Hello, I'm your host, Brian Caliman.
What new roles are the newly elected members of the City Council taking on at the start of the new year?
How will a recently approved ordinance about campaign financing impact City Council elections?
Voters across the state now say homelessness is their top priority.
So what's happening with this issue locally?
Council members Herbold, Peterson, and Strauss answer these questions and the ones you're sending in, too, next on Council Edition.
I am really committed to seeing that we continue to double our investments in permanent supportive housing.
We really need to increase our transit capacity.
And those buildings have less value because they did not protect their trees.
All that and more coming up next on City Inside Out, Council Edition.
And here we go with our first council edition show of the year 2020. I am joined by council members Herbold, Peterson, and Strauss.
Thank you very much for joining us.
And I should point out, fun fact here, all of these council members were former legislative aides on the council.
So keep your feet on the ground, but reach for the stars, right?
Very well done.
Thank you for being here.
Congratulations on your election wins.
I want to start about talking about your new roles on the council as defined by the committees you're chairing.
And council member Herbold, you have a full plate.
You all have a full plate, but let me start with you here.
You're temporarily council president for the month of January, while Council President Lorena Gonzalez is on maternity leave.
You're leading the committee dealing with public safety and human services.
You're representing District 1, West Seattle down to South Park.
So we have a police department going through a consent decree, a homelessness system, going through some major changes here.
Where do you start, I guess, is the big question for me.
Sure.
So having the Public Safety and Human Services Committee means that I'm going to be focused really on issues related to the consent decree, making sure that we get out from under the consent decree back into compliance in the areas that we're no longer in compliance.
For constitutional policing.
That's right.
For constitutional policing while also meeting our goals for retention and hiring of new officers so we can grow the size of our police department.
Got it.
On the human services side, I actually don't have homelessness in my portfolio.
Councilmember Lewis has homelessness.
I have the other piece of human services.
So I will be really focused on ensuring that the council's budget ads from 2019 are implemented in early 2020. And so I'll be sort of monitoring as those programs roll out, whether or not they're new programs or expanding existing programs.
But you're also serving on that regional homeless board that's a combination of the city and county for a couple months.
So you've got a lot of work ahead there, too.
Absolutely, yeah.
And again, I am really committed to seeing that we continue to double our investments in permanent supportive housing like we've been able to do this year with enhanced funding from using our bond capacity and also the sale of some large properties and been able to devote more money to permanent supportive housing.
The McKinsey report says we need to continue to do that, as well as the entire region, not just Seattle.
All right, we're going to keep the pressure on, what that one sounds like.
Councilmember Peterson, I'm going to try to go down a long list here.
You are the Transportation and Utilities Committee chair.
Put those two pieces together, that's half the city budget right there.
So you've got the impacts of I-976.
You've got some light rail stations coming online soon.
You've got a Transportation Benefit District up for a vote this year.
a green new deal possibly impacting our utilities, and you're representing District 4 in the Northeast Seattle area.
I want to talk about your top priorities on the job, the big challenges you're seeing going forward here.
Sure.
So yes, I'm really pleased to have all these in my committee.
It's really an infrastructure committee when you think about it.
Lots of projects to keep on time and on budget.
I think I was really happy that it was a vote of confidence in my financial skills, focus on fiscal responsibility.
With this committee, we hope to find a lot of cooperation among utilities working together, working with SDOT.
A lot of times they're, you know, as they tear up the street to do something, they can coordinate.
Let's do the utilities at the same time, yeah.
And they are coordinating, but we can continue to do that with oversight in the committee.
Priorities, we want to really lean into transit.
We really need to increase our transit capacity.
You mentioned the Seattle Transportation Benefit District.
That is a major priority because that is expiring this year.
So we want to, we had a briefing on that in my first committee this past week.
and it does great things in terms of most of the pothole budget is in that transportation benefit district and also expanded bus service.
So we want to look at how to renew that this year.
I wanted to make sure I asked you, and this was something on the campaign trail too, when it came to the issues like Move Seattle, like Sound Transit 3, I know you had some questions about those in the past, didn't support them.
How does that play into what you're going to be doing as a transportation chair?
Sure, really those issues were about how the things were funded.
So looking at fair funding of things is really important to me, making sure that there's fiscal responsibility, that there's a great need, we're using the money as effectively and efficiently as possible.
The Seattle Transportation Benefit District is well executed and very vital services provided there.
But, you know, I'm in a new role now.
I'm now an elected city council member, chairing this important committee.
There's a lot of great work that the Department of Transportation does.
We're going to work closely with Sound Transit, opening up a couple of stations in my district, actually.
So, again, leaning into transit to make sure that's expanded.
Thank you very much for that.
Councilmember Strauss, you're heading up the Land Use Committee, so you're dealing with the impacts of mandatory housing affordability, a comprehensive plan update, you've got advocates demanding you get rid of single-family zoning, so many things here, and you're representing District 6, Green Lake, out to Ballard.
I want to talk about your priorities and some of the challenges you see coming forward this year.
Yeah, Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee.
So we also have the Department of Neighborhoods, which is really important so that we know how each unique neighborhood of our community is being receiving the services that they need.
Yeah.
And so land use really is a pretty dense and boring topic.
You know, the binders that we get are very thick, filled with details talking about, you know, tunnels on your street.
Sure, sure.
And all the rest.
There are some really interesting things coming before the committee this year.
Yeah.
So we've got the industrial lands Commission which I'll be sitting on and this whether this bill the bills come before council this year or Nearly in the future industrial lands are really important within our community, especially as we continue to develop and become more dense Yeah, we've got mobile home protections that will likely be coming before committee this year mobile homes are a an effective way of providing affordable housing, and so I'll be interested to see that before us.
And also, as you said, cleanups to mandatory housing affordability.
The devil is in the details, and we need to make sure that the program is working as intended, that we're following up on the recommendations, and if things aren't working well, we make those changes.
Okay, great.
I'm going to shift gears a little bit and talk about your first big vote of the year on campaign finance reform, some landmark legislation.
that would limit contributions to political action committees.
Every one of you affected by this issue in the last election here, $4 million spent by super PACs and the council races alone.
I want to start with some general thoughts on this.
And Council Member Strauss, I'll start with you and come back this way.
Why did you support this measure?
What impact do you think it will have on our local political races?
Yeah, government is for the people, built by the people.
And for government to be as accountable as it can be, it needs to be a transparent process that people are able to interact with and know what's going on.
And so it's the same with campaigns as well.
Increased transparency means that there is increased accountability to the people that we are elected to serve.
And Councilmember Peterson, my concern here, and Councilmember Herbold brought this up during the vote, this measure is not really going to take big money out of politics.
I know you're a fiscal guy.
That's a big part of your background here.
Can you let me know why you supported this bill first, and maybe some of your concerns about when it comes to battling against this influence of big money on city council races?
Sure.
Well, I'm a big supporter of any campaign finance reform.
I was very proud to be the first to qualify for Seattle's Democracy Voucher Program, for instance.
And so I support Council President Gonzalez's bills.
I support them because they are going to increase transparency.
It's going to be working around the margins and also making things you know, trying to limit the contributions of certain, there's a foreign influence element to it.
And I'm going to wait, I'm going to let Lisa take care of some of those big details.
She's wrestling with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they're, they're very positive elements to it.
Wherever we can close loopholes, we should do that for campaign finance.
And Council Member Herbold, I saved the best for last for you because I know you're going to be leading the effort on finishing this whole process here as Council President Lorena Gonzalez is on maternity leave.
So, two-thirds of the bill passed here.
The influence of foreign-based corporations was part of this.
Disclosure rules for political ads, the other part of it.
But this third part would limit Super PAC contributions to $5,000 per individual and would create what's called this Limited Contribution Committee.
With the LCC, this $5,000 limit wouldn't apply.
Stay with me here, folks.
if the donations over that limit could be linked to a number of donors making smaller donations.
I hope I summed it up in a good way.
I want to figure out what's next here because I know some critics have said, for example, this is going to favor unions too much, things of that nature, and I know there's a legal challenge coming to this too.
Yeah.
So as it relates specifically to the question of whether or not donors can do direct expenditures without going through a committee, I think that is a really important issue to wrestle with in the SuperPAC bill.
It is an issue that we addressed in the last minute in the Foreign Contributions Bill, Foreign Influence Contributions Bill.
We added an amendment at full council that clarifies that the prohibition on foreign influence contributions is not just a prohibition of those dollars going to a PAC or an independent expenditure committee.
It's also a limitation on their ability to spend, those kinds of companies' ability to spend directly in support of a campaign.
So we actually were able to fix that issue in the bill that we passed.
But it is an issue that we, I think, still need to wrestle with on the Super PAC bill itself.
Yeah, that's going to be a big issue ahead.
But what about that issue that some critics have brought up, that this somehow favors unions over companies or whatever else?
How do you respond to that?
Well, I don't think it's, it's not about, it's about actually using a similar approach to the approach that exists in the Democracy Vouchers program, that you have a threshold to meet.
And if you meet that threshold, you can engage in those kinds of contributions.
And so it's about demonstrating that there are a certain number of people who have given smaller contributions.
And anybody could meet that threshold, not exclusively unions.
Okay, thank you for bringing that up.
I know there's still a lot ahead with that.
Councilmember Peterson, I'll go to you on this.
The issue that really kicked this whole conversation into high gear, which spurred so many big businesses to actually invest in local elections this last time around, was the employee head tax for homelessness services.
Councilmember Herbold brought up this idea as budget chair in 2017. That went on hold.
The next year, the council passed it, then rescinded it.
Now we are here in 2020. Finding this progressive revenue source in what is the most regressively taxed state in the U.S. has been a part of the conversation on the council for many, many years here.
How do you want to guide that conversation going forward?
Sure.
Well, for me, looking at, before we talk about revenue, I want to make sure that the city is spending the money it already has efficiently and effectively.
So that's first.
Are we spending, maximizing the money that we're already getting from the 1.5 billion general fund, but also the 6.5 all funds as well.
And then looking at what is it that we want to use the money for.
So there are lots of issues people are passionate about.
We're passionate about, as was mentioned earlier, creating more permanent supportive housing to help reduce homelessness.
There's also discussion about expanding affordable child care, high quality child care.
There's also desire to expand transit.
And so really, I would like to get everything out on the table as to what our needs are, and are we spending the money efficiently, and then talk about what sort of revenue sources might make the most sense, who should pay for them.
I think you'd hit the nail on the head about the state in general is very regressive.
We have great state legislators from our area, and I really would hope In their short session, they probably won't be able to get there, but we really do need to keep pressing on the state to enact a progressive income tax.
Okay.
Councilmember Herbold, you had something.
I'll go to you.
Yeah, I just want to underscore that progressive revenue is not just about generating more revenue.
It's about shifting away from reliance on regressive forms of revenue.
So I could envision, for instance, if we're able to enact the municipal earners income tax.
One of the top priorities in that bill isn't just to generate more money for more programs, it is to reduce our reliance on property tax and sales tax and B&O taxes for small businesses.
So, I think when we're talking about progressive revenue, it can't just always, it can't just be exclusively about whether or not we need more money to fund more programs, that the question of moving away from more sales tax, more property tax has to be part of the conversation.
I know you've signaled before when it comes to some sort of employee hours tax, you'd like to see a public vote of some sort on that.
Do you still feel that way?
I absolutely do feel that way.
What does that look like?
You know, you started off asking how Councilmember Peterson was going to guide the conversation.
I think the conversation is being guided, and I think it's going to be our job to help shape it.
Realistically, we are going to be in a position of reacting to Councilmember Sawant's proposal.
and we might decide to develop an alternative proposal or amend her proposal.
But I feel really strongly that we can't just vote on something as a council because we are just gonna replicate, I believe, what happened in 2018 when we're gonna be faced with having something on the referendum.
And then we'll be in a defensive position of defending something.
And I think it's a better idea to use the campaign in a way that is on the offensive to make our arguments about why this progressive taxation is needed.
Thank you.
Councilmember Strauss, you're two cents on this one, or many millions of dollars, however you want to look at it here.
Definitely a conversation you heard about on the campaign trail.
What's your stance when it comes to trying to find some sort of progressive revenue source?
Yeah, as you said, Washington State has one of the most regressive tax codes.
Seattle also has one of the most regressive tax codes.
And we need to find progressive revenue.
We can no longer rely on sales tax and property tax, you know, to fund the programs and the projects that we rely on.
So whether that's shifting property tax that we're already receiving into more progressive revenue sources, that's one way to tackle this very large problem.
You know, one of the reasons why I joined the Association of Washington Cities on behalf of the city of Seattle is to use my relationships in Olympia to continue advocating for more progressive revenue sources at the state level, which really controls and dictates what we're able to do here at the city level.
So, you know, we are here at the city level, and we're going to have to, you know, nip and tuck around the edges as much as we can because we can't wait another day with the regressive tax code that we have.
Councilmember Strauss, I'll stick with you and we'll pick up the pace ever so slightly here if we may, but I think this is something that you and Councilmember Peterson can weigh in on.
I'll start with you though.
Just before the start of the new year, working on a new tree ordinance.
Big, big project here.
I'm going to give you a couple of quotes to set this one off.
I'll throw one your way and I'll try to throw another one.
Alex's way here.
So one quote, you actually heard this during the council meeting there about this.
Here was what was said.
We need to be more ambitious about it.
Seattle's goal for tree canopy coverage is 30% by 2037. But this is essentially just holding steady from when the goal was set in 2007. Let me know about this.
There are a lot of people who are very passionate about trees in our area.
They want this canopy increased.
They want it increased now.
What do you tell these folks?
What are you working on?
I'm right there as well.
I want to see more trees in our community.
I want to see trees in neighborhoods that don't have trees today.
We need to make sure that the neighborhoods that don't have as many trees receive more trees.
We need to be able to plant new trees throughout the city, in right-of-ways, in parks, and we need to provide protections for trees that are on private land.
You know we are becoming a more dense city and as we continue to become more dense.
We're going to need to be able to provide incentives for builders to retain the trees there I used to live on just off at 20th and Avenue and Ballard sure there's a really great new townhome development that has preserved a mature tree.
And the value of that building is higher because they retained and preserved and protected that tree.
That tree could not grow as fast as they could build that building.
I've seen so many other developments in Ballard raise all of the trees that are there.
And those buildings have less value because they did not protect their trees.
So it's an equity focus of bringing new trees across the city.
It's about planting new trees in city-owned land, and it's about preserving trees on private property.
Councilmember Peterson, I'll bring you in here, and here's another comment to set this one off.
It's pretty cheap for a developer to give you a fee-in-lieu of tree preservation.
Trees are not like housing units.
They cannot be moved around the city.
This whole fee-in-lieu issue, I think, is a big piece of this, trying to preserve things.
There's at least the possibility of developers being able to pay this fee-in-lieu and cut down trees, etc.
Help me out with that.
There's a balance here between the growth of the city and the need to preserve trees.
Sure.
So in addition to all the other benefits, there are also climate benefits and drainage benefits.
So lots of environmental benefits for preserving trees.
And the in-lieu option is a problem with all sorts of legislation we've seen where instead of just requiring outright what we want to see, what our values are, we are allowing this sort of escape hatch of an in-lieu.
fee and that happens with housing yeah yes and then that in lieu fee is driven down by lobbying groups uh...
and so i think that when we see the the mayor's uh...
team is working on the legislation right now and we look forward to their first report at the end of this month and would want to take a hard look at any in lieu fee proposal.
Is there something you'd like to see out of this proposal for the tree ordinance?
We want to make sure that it's preserving more trees because the trees that are mature are the ones who are doing the most good for the environment.
So I don't like the idea of saying, well, you can rip out this mature tree and then plant three sticks in the ground and call it done.
I don't think we need to rely more heavily on preserving the bigger trees.
Councilmember Herbold, I want to bring you in here because I know you touched on this issue for some time.
Councilmember Johnson, when he was on the council, worked on this 2018. Councilmember Bagshaw, I know was working on it too.
This has been difficult, a difficult process here.
What's it going to take to try to push it over the line to try to figure out something that everybody can agree with?
Did you have some perspective here?
I think it's a difficult issue because you're having a lot of what are seen as conflicting interests kind of button heads.
I think that the Urban Forestry Commission has done a lot of good work in considering some of those conflicting interests.
And frankly, that's just the interest of folks who support urban density.
And I think there's a way to meet our growth goals as well as adhering to the values of people in the city and the values as it relates specifically to the benefits of living in communities with trees and the fact that some of our low-income neighborhoods are the ones who do not enjoy those benefits and that tree canopy is really suffering in those communities.
And I think that really needs to drive the conversation.
It's a recognition that there's a lack of equity here that's really connected to development.
Right.
Councilmember Peterson, I'll bring you back in here because you're working on a related issue here with regard to having a climate change proviso, for want of a better phrase there.
As part of all legislation that the City Council considers, tell us about that, that process, what you're hoping to do there, what you want to accomplish.
Sure, so right now there's what's called a fiscal note that accompanies resolutions and ordinances to say what is the financial impact of the legislation and this idea I have for introducing some climate change questions actually came from one of my competitors in the campaign, Kathy Tuttle.
She called it a carbon note and so all we're doing is just being mindful of the crisis of climate change we're in right now It'll ask, are we increasing or decreasing carbon emissions with this legislation?
And then it talks about adapting to climate change, since we're already in the midst of it.
And we'd also like to beef up a couple of other fiscal aspects of it.
What's that going to do?
What sort of issues would this touch, do you think, that are not touched now, perhaps, by carbon emissions?
Sure.
Well, I think that, so for example, when proposals come forward right now on expanding transit, let's say, right now the fiscal note will just say, well, this is going to be an additional cost.
But if we have the fiscal and environmental note, I'm calling it, it'll also say, but there's the benefit of we will be reducing carbon emissions.
Yeah, okay.
Thank you for bringing that up.
Councilmember Strauss, I know you said during your swearing in, climate change needs to be in everything that the council does.
I want to talk about that and how that concept might play off of what Councilmember Peterson's talking about here.
We absolutely have to address the climate crisis in everything that we do.
We cannot try and pigeonhole it or silo it into one area of our work.
And so that's one reason why I'm very adamant about transit-only lanes, because we know a lot of the carbon emissions that we are putting off in the city are based upon our travel.
We need to have it in our building codes, so more than just that buildings have a strong R value, we need to make sure that we're using more wood than concrete, and we need to make sure that that wood is sustainably harvested.
We need to make sure that buildings less than six stories tall are also wired for solar, so that we can have better energy production throughout the city.
We need to, as we've already talked about, pass the tree ordinance because we know that trees clean our air and keep our land cool.
And we need to make sure that we're net neutral or net negative in the next 10 years.
Otherwise, there's no certainty that we will all still be here on this television show.
Or anywhere else for that matter.
Or anywhere else.
So it really is everything that we're doing we need to focus on the climate crisis.
Okay, I'm gonna switch from climate to weather if I may, and Councilmember Herbold I'll bring you in.
We're taping the show just a few days after we had some snowfall in the Seattle area.
Some would say it's significant, some would say not.
Depends on where you live.
How do we do on shoveling our sidewalks?
Because I know you were behind sponsoring this legislation about $50 fine for residents, $250 for businesses if they didn't shovel.
I'll throw a couple of emails your way to set this off.
Can I make a point?
Yeah, please, please.
We reduced the fines on residents of property, homeowners, right?
We reduced those fines.
I bet to 50.
That was a lowering.
Right, that's an important point.
I know, because a lot of people weren't there.
Maybe you can help set this up, because a few people wrote in some different comments on this.
One comment goes like this, that's what you do when it snows.
You put down the other things you can, do the things that are necessary to do to be a good neighbor.
Okay, you got this other one though.
What if you're not home during the snow days on vacation?
Can you just put out a sign that says, it snowed, watch your step, be smart, be careful?
Some people are concerned about this, that the city wants to go out and find them during a snowstorm.
What do you want to tell them?
What I heard from SDOT, from the Transportation Department, was that they were rolling out an enforcement program that was very much focused on warnings and education.
I don't think any fines were given this year, and there certainly weren't any last year.
We're trying to raise awareness, and I think the amount of accumulation of snow this year, really made the department reevaluate whether or not it was going to need to go out and do enforcement.
But it's also important that even in its planning to do enforcement, they were focused on urban villages and frequent transit areas.
So usually, mostly commercial areas.
or in the instances of residential areas, they're multifamily residential areas, so the renters or the condo owners, it's a matter of making sure that whoever's responsible is doing the sidewalk cleaning, not finding individual people in these multifamily buildings.
So they're really focused on the places where you see a lot of people in those sort of dense walkable areas.
want to throw something in?
Yeah, I would like to just highlight that this would only work or be enforced on places that have sidewalks.
Yeah.
There are many places in District 6 that don't have sidewalks.
Okay.
I think that that's another thing that we need to be aware of.
Okay.
To complete the sidewalks.
You're talking to your transportation chair.
Yeah, watch out.
Any final thoughts to wrap up here Councilmember Peterson?
I know we might have some more winter storms coming our way.
I think the big picture here is that the mayor was very prepared.
She got all our departments together.
They got out there early, and I think that it was a really good response to this first storm, and I think that sets a good stage for the, if any future ones come.
Okay, here's hoping for that.
Thank you all for your input here, and we will see you next time on Council Edition.