Seattle City Council Briefing 12323

This is a council briefing meeting, and I will call it to order.

The time is two o'clock, and Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Present.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

And Council President Juarez.

Here.

Eight, present.

Thank you.

I will move on to the approval of the minutes.

If there's no objections, the minutes of Monday, January 9th will be adopted.

Not seeing or hearing an objection, the minutes are adopted.

Moving on to the President's Report, I have a few items that I want to read.

And then we'll go on to give you a city council actions on his agenda, we will consider a proclamation for signature proclaiming black history month for February, and that will be sponsored by customer herbal.

We have individual reports by each council member.

You should have received a copy of the roll call and we'll start with customer herbal today.

Second, following our individual reports, we will have two executive sessions at the end of today's meeting on legal matters.

Each session is expected to last 20 minutes.

As you all know, we do not take public comment at council briefings and public comment will be accepted tomorrow at a regular council meeting.

On tomorrow's agenda, the consent calendar will include the minutes and the payment of the bills.

And we will take one vote on all items, of course, unless a council member asked that item be removed to speak to it separately.

Following the consent calendar on tomorrow's agenda, you will see three items recommended by the Public Assets and Homeless Committee regarding Benaroya Hall and the waterfront.

I believe Council Member Lewis will speak to those matters during his remarks.

In addition, there is one item recommended by the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee, which Council Member Peterson will address.

Information on all these items on tomorrow's agenda is available online.

Coming up, we will be hosting our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, OIR, state lobby team for regular presentations on Monday, on Monday's council briefings throughout the legislative session.

The weekly presentations will begin on Monday, February 6th.

The next council briefing will be two o'clock on Monday, January 30th.

Does that sound right?

Yeah, the briefing.

Okay.

So with that, I'll go to signing of the letters and the proclamation.

First of all, thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for providing us with a copy of the proposed proclamation for Black History Month.

And as you stated in your proclamation, that Black history is American history, particularly in light of what we're seeing now in the state of Florida.

So with that, Councilmember Herbold, I'm going to hand it over to you to present it and discuss and ask which colleagues would like their names affixed to the proclamation.

Thank you very much, Madam I want to just highlight that this is a joint proclamation with the mayor's office and the proclamation itself.

I want to thank our friends at the Human Services Department for taking the lead on drafting the proclamation in partnership with the mayor's office and the Mayor's Council on African American Elders.

It proclaims that February 2023 is Black History Month in Seattle.

I'm really glad that we are going to get this done before the month of February.

And as Madam President Juarez mentioned, Black history is American history.

As the proclamation also says, it's Seattle history as well.

Black culture is Seattle culture and Black stories are an essential component of the story of our city.

The proclamation itself is a celebration of the contributions and the achievements of Black Americans and descendants of slaves.

It was first established in 1976 by Carter Woodson, a scholar who fervently believed that Black people should be proud of their heritage and all Americans should understand the largely overlooked achievements of Black Americans.

And further, the proclamation goes on to say that we acknowledge the long history of institutionalized racism towards black people and other communities of color.

And we have committed ourselves to undoing racism and promoting racial equity and social justice on an ongoing basis.

We made that public commitment in 2005 and we continue the work to identify and analyze manifestations of racism and work to develop shared culture and leadership here in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, because we're herbal or any of my colleagues want to have any comments regarding the proclamation that Councilmember herbal has just explained to us.

I know we all got it Friday.

Okay, I'm not seeing any hands.

I just want to add, again, thank you, Council Member Herbold.

You've been here a long time, Council Member Herbold.

Have we done this since the beginning, since it was first proclaimed Black History Month in the City of Seattle?

We typically do one every year.

I can't say that we've done one every single year, but we typically do get to it.

I remember a few times not getting to it till like mid February.

So that's why I made a point of saying, I'm glad we're gonna have it done before February.

Right, right.

So I think it's a real thank you for that.

And I hope my colleagues had a chance to look at it because I think it's a real powerful proclamation, particularly the second paragraph, as you shared as well, Council Member Herbold, that Black History Month is a reminder that Black history is Seattle history.

Black culture is Seattle culture, and Black stories are a central component of the story to our city and, of course, nationwide.

So I want to thank you for getting this to us early.

All right.

I do not see any other person or colleague raising their hand.

So with that, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signature affixed to the proclamation celebrating February 2023 as Black History Month in Seattle?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

And Council President Juarez.

Aye.

Eight signatures added to the proclamation.

Thank you.

Let's move on in our agenda to preview of City Council actions, regional committees, et cetera.

The roll call this week for today and tomorrow, we'll start with Council Member Herboldt, then Lewis, Morales, Nelson, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss, and then myself.

With that, Council Member Herboldt.

All right.

Thanks once again.

There are no items on the full council agenda tomorrow from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee.

The Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting tomorrow morning at 9.30 AM.

We've got a not so packed agenda this time.

We have one new appointment, two reappointments to the Pacific Hospital Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council.

We also have reappointment of Andrea Scheele as the Executive Director of the Public Safety Civil Service Commission for a term to January 21st, 2026. We're going to do a little bit more of a presentation about the Public Safety Civil Service Commission than we often do when we're doing appointments.

I just think it's interesting and helpful, particularly as it relates to accountability issues and as it relates to our efforts to recruit and hire new police and fire.

staff to do a little bit of a deeper dive into the role of the Public Safety Civil Service Commission.

Also, as far as things within my committee bailiwick, last week I met with Fire Chief Scoggins, the Community Police Commission leadership, as well as OPA Director Betz, This morning, I met with Chief Diaz.

I'll be meeting with Human Services Acting Director Kim later this week.

As relates to my meeting with Chief Diaz this morning, just a couple of brief highlights from that meeting.

Many of you may have heard that there has been a news about the person attacked with a hammer downtown Unfortunately, that individual died.

And that means that the police department will be working with the King County prosecutor to change the charges from an assault to a homicide.

We also discussed the recent shootings near a Georgetown encampment this weekend.

We discussed the apparent trend of stolen vehicles being used in robberies to gain entrance to the stores and other small businesses.

We discussed the status of the implementation of the new Seattle Police Department rules policy in trying to get a sense of what the timeline is for that implementation.

And Chief Diaz shared with me that violent crime is still trending down, even with recent shootings considered.

Lastly, just want to flag as far as my committee updates, want to flag for folks, you may have seen the email from the mayor's office in your inboxes, but also from the viewing public, the mayor announced the nomination of Rebecca Gonzalez as the next director.

of the Community Safety and Communication Center.

Chief Lombard, Acting Director Lombard has been really incredibly helpful in standing up the Community Safety and Communication Center and I thank him for his service.

Looking forward to working with incoming Director Gonzalez This appointment is subject to confirmation by the council and we'll be working with the mayor's office on the timeline for this, as well as working with all of you and developing some questions for the new appointment from council members.

Just a few things to mention as far as regional committees.

Last week, the King County Board of Health met.

I am one of three members of the council that sit on the Board of Health, and we discussed our 2023 work plan, and we elected new board leadership at that meeting.

Council Member McDermott is going to continue to chair the Board of Health.

And we've got some new co-chairs because the Board of Health is being has been restructured to include more community voices.

There are some new co-chairs as well.

This week, the King County Regional Law and Justice meeting occurs and the Youth Leadership Intervention and Change meeting also is occurring this week.

I represent the council on both of those bodies.

And then lastly, other community type events going on last week.

I went on Tuesday on a tour of preparation for the next, the King Tide that's happening right now in South Park that began early this morning and continues for the next few days.

Really appreciate and want to recognize the folks who attended on this tour to talk about next steps, including Council Member Morales.

Thank you for joining us, Council Member Morales.

King County Executive Constantine, King County Council Member Joe McDermott, Congresswoman Jayapal was there, as well as Senior Deputy Mayor Harrell.

And we also were joined by Region 10 EPA Administrator Casey Sixkiller.

Really appreciate, again, the fact that we have folks from all levels of government joining us talk about next steps and how we can plan to make this part of our city more resilient to climate change.

And want to also just recognize that Council Member Peterson, the chair of the Transportation and SPU Committee, attended a separate forum to appreciate his interest and concern in driving some investments from the Army Corps of Engineers to, again, to address some of the infrastructure work that needs to be done.

We are doing a lot in the area, but most of that has to do with different types of flooding, stormwater flooding, wastewater flooding, not river topping and climate change.

The king tide did occur at 6.46 a.m.

this morning, The water level along the Duwamish River in South Park stayed well below the banks, and there was no flooding.

SPU put out 90,000 sandbanks throughout South Park, and they have two dozen operational and support staff.

SPU has two dozen operational and support staff in South Park.

That's all I have for today.

Any colleagues have questions or comments?

Well, if anyone's playing Seattle City Council bingo, I want to commend you on getting in the word Ballywick.

I haven't heard old English in a long time, so thank you.

I think Council Member Lewis is next.

All right.

Seeing no questions or comments from anybody, pass it on over to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to finish filling in Ballywick on my bingo card here for today's session.

And now that that's done, I can proceed to my briefing.

Good to see you colleagues.

Happy Monday.

So there's a whole bunch of things on our Tuesday full council agenda from the public assets and homelessness committee.

The 1st item is council bill 1, 2, 0, 4, 8, 4. Which authorizes the Department of finance administrative services to execute a 5th amendment to the concession agreement with better Royal Hall.

At committee, there was some discussion about the nature of the public benefits of our agreement with Benaroyal Hall that forms a portion of the amendment.

Jacob Thorpe, my chief of staff, distributed some material earlier today to council colleagues with additional information that was provided by Benaroyal Hall if colleagues want to review some of the standing public benefit agreement and some of our communication with the facility in question.

Some highlights is this benefit agreement includes free and discounted tickets, public workshops, and other community engagement that we use that space for in the heart of our downtown.

So please feel free to review that information in anticipation of taking action on Council Bill 120484. It did pass with a unanimous recommendation from the committee.

Council Bill 120492 is the next piece of legislation we will be considering.

It places operations for the Seattle Waterfront Park and public spaces under the management of the city's Seattle Center Department, another committee that falls under the jurisdiction of the Public Assets Committee.

The Department of the Seattle Center does a great job managing the Seattle Center campus in the heart of our city, and this legislation authorizes and extends an existing pilot agreement with the Friends of the Waterfront, which, as you know, is a close and intimate partner with the city and how we activate and manage that space.

Again, this legislation passed with a unanimous recommendation, and we look forward to considering it on Tuesday.

Next up, Council Bill 120496, which authorizes the Seattle Center to accept non-city funds.

This is related to the previous bill.

from that pre-standing agreement with Friends of the Waterfront to create new positions at the office or the department rather of the Seattle Center to provide stewardship of the waterfront.

So that also passed with the unanimous recommendation and we can talk more about that at full council for full consideration.

In committee, we also received a briefing about the opening of downtown's new convention center, long in the making and very prominent to passersby who have got to watch it go up over the years, and this council, which has received briefings at milestones throughout its construction.

This opening was delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis, but we are excited to see it finally come to fruition to attract thousands, hundreds of thousands of visitors on an annual basis to downtown Seattle.

The public is invited to explore the new Convention Center this Friday, January 27th, from 1 to 6 p.m., with a self-guided tour and food provided.

People can RSVP at seattleconventioncenter.org.

That is seattleconventioncenter, all spelled out as one word, .org.

The library updates.

Starting on Wednesday, January 18th, the Central Library will stay open two hours later on Wednesday and Thursday nights until 8 p.m.

The Faye G. Allen Children's Center, located on level one of the downtown Central Library, will continue to close at 6 p.m.

each evening.

The Central Library's book return at the 4th Avenue Plaza will continue to be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

So that is a quick update for the public on the adjusting hours of Seattle Public Library.

As a reminder, the fourth annual Black-Owned Business Excellence Symposium will take place on Wednesday, February 1st, 2023 from 9am to 4pm at the University of Washington's Tacoma campus at the William W. Philip Hall, as well as online.

The Seattle Public Library is an event co-sponsor of the Black-Owned Business Excellence Symposium.

And this Black History Month kickoff event provides tools, resources, and information to empower entrepreneurs and business owners who are ready to relaunch, revive, and expand their businesses in preparation for generational wealth and legacy building.

The 2023 theme is Black in Business, Building Our Legacy for Our Children.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority has released the initial draft of its five-year plan for measurable accountable success in dramatically reducing homelessness in our region and is accepting public comment on the five-year plan.

This draft was created over the course of 38 workshops during the summer of 2022, and I know a number of us on the Council participated in that.

Very, very grateful for feedback from this body, as well as the constituencies we work with, and hundreds of community members and experts.

To view the plan and provide comment, members of the public can go to kcrha.org.

That is kcrha.org.

and provide feedback on the five-year plan as that continues to be trued up.

So thank you to the KCRHA and definitely encourage community members to weigh in on that body of work.

Clean City Update data for January 9th to January 13th.

The Clean City Initiative recovered approximately 1,078 needles between the 9th and the 13th.

and recovered 65,000 pounds of garbage from 73 different locations in the city.

Again, there was no emphasis location for this particular period in terms of one specific park or public space, but there was service to 73 locations recovering 65,000 pounds and removing it of garbage.

So again, very grateful for the partnership with all of our folks at the Clean City Initiative.

And with that, colleagues, I have no additional comments and I will pass it on unless there's any questions from committee members, council members, and I don't see any, I will pass it along to Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis good afternoon colleagues.

Let's see, the next committee of neighborhoods education, arts and rights will be this Friday at 930 will continue discussion of Council Bill 120456. which is updating historic preservation review procedures.

We did discuss that at our last committee meeting.

And so I'm hoping to have a vote this week.

I also have received an amendment from Council Member Lewis.

So we will hear about that in committee.

We also have one appointment to the Human Rights Commission.

So just two agenda items for this week.

On tomorrow's full council agenda I do have an amendment to Council Bill 120493 the shared transit stop legislation, which I did circulate earlier this morning, the amendment would effectively set a sunset sunset date of June 1 2026. for the collection of fees associated with the legislation.

I'm submitting this because I'm concerned about our growing use of public space for private use and Estats reprioritizing this space that we've already been setting aside for private car parking.

So interested in the data that will be collected over the next three years for this program and just looking to require reauthorization once that information is collected.

So please feel free to contact me or Devin Silvernail on my staff or Calvin in central staff if you've got questions about that.

Last week, I attended the County Board of Health meeting.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned, we reviewed the 2023 work plan.

We also heard from our Public Health Director, Dr. Faisal Khan, about the key issues that we are facing in the community regarding public health this year.

I'm sure there will be no surprise that the issues included opioid overdose prevention, issues around homelessness and housing, gun violence prevention and climate justice, among a few others, but these were really sort of the, the big issues that we talked about and that we will be working on throughout the year.

Last week, my office also met with the Office of Arts and Culture to hear about their 2023 work plan.

This week, I'll receive a briefing from OED Director McIntyre regarding workforce development.

We had a slide included last year, and he'll be updating us about that, as well as the funding strategy for the Maritime Academy.

I've got a King County Growth Management Policy Council meeting this week as well.

We'll be discussing the Affordable Housing Committee's recommendations for the Growth Management Policy Council.

You'll recall that in 2021, House Bill 1220 established countywide housing needs by income.

And so the county needs to determine how cities will be meeting each city's allocation requirements so that will be up for discussion this week and then I believe in the next meeting we will actually be voting on it.

I'll also be having my quarterly meeting with Sound Transit to hear about their implementation of safety measures along the MLK light rail corridor, and we'll be meeting with climate justice advocates to talk about Seattle's building performance standards.

In district, last week, as Councilmember Herbold mentioned, I joined a congressional tour put on by OIR in South Park alongside Councilmember Herbold, Congresswoman Jayapal, King County Councilmember McDermott, and others to hear an update from SPU and other city departments about the support that we're providing to neighborhoods post-flood and anticipation of the king tide that we're experiencing right now.

I also got to tour Skipta's family housing project under construction at 13th and Furr near Yesler Terrace with the Denise Louis Education Center representatives, with Director Winkler-Chin from Office of Housing as well.

This is an exciting project.

If you drive by Bailey Gatzert Elementary, it's right across the street, you'll see there's, the intention is to serve 156 households between 30 and 60% AMI.

It's a beautiful building.

We got to tour the apartment rooms themselves.

And there'll be six classrooms for Denise Louis Education Center on the ground floor.

And then there will be mostly three and four bedroom apartments in this building, which is really exciting because as we all know, we don't have nearly enough large units in the city.

Applications for this will open February 1st.

We also went out into the CID last week.

I want to thank my staff member Evelyn Chow who's been working really closely with D.O.N. to create the CID resource guide.

So they went out with CSOs and with D.O.N. to the CID.

it's a lot of alphabet soup, to distribute over 500 copies of the resource guide.

As I mentioned before, we did manage to have that translated into several languages.

And so those were distributed to business owners, to residents and organizations in the community.

Since then, we've had lots of folks reaching out for more copies.

So my staff will be going out again tomorrow to drop off more of those guides for the community.

This weekend, I was able to participate in a couple of fun things in the South End.

We joined the Friends of Dead Horse Canyon, which is up along Taylor Creek, to get a closer understanding of the restoration work that's happening there.

I want to thank SPU for really partnering with Friends of Dead Horse Canyon.

There were some concerns about the initial proposal that was being made to address some erosion in the area and some storm waterfalls.

So that work continues, but I was really glad to be able to go out and see for myself what the concerns from the community are.

They've been out there pulling invasives and replanting for 25 years.

And so I really want to commend them for being such stewards of a neighborhood asset like that.

I also got to join Raider Beach Action Coalition to do some planting at Beersheba Park, where they're also participating in some beach restoration work at that park.

I will be having in-district office hours on February 9th at Rainier Beach Library from 10 to 3. Really looking forward to getting back out in person.

I know many of us have been trying to do office hours virtually.

I'm excited to be able to do this in-district and do it in person.

Still following precautions, but looking forward to doing that.

next week.

Well, two weeks from now.

And then finally this week I'll be joining neighbors at New Holly for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebrations.

I do want to offer my sincere condolences to community members in Monterey Park.

after the really horrifying shooting that occurred this weekend.

I know we all agree that these acts of gun violence are heartbreaking no matter where they occur.

And we really have to continue investing in mental health services and protecting our community and cultural spaces.

And I really hope to see Congress acting swiftly to address what we all know is mass horrific gun violence across the country.

That is all I have today colleagues.

Yes, I see customer and customer Lewis has his hand up.

Yes, please go ahead Councilmember Lewis apologies that I did not see you before.

Yeah, no problem Councilmember Morales Thank you I did just want to briefly speak to the amendment for Council Bill 120456 that you mentioned in your briefing and this is the amendment to the bill governing historic commission reforms in the Department of Neighborhoods.

As I alluded to at our meeting in December on this topic, I will be bringing an amendment that would remove the Pike Place Market Historical District from the legislation.

If the amendment is adopted, it wouldn't have any other impact on the other historic commissions that govern historic districts in other portions of the city.

For those council members who were in the committee or who have been following this along, there really has not been much controversy or opposition from the neighborhoods and the other historic districts that are at the Pike Place Market to this administrative shifting of some subject areas from the purview of the commissions to the Department of Neighborhoods for administrative review.

There has been significant and strong opposition in the Pike Place Market community to removing some of these roles from the historic commission and vesting those responsibilities in the Department of Neighborhoods.

This amendment is responsive to that community request that dominated our public comment at the December meeting and has had lots of additional organizing.

I just want to very briefly state at the front that I anticipate this to have a fairly de minimis impact on the overall intent of the bill, It was established in the committee by the Department of Neighborhoods that this would have only affected, I believe, four total projects in 2022 that had this legislation been in effect, there's four things that would have gone for administrative consideration instead of going to the Commission.

So it's not going to have a significant impact on the workload, either of the Commission or the Department of Neighborhoods.

Just to summarize the nature of the types of things that this legislation would have put under the Department of Neighborhoods that the commission would keep.

If my amendment passes, the commission will keep these things.

If the amendment fails, these responsibilities would go for administrative review to the Department of Neighborhoods.

Installation of fire escapes, heating ducts, conduits, HVAC systems, vents, grills, pipes, panels, Weatherheads, wiring, metals, utility connectors, downspouts and gutters or other similar mechanical, electrical or telecommunication elements.

And then it goes on to enumerate a few other areas like seismic alterations or other fire and life safety equipment.

So it's fairly stuff that falls under kind of health, safety and ADA and the commission has indicated they're fine with continuing to consider those petitions for improvement or requests for improvement under their current workload.

And it's clear that the community would like them to.

So for those reasons, I'm bringing the amendment for consideration at committee on Friday and look forward to that discussion.

My staff and I are happy to make ourselves available if there's any additional questions on that amendment.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

I don't see any other hands.

So I will pass it to Council Member Nelson.

Greetings, everyone.

The Economic Development, Technology and City Light Committee is canceled this week for lack of legislation or briefing items.

So I just wanted to let everybody know that the next meeting will be on February 8th.

And I'll just go right into committee report on the meetings that I took this past week.

Lots of events in districts two and three, starting with the birthday party of Reverend Mother Harriet Walden.

She turned 77 and it was really moving to see members of her family and her friends in the community just honor her work both as an organizer and as a mother in the largest sense of that word.

Also last week in, let's see, District 2, I was, in District 3, excuse me, I was honored to, as I mentioned, speak at NAMM on Martin Luther King Day, the reopening of the Northwest African American Museum on Martin Luther King Jr.

Day.

That was also the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior Day March, and I didn't know that, except for seeing that information displayed in one of the galleries, which is my way of plugging anyone who hasn't already been in Visited, Please Go.

The museum is just phenomenal, and it's so great to see them reopened.

So, happy to have been able to witness the enthusiasm of the community at that event.

Let's see, later that night, I went to District six and participated in a discussion with small business owners who wanted to talk about the impacts of crime on their businesses, staff and customers.

It was convened by the owner of Steel Barber and also included Ethan Stoll and the owners or principals of Ascent Outdoors, Stoop Brewing, Ballard Sip and Ship, and the Queen Anne Dispatch, among others.

And Mike Stewart of the Ballard Alliance was also there.

My role was to listen and to think about ways that I could advocate for their interests and do more to help either in my community or to forward their perspective in other work that I do.

Wasn't the first discussion I had on the matter, but good to hear personally their stories and experiences.

I attended a meeting of the Before the Badge recruit cohort at the invitation of Victoria Beach, who is one of the program's administrators.

And if anybody doesn't know, Before the Badge is a new program that attempts to educate new SPD recruits about the constituencies and the specific issues of various constituencies across the city.

And this one was hosted by Pastor Harvey Drake at Emerald City Bible Fellowship in District 2, and Reverend Walden, Victoria Beach, and Harvey Drake presented the perspective of the Black community, and all of them recounted really negative experiences with SPD in the past to bring home the fact that the need, the grave need to build more trust between the department and the community.

And Before the Badge is just one of the initiatives in that direction.

But it was just really interesting to see the new recruits.

I've never met a recruit cohort.

And find out why they wanted to serve.

And their answer was they wanted to serve the community.

And most of them had family ties or had do live in Seattle, so it's exciting to see them launching in the beginning of their new careers.

Let's see, later that week, I speaking of Victoria Beach, I attended her African-American Community Advisory Council at Garfield Community Center in District three.

And a woman who is well, we heard from Miriam Oliver, who is a program assistant and operations manager with the IF project.

And this is a project that is that is basically it's housed in SPD, but it's one in which that works with women who are incarcerated before they are released.

And Miriam herself had been incarcerated for 20 years as a youth and then as an adult.

And she she was released a year and a half ago and talked about what the project has done to help her reintegrate and and really see her value and her role in society really helped set her up once she was immediately released and then also work with other people in the community to prevent the trajectory that she experienced as a young person.

So it was the first time I'd heard much about that program and I will look forward to learning more.

And then, finally, toward the end of the week I toured Mary's Place in the heart of District 7. I was hosted by CFO Linda Mitchell and Chief Program Officer Dominique Alex.

And, of course, I came away even more inspired by the work that Mary's Place does, but with a special awareness as they're trying to educate policymakers of the need to carve out resources specifically for families because as I saw and learned more during my visit the very specific needs of keeping families together and providing services that aimed at the whole family was very important and so really impressive work that they have been able to get done right in the heart of our city.

Let's see lots of community events but I have to say at finishing the ones that I personally attended.

The most uplifting one was a coat drive that I attended in the CD at the intersection of 23rd and Jackson at the Fort Apple Learning Center.

The owner, if you don't know her, Apple or Appalonia, Washington is a true force of nature in the community beyond just the confines of her preschool because she leveraged relationships with the Seahawks and Catfish Corner Emergency Feeding Program, Operation Warm, Open Arms, and others to distribute new coats, diapers, hygiene kits, hats, and dried food boxes to about 270 needy and very vulnerable families in the community.

So hats off to the work that they were able to pull off with those relationships and with limited resources themselves.

Lots of volunteers helping out to get those items into the hands of folks in the community.

Then finally, Jeremy of my staff attended the Seattle Music Commission's first meeting this year.

where they discuss the upcoming re-envisioning project.

That's where they basically form their local legislative agenda.

And there are a lot of opportunities for Seattle music, for the Seattle music community and musicians to be given national and even international platforms with the coming All-Star Games and World Cup.

So it's, you know, I'm focusing in now on the intersection of our music community and films to be, And those major sporting events because there are there's a lot that we can do to elevate their local talent at these events and so we're going to be working with the Sports Commission and the Music Commission to make sure that that there's visibility and opportunities, not just for them to.

gain exposure, but for the world to enjoy our music community so we'll be working on that is this year next.

And then finally just meetings that will be taking this week and I'm probably up against my 10 minutes, but I had a meeting with Dr. Faisal Khan of King County of the Board of Health.

Because I was unable to attend my meeting in my capacity that meeting last week in my capacity as an alternate but I just wanted to learn more about their efforts around opioid overdose prevention because as you know this is an issue that I'm particularly interested in so that was a good conversation.

I'll be excited to attend the Convention Center Expansion Ribbon Cutting and Hospitality event with Jeremy, my chief of staff, this coming Wednesday.

I'll be meeting with We Are Seattle, which is a grassroots organization with members such as our former council member David Della, and where they have discussions with people throughout the city on issues pertaining to local public policy.

And so I'm interested to hear what they have surfaced from their meetings they held and continue to hold across the city this coming Thursday, I believe.

And then finally, I'll be meeting with Joy Shigaki, president and CEO of Friends of the Waterfront, to discuss their 2023 goals and priorities.

And that's, of course, District 7. So that's it.

And I will answer any questions before passing it along to Councilmember Peterson.

Yes, Councilmember Herbold.

I just wanted to thank you, something I was remiss in mentioning in my report.

I wanted to thank you for joining me in District 1 last week.

Oh, yeah.

To visit.

Thank you for...

No, it's okay.

We both forgot.

It's all good.

We really appreciate you making the trek to the great District 1 and meeting with Hong Pak, the small business owner of Toshi's Teriyaki.

and hearing from her struggles as a small business owner and really look forward to working with you more to help use her story, her experience to help others.

So thanks again.

That well, thank you very much.

It was thank you for reminding us.

And also, it was great to to be in your turf and here and you clearly have relationships that community.

So, thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

And I, I look forward to working with you.

Okay.

Councilor Peterson's excited.

Yes.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

As noted earlier, there is one item from the Transportation Seattle Public Utilities Committee on the full council agenda tomorrow afternoon.

Our committee received a report back in September of last year about SDOT's shared transit stop pilot program.

Our shared transit stop program works with large employers that deploy their own shuttle systems, including the University of Washington and Seattle Children's Hospital.

These shuttles encourage more commuters to leave behind their single occupancy vehicles at home.

The pilot program was a success and last week our committee advanced SDOT's Council Bill 120493. That Council Bill 120493 will expand the shared transit stop program, designate appropriate locations for the transit stops throughout our city that will be shared, and solidifies the initial fee revenue we would collect to fund the expanded program.

The Harrell administration has determined the shared transit program is good for employers, for workers who need to get to their jobs, and for the environment.

As mentioned earlier, Council Member Morales is putting forward an amendment.

And if you have any questions, contact her office.

I really appreciate the early and open communication from Council Member Morales and her team, so there was enough time to connect with SDOT on her amendment.

Our next meeting of this Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will be on Tuesday, February 7 at 9.30 a.m.

We're still finalizing the February 7 agenda as we work with departments on their availability for a few items.

We are hoping to hear a report from our Seattle Department of Transportation on their analysis of traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries and how to improve Vision Zero.

At our committee last week, we received a report on the malfunctioning of the West Seattle Low Bridge, also known as the Spokane Street Swing Bridge.

We were very impressed by the quick and difficult work performed on that bridge by the SDOT crew.

And while the bridge received a temporary fix and reopened, the current wait time for bikes and freight and other vehicles is currently twice as long when that bridge has to be open for boats.

This is one of the many aging multimodal bridges in our city that repeatedly opens and closes and too often gets stuck, including the university bridge.

In March of this year, both SDOT and our city auditor will come to our committee to discuss what SDOT's doing to upgrade our city's bridges, specifically to hear which recommendations have been implemented from the audit of bridges published more than two years ago.

I want to again thank employees from Seattle Public Utilities for helping residents and small businesses along the Duwamish River, especially in South Park, which has been susceptible to those damaging floods.

SPU's thorough preparation and use of the incident command organizational system was impressive.

So we could be ready to protect residents in case flooding occurs there again this week, though it sounds like the weather conditions are in our favor.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned, I had the opportunity to visit that location and continue, I look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with Council Member Herbold and the city departments to prevent future flooding.

which should require the city to quickly design infrastructure solutions so we can qualify for federal funding.

That concludes my report.

Any questions before we pass it on to Council Member Solan?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I apologize, I'm not able to be on camera right now.

There are no items on tomorrow's city council agenda from the sustainability and renters rights committee.

The February 3rd meeting of the committee will be canceled.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the committee is February 17th.

The committee met last Friday to discuss upcoming legislation from my office, gapping the late fees landlords can charge for outstanding rents.

As I said in the committee on Friday, I support the legislation capping late fees at $10 a month, as has been done in the cities of Auburn and Burien.

We also discussed closing any loopholes that landlords use to circumvent these limits, such as charging a fee for the notice, announcing the late fee, which is shocking, but it actually happens.

We have heard from the city council central staff to expect this legislation to be drafted and reviewed by the city attorney's office by mid to late February.

And so we will share the draft with the public and all council members when it is ready.

As I've said this year, I intend for the sustainability and winter science committee to discuss and pass comprehensive rent control legislation, gapping rent increases at no more than the rate of inflation without the loopholes that corporate landlords typically insert to follow out the effectiveness of rent control, such as vacancy decontrol, which allows landlords to raise the rent as much as they want, as soon as they find a way to force out the existing tenant.

We are also working on legislation to significantly improve the enforcement of renter rights and legislation prohibiting credit cards in rental histories.

And my office will share their developments on these legislation as they are available with the rest of the council.

Thank you.

Hey, everyone, I do customers.

It's it's Deborah.

I mean, customer worries.

So it turns out I am not I was off a week.

Remember, I told you in committee that I couldn't make it that week.

I can't be there that week for your committee.

Do you mean on the 17th?

Yeah, I can be there.

I apologize.

I was a week off.

I'm going to be gone the week of the I'm looking at February.

The week of the 20th is the week that I'm gone.

Remember?

So the 17th works for you?

Yeah, yeah.

And also I'm guessing you'll be getting to us as you shared the other two ordinances from Burien and I can't remember the other city that you suggested.

Yes, Auburn, yes.

We'll put all of that together and get it to all committee members well in time before the committee.

Great.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

Oh, customer Strauss.

10 minutes.

I got a 10 minute limit here.

I think I can do it.

I'm going to set this timer just to make sure.

I got my timer going.

Let's see if we can do a world record today.

It's already happened, buddy.

All right.

Stopwatch is on.

Let's roll.

Good afternoon, colleagues coming in the land use committee the January 25 land use committee is canceled this week as we will be having special land use committee meeting or meetings plural in February, the date of those meeting or meetings is to be determined independent upon when we receive.

the tree ordinance from the executive's office.

The next regularly scheduled land use committee meeting is on February 8th.

We plan to have it with or without legislation.

So count on that.

We're currently working with central staff to finalize our work program for the year.

We have a number of major pieces of legislation that are gonna come through the land use committee, including the tree ordinance, industrial maritime updates, design review, and the major update to the comprehensive plan.

Uh, we will be having a briefing on the major updates of the comprehensive plan in late quarter two of this year.

And colleagues, for your awareness, our committee schedule for the year is nearly full as each of these four topic areas have multiple pieces of legislation, or if they are a single piece of legislation, that piece of legislation is incredibly dense, and we will be breaking it into sections for discussion and amendments.

So with that, if you have If you believe you have a piece of legislation intended for the Land Use Committee, please do let me or my clerk, Naomi Lewis, know by the end of next week so that we can ensure to make sure that we have room for you.

Council President, colleagues, that is my report.

Colleagues, do you have any questions?

And that's a minute 34. I think that might be best record.

Well done.

Thanks.

I don't think anyone's ever done that.

Not even me.

Good job.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbal, I believe you're up next.

No, me.

No, that's right.

Council President, we're at the end of the week.

Yes.

Take it away, boss.

I will.

I have a few items.

I will be brief.

Not as brief as you, D6.

All right.

There are no items from the Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee on tomorrow's council agenda.

The next Governance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments meeting will be February 16th.

Going into last week, first of all, thank you, Council Member Lewis, for stepping up to serve as council president pro tem in my absence.

Thank you very much.

Moving on.

Last week we met with the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, SDCI, to respond to neighbors complaints about code violations, not only citywide, but also in D5.

We also met with the King County Regional Housing Authority regarding homelessness in North Seattle and citywide.

and updates to their 2023 work plan.

We specifically share complaints from neighbors about inappropriate activities that are occurring, not only citywide, but also on Aurora.

I attended the Sound Transit Ridership and Operations Committee meeting, which considered contracts for security officers, as well as the $1 ORCA fair, which we passed out of committee.

We'll go to the full board of Sound Transit, so ORCA will be $1.

attended the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee, as you heard from Council Member Sawant, which hosted a panel of advocates supporting a cap on late fees charged by landlords.

And as you all know, there's a ton of landlord tenant and housing legislation that's going on in Olympia, which we'll have more information in February from our OIR team.

No legislation, of course, has been proposed yet.

On Friday, we joined the all-day Native Action Network meeting at City Hall.

what the Native Action Network group is, which started 22 years ago, in which I was involved.

And now it's gotten to the point where we have many classes of Native American women that are looking to run for office, either in Indian country or outside of Indian country.

And every year, twice a year, they take a tour of city hall.

We meet with them and all of them come from just about every tribe you could think of.

And we've had great graduating classes.

One of the persons that started it was now Senator Claudia Kaufman and of course, Iris Friday from HUD.

So it's always good to support those organizations.

We will be joining, I will be joining the Sound Transit North King sub area on Wednesday and the Sound Transit Board meeting on Thursday.

As you know, the West Seattle Ballard Link light rail extension remains the primary issue affecting the city of Seattle and specifically potential impacts on the new line, the new line may have on the China International District.

That concludes my report for me.

And let's see, that will close out this portion of the agenda.

Are there any questions before I move us into an executive session?

All right.

I do not see any hands or hear anyone.

So what I'm going to do is we have two matters in executive session.

So I'm going to read the official language to move us into executive session.

And Madam Clerk will advise us that each executive session is 20 minutes.

And so that will be a total of 40 minutes.

So, if there's no further business, we will move into executive session hearing no further business.

We are now moving to executive session as presiding officer.

I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene into executive session.

The purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

The council's executive session is an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with the city attorney's office as authorized by law.

A legal monitor from the city attorney's office will be present, is always present to ensure that council reserves questions of policy for open session.

Um, Madam Clerk, uh, so you can let me finish to finish out the language here.

Then you can tell me what time we, how much, what the time will be after 40 minutes.

The executive session is to be extended beyond that time.

40 minutes from now, I'll announce the extension and the expected duration.

At the conclusion of the executive session, the council briefing meeting will automatically be adjourned and the next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is on January 30th.

at two o'clock the council is now in executive session and madam clerk what time would that be for us 340 council president okay good it's 259 so 340 is perfect um and i'm getting stopped okay well that was it so we don't have another call in number i believe there's another

you