosquito here pretty shortly before the new deadline about whether or not you intend to bring forward that amendment.

And then Council Member Stilwant, I know your office and my office have been talking about the severability amendment, and my understanding was that you were going to lead on bringing that forward, and I just want to confirm that so I don't drop the ball on it.

Yes, I will make sure on my end so the ball doesn't get dropped.

Thank you for the reminder.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, okay.

And I'm happy to be supportive of that.

I think it's a smart amendment to include that severability clause, so I'm happy to I'm happy to be supportive of that effort.

Jeff?

I just wanted to clarify that on Friday at 4.30, that amendment was circulated to all council members, so that should be in everyone's inbox for review.

The severability amendment?

That's correct, yes.

Okay, great.

Perfect.

Council President, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I was on a phone call.

I apologize.

I didn't look over and see.

I know you called my name.

I wanted to say yes.

Sorry.

Didn't you on the proclamation?

That was for Council Member Sawant's proclamation?

Yeah.

Great.

We'll make sure that that gets noted.

Thank you.

I apologize.

That's all right.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions on any of those suite of bills or other portions of Council Member Sawant's report?

All right.

I'm not seeing anything else.

Great, okay.

Well, I will go ahead and conclude this portion of the agenda with my report, which will be relatively brief here.

There are no items on today's city council agenda for final action from the governance and education committee.

However, there are two items on this afternoon's introduction and referral calendar that will be referred to my governance and education committee.

Both items are appointments to the district dean commission and appear as items seven and eight on the introduction referral calendar.

These appointments will be considered tomorrow, June 8, 2021, during my regularly scheduled Governance and Education Committee, which is set to occur at 2 o'clock p.m.

The first two appointments, as I just mentioned, will be to the Seattle Districting Commission.

Appointment 1945 is for Rory O'Sullivan, and Appointment 1946 is for Eliseo Juarez.

These are council appointments, and both nominees will be available during my committee tomorrow afternoon to answer your questions.

The third appointment will be to the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy Oversight Committee.

This will be the appointment of Manuela Sly as member to the Levy Oversight Committee.

And Manuela will be with us to answer any questions.

The fourth agenda item will be a briefing and discussion presented by our friends on the Immigrant and Refugee Commission, who will be sharing recommendations for an equitable recovery from that commission's perspective.

Our last and fifth agenda item is a presentation from our Department of Education and Early Learning on K-12 and Seattle Preschool Program investments to date, and look forward to welcoming them for that conversation.

This Thursday, I will attend the Puget Sound Regional Council Transportation Policy Board meeting.

At that meeting, the Transportation Policy Board will welcome Washington State Representatives Jake Fay and Emily Wicks to discuss the results of the 2021 legislative session and transportation-related activities.

The board is also planning to be briefed on the work and outreach conducted as part of the development of PSRC's coordinated mobility plan, which identifies mobility needs of people requiring specialized transportation services.

On Tuesday, my role is member of King County's Regional Homelessness Authority Governing Committee.

I will be having my regular check-in with representatives of the Lived Experience Coalition.

And on Thursday afternoon, I plan to meet with the chairs of the Small Business Advisory Council to hear more about small business needs for our city.

and our ongoing economic recovery.

Happy to answer any questions or hear anything else for the good of the order.

All right, I'm not seeing any other hands raised.

So colleagues, that does conclude our agenda for this morning.

So if there is no further business to come before us, we will be adjourned.

See you all this afternoon.

Thank you.