Seattle City Council 4272020

27th, 2020 meeting of the Seattle City Council will come to order.

It is 2.05 p.m.

I'm Lorena Gonzalez, president of the council.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Here.

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Musqueda.

Here.

Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Thank you.

Presentations.

Councilmember Herbold, today you are presenting a proclamation declaring April 2020 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

We also have some guests who will be accepting and making comments on this proclamation.

So we will first suspend the rules to allow our guests to provide comments.

So if there is no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow Councilmember Herbold to present the proclamation and to allow brief remarks to the council.

after her presentation.

Hearing no objection, Councilmember Herbold, the rules have been suspended, and hearing no objection, we'll now move forward to having Councilmember Herbold proceed with the presentation of the proclamation, and then our guests will be unmuted and provided an opportunity to make remarks on the acceptance of the proclamation.

Councilmember Herbold, the floor is yours.

You're on mute.

Thank you.

As the chair of the committee with responsibility for human services and public safety, I'm proud to bring forward a proclamation declaring April to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

At this morning's council briefing, all nine council members agreed to affix their signatures to this proclamation, and the clerks have prepared a final signed proclamation.

In addition, Denim Day is this Wednesday, April 29th.

We usually ask city employees to wear denim on this day to show their support and raise awareness about survivors of sexual assault.

Please consider how you can enter into the spirit of Denim Day on Wednesday, whether that means taking a selfie at home in your jeans or sharing the 24-hour resource line phone number on your social media accounts.

This helps elevate the message that even during COVID-19, sexual assault happens and services are available.

Just a few of the recitals that speak to the importance of the proclamation during the public health emergency.

We have seen over the course of the stay home, stay healthy emergency order, more people calling sexual assault hotlines regarding the distress they're experiencing related to COVID-19.

In this time of crisis and uncertainty, we must remember that those who are in danger of gender and or sexual violence, must still be able to receive the services that they need to recover.

Though non-essential businesses are closed because of the public health crisis of COVID-19, sexual assault and domestic violence programs are still open and available to provide the services necessary to survivors.

We must be able to ensure that survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence know that there are safe, confidential services available to them even in the midst of this public health crisis that include counseling, safety planning, legal services, and housing assistance so that they can survive.

The single most important message for survivors of sexual assault who may feel that what happened to them is not important during this emergency is that your experience matters.

Support is available.

The best place to start is the 24-hour resource line at 888-99-VOICE, run by King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.

Every hour of the day, trained advocates are ready to help you via the resource hotline.

An advocate will answer your call, provide crisis intervention, information and referrals, and ongoing support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In-language services are available as well.

Harborview Abuse and Trauma Center reports that exams are still available to survivors of sexual assault at Harborview, UW-Montlake, Children's, Valley Medical Center, Virginia Mason, and Swedish First Hill.

Their counseling and advocacy services are all available through telephone and telemedicine.

The city's human services department invests close to $10 million in more than 30 agencies to provide prevention, intervention, coordinated response, and offender accountability programming.

These services continue and can be accessed through the 24-hour resource line.

It's really important to remember that home is not always a safe place for everyone.

If you are not safe at home, the Governor's Stay Home, Stay Healthy Proclamation encourages you to leave your home and find a safe alternative location.

Please reach out for help.

and help is available to you if you do reach out to help.

To accept this proclamation and share their thoughts, we have three folks joined on the call to share their thoughts about the proclamation.

We have Idabel Fosay, who is with the Seattle Women's Commission.

We have Khalil Pestano with the API Chaya, she's the Community Organizing Program Manager.

And we have Alicia Glenwell, the Special Projects Manager at Coalition for Ending Gender-Based Violence.

With that, I'd like to, with Madam President's agreement, I'd like to hand it over to our speakers.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold, for those remarks and for the presentation of this important proclamation.

Let's go ahead and hear from our speakers.

Which of you is going to speak first?

Anybody organized?

Hi, I'm happy to go first.

Thank you.

Please, Ida Bell, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

I want to say thank you to Councilmember Herbold for her leadership in this yet again.

I appreciate her support during this crazy time that we're living through.

And I just want to reiterate that, yes, home is not always a safe place for folks, especially now in these uncertain times with people concerned about jobs and money and all kinds of insecurity.

Tensions can run higher than usual and make things more dangerous for people at home.

So if you are in a position where you are in danger, please reach out for help.

There's still help available.

And on behalf of the Seattle Women's Commission, we thank you so much for your support in doing this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Idabel.

Cleo or Alicia, anyone wanna follow that?

Sure, I'm happy to.

Thank you, please proceed.

Yeah, so good afternoon, everybody.

My name is Alicia Glenwell.

I'm the Policy and Special Projects Manager for the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence.

The coalition, as you may know, educates, organizes, leads over 30 gender-based violence agencies in the Seattle and King County region, all of which touch the lives of survivors of sexual assault in our communities.

I'm really honored to be here today to participate in this event to declare April Sexual Assault Awareness Month for the city of Seattle.

As you've heard already, survivors are often more vulnerable in times of crisis and need our support now more than ever.

Social distancing may increase isolation and escalate abuse, while safety strategies that folks had already established and resources that they may have been utilizing may be unavailable, especially for those who have already been marginalized by racial, economic, or other forms of oppression.

As the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak spreads throughout Seattle and King County, sexual assault programs have adjusted their services to meet the ongoing needs of survivors.

And we want our community to know sexual assault agencies, as well as domestic violence, human trafficking, and other gender-based violence organizations are open and providing services.

And we encourage survivors and friends and family to reach out for help.

through phone, web chat, secure video, telehealth technology, and other strategies.

Programs are providing 24-hour hotline services, legal and medical advocacy, safety planning, mental health services, connection to resources, and community organizing and support.

We are proud, so proud, to stand with our member agencies in their commitment to serve our region during this strange and unprecedented time.

We thank you Council Member Herbold and the entire Seattle City Council for making this issue a priority here today.

By proclaiming April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month amidst all of the other pressing business before this council, you are using your powerful platforms to inspire awareness and action.

And we thank you for leading on behalf of survivors today in our community.

Thank you so much.

And last but certainly not least.

Hello, thank you so much, Council President and Council Member Lisa Herbal.

Magandang hapon sa lahat.

Deep gratitude to this land and the Duwamish and Coast Salish people.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Kalaya Pesano.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of API Chaya, an organization empowering survivors of sexual and domestic violence and human trafficking to gain safety, wellness, and connection.

In addition to our comprehensive and culturally specific services, we work within multiple faith and ethnic communities with youth, trans and queer people and incarcerated community members to build power towards a world where we can all heal and thrive.

Thank you, City Council, for acknowledging this pandemic within the pandemic.

We're all aware by now that staying home during COVID-19 has not been safe for many.

This is especially true for marginalized communities who face many more barriers to safety, including those who are unhoused, undocumented, disabled, non-native English speakers, sex workers, and communities who are routinely targeted by police, ICE, and other forms of institutional violence.

For many of these communities, the ability to stay connected during this time is literally a lifeline.

We are launching a campaign today, also in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, called Wi-Fi is a Lifeline.

One of the only ways we're able to connect, work, and learn in these times is through the internet, which has always been true for our disabled and incarcerated community members.

Please keep in mind the many survivors of sexual violence of all genders who are incarcerated.

Access to technology and the internet provide tools and resources for education, wellness, and belonging, and it's an essential part of public health.

For service providers struggling to stay connected, pivoting our work to online platforms is critical.

It is our job and our responsibility to decrease isolation and provide tools for safety and wellness.

Wi-Fi gives people the ability to maintain their routine, such as continuing school and work online, and more options to contact people safely without being monitored.

We're asking for the Seattle City Council to make infrastructure possible and resources available to provide free, reliable internet service to all its residents for the length of this crisis, starting within the next six months.

We already have multiple coalitions, such as the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, organizations and public officials who are partnering with us on this effort.

We'll be meeting with the rest of you soon in hopes that we can work together towards keeping survivors safe and connected.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much to our guests for being with us this afternoon.

Normally we're in council chambers and we get to see each other in person as we have historically done on this month to acknowledge this important need to recognize this issue in our community.

And I want to thank Councilmember Herbold for once again bringing the proclamation forward for us all to sign it.

Are there any of my colleagues who would like to make any remarks about the proclamation or Sexual Assault Awareness Month before we go ahead and close out this portion of the agenda?

Okay, hearing and seeing none, Council Member Herbold, did you wanna make any closing remarks?

Let's see, make sure I'm, I'm not on mute this time and I'm muttering to myself.

I just want to again thank folks for being here virtually with the council today to mark this important moment with this proclamation signed by all nine council members.

The City of Seattle declares April to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Thank you all for your leadership and to the council for accepting this proclamation.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold, and thanks to our guests.

You are now free to disconnect from the call, or IT will actually put you into the non-panelist category at this point.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Okay, we're gonna move on to the other items of agenda, which is the approval of the minutes.

There are no minutes for approval today, so I will move to adopt the proposed introduction and referral calendar.

Is there a second?

second.

Great.

I actually have an amendment to the introduction and referral calendar based on my comments this morning.

So I will move to amend the introduction and referral calendar by introducing resolution 3194 entitled a resolution ratifying and confirming the April 24th, 2020 emergency order relating to capping restaurant delivery and pickup commission fees and by referring it to the city council for adoption at today's meeting.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the introduction and referral calendar.

Are there any comments on the amendment to the introduction and referral calendar?

Okay, hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the amendment to the introduction and referral calendar?

Peterson.

Aye.

DeWant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mezquita.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and Resolution 31945 will be considered as the last item on today's agenda.

Are there any further comments on the introduction and referral calendar as amended?

Hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the introduction and referral calendar as amended.

Peterson.

Aye.

DeWine.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

None in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the introduction and referral calendar is adopted as amended.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

So at this time, we will open up the remote public comment period.

Before we begin, I want to start by reminding my colleagues in the viewing public that this is a pilot and we are still testing this process, even though we've now used it twice.

This will mark the third time we've used this process.

So I continue to ask everyone to please be patient as we continue to learn how to operate this new system in real time.

and navigate through the growing pains of utilizing this tool.

So as we move forward, we're going to continuously look for ways to fine-tune this process and hopefully continue to add new features that make it easier for public to participate in our council meetings.

Again, I want to remind folks who are listening in and getting ready to give public comment, as well as the general public, that it does remain our strong intent to have public comment regularly included on future meeting agendas.

Nonetheless, the City Council reserves the right to end or eliminate these public comment periods at any point if we deem that the system is being abused.

or that the system is unsuitable for allowing our meetings to be conducted efficiently and in a manner in which we are able to conduct our necessary business.

So I will go ahead and moderate the public comment period.

Here are some ground rules.

First, the public comment period for this meeting is slated to be 20 minutes and each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you've not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website.

The public comment link is listed on today's agenda.

Once I call a speaker's name, staff will unmute the speaker and provide an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted.

After that, the speaker should provide us with their public testimony.

So once you've heard the prompt that you've been unmuted, that is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

I ask that you begin speaking by stating your name and the item which you are addressing.

The public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda, the introduction and referral calendar, or the council's 2020 work program.

After the conclusion of your two minutes, staff will turn off your mic so you will be muted again.

So at the conclusion of the two minutes we will no longer be able to hear your remarks after the two minute mark.

Once you've completed your public comment we ask that you please disconnect from the line and if you plan to continue following this meeting you can do so by watching us on Seattle Channel or any of the listening options that are listed on the agenda.

So we're now going to go ahead and switch over to public comment, and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

And colleagues, for your benefit, we have About 20 or so folks who are registered and present.

So there is a chance that we will need to extend public comment period for a few minutes to allow everyone to testify.

But at this point, I'm allotting 20 minutes and it's 2.25 p.m.

So we'll go until 2.45 p.m.

before I renew or add additional public comments.

So the first speaker is Ryan DeRamo.

Hi, I'm Ryan and I wanted to talk about Council Bill 119769 and particularly the inequity of design review.

Design review doesn't stop gentrification.

When we look around at our neighborhood, 70% of the land is zoned exclusively for single family housing.

If a modest home is bought, bulldozed, and redeveloped as a $2 million mansion, the project does not go through design review.

They don't have to hold a public meeting, and they do not need approval from the design review board.

95% of our new housing comes from projects under design review.

Design review is also not accessible.

The meetings are held on weeknights and do not give opportunity for hotel workers, restaurant workers, or working parents to become review board members or to attend and provide public comment?

Is this the kind of equity that design review is supposed to provide?

We need to trust our government and institutions.

I trust the talented staff within our city's planning department to review projects.

I trust them more than a board of volunteers and more than privileged comments from a few of my neighbors.

My urban village already reviews many proposals by way of administrative design review.

In fact, the best looking apartment building in my neighborhood was approved without the design review board weighing in.

I urge you to pass this measure and avoid delay of our city's growth and development.

I hope this emergency provides opportunity to rethink how Seattle does public process and offers a chance for you for equitable change to this program.

Thank you.

I apologize, I was on mute.

Thank you, Ryan, for calling in.

Our next public commenter is Jessa Timmer.

Good afternoon, Council Members, and thank you for the opportunity to comment today and for your work during this crisis.

I am Jessa Timmer, Deputy Director at the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

The Alliance represents over 850 businesses in the Pioneer Square Historic District working to ensure Pioneer Square is a vibrant livable and equitable community.

I am here today to voice our support of Council Bill 119769. Specifically we support temporarily granting the D.O.N. staff administrative approval authority for certain types of common applications.

D.O.N. creating a virtual process consistent with the Open Public Meetings Act and Governor's proclamation to restart board meetings as possible and adding single story penthouses to the list of elements that DEEL and staff may administratively approve due to the clear standards within the code.

Recovery will be challenging and we need every tool to support the vibrancy of Pioneer Square.

This bill will provide certainty about how we can move forward with recovery and investment in the district.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Jessa.

Our next speaker who has signed up is Corey Crocker.

Yes, good afternoon.

My name is Corey Crocker, and I am Secretary of the U District Small Businesses, Treasurer of the U District Community Council, 30-year resident, and a local small business owner.

I would like to speak about the renewal of the U District BIA.

Both the U-District Small Businesses and the U-District Community Council appreciate the effort to improve the draft legislation for the U-District BIA, an organization that will be key to the recovery of our neighborhood after this crisis and from the cumulative impacts of a high-rise upzone, raising building heights from 65 to 320 feet.

Our representative community groups have broadcast our concerns and suggestions for improving the BIA in letters to you last year.

We have also met with Council Member Peterson's office to seek a consensus path forward.

I actively participated in numerous meetings with your former colleagues on the council when the current BIA was adopted.

At that time, I told Council Member Licata that I hoped the proposed BIA would be better than what we had at the time.

Now, after five years and almost $5 million invested, it is not clear to many of my fellow neighbors, including property owners, small business owners, and tenants, that that experiment was a success.

We must do better.

In the remaining weeks before the vote we look forward to collaborating with you on this on improving this council bill for all who live work study and shop in the U District.

We thank you.

Thank you so much for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Derek Lum.

Hello, council members.

My name is Derek and I'm here on behalf of Interim CDA.

We thank everyone for the work that you've all put into this legislation, especially Council Member Morales.

We urge the passage of this legislation with the Morales Amendment attached.

We sent a letter detailing what we thought would serve the International District best.

and it was signed by several organizations who serve people in the Chinatown International District.

That feedback is included in the Morales Amendment.

This also meets the needs of businesses and property owners while attaining equity in our local design review process.

We urge the passing of this legislation with the Morales Amendment attached.

Thank you.

Thank you, Derek, for calling in today.

Our next public commenter is Megan Cruz.

Thank you.

This is Megan Cruz and I'm speaking on CB 119769. I ask the council not to approve this legislation without setting a two-month deadline for restoring public participation and design review.

Open government is built on public input and the argument that six months is needed due to the complexity of online meetings is undercut daily as scores of city departments, businesses, and individuals have adapted by going online.

Even a virtual meeting with glitches is preferable to none at all.

In over two weeks since this bill was introduced, there's been no plan for how the public would have input over the next six months.

Acela, the online portal, is hard to use, and I find project documents are regularly posted weeks and sometimes months after a review has been completed, giving the public no chance to comment.

Director Torgelson told us last week that affordable housing is already his department's top priority.

The real target of this legislation appears to be market rate commercial development.

And today and last week, we heard some in the design and development community say administrative review should be the city standard policy.

If so, this measure is a good start.

Without a two-month timeline and a clear process for public input in the interim, this emergency legislation sets land use policy for as long as the rest of the year.

It sends the message that the public input is a hindrance and the first thing to go in an emergency.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Our next speaker is Justin Allegro.

Thank you, council members.

My name is Justin Allegro.

I'm commenting in support of the proposed design review ordinance.

I admit I am no design review board expert.

I own and live at a detached home in Upper Queen Anne, and I'm currently an elected board member of the Queen Anne Community Council.

Our community faces gigantic challenges in response to this crisis, and of course, we're already in the midst of crises of economic fairness, housing affordability, and climate change.

Time and again over the past few years, I heard about how the 2008 recession and subsequent budget austerity at the city level contributed directly to our crisis in housing and affordable housing supply.

Now with possible federal and state stimulus forthcoming and private financing less and less secure with each day, we don't want to look back and regret that we've missed housing development opportunities now just because we weren't willing to trust our city employee experts to navigate the administrative design review determination for at most a few months.

I can't keep up well with the proposed amendments, but the substitute sets up six months of certainty while simultaneously encouraging the implementation of distant design review board meetings when they can be held correctly.

This is smart policy so that we can learn from our last recession and help our city.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for calling in today.

Our next speaker is going to be Rick McLaughlin.

Hi, my name is Rick McLaughlin.

I'm the president of the District Small Business Association and the owner of Big Time Brewery on the Ave.

We appreciate the inclusions of some of our requested improvements, such as adding to the board two commercial tenants subject to a triple net lease, and addressing increased concerns of displacements of small businesses.

However, the current crisis is severely impacting the ability of local small businesses to survive.

Assessment fees paid through our triple net leases, which kind of like trickle down economics, is a further burden at an inopportune time.

Track record of business improvement areas and the nurturing small businesses is failing.

So far, we've had BIAs in our area, and I wouldn't necessarily say that the small business community is thriving right now.

Performance of BIA in the past years is mixed and does not justify an increase from a five-year to a 12-year term.

Budget increases of 10%.

I would say we need to have justification, and we need to have data showing success before we increase those limits.

We invite the council to consider amendments to improve the draft legislation.

And in my point of view, I would say before we, you know, go forward with this, I would say we need to see some data showing that it's working.

And I would say that we need to talk to a bunch of small businesses and get assessments from them and see what their input is, and then go forward from there.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next public commenter is Suzanne Grant.

Hello.

Thank you for taking my call.

I am Suzanne Grant and I am concerned about, I'm talking about CB Bill 119769. I'm concerned about suspending or watering down Seattle's modest design review process.

City Hall has already watered down the public input process for real estate development projects proposed for our communities, our own neighborhoods.

Design review is one of the very last ways to improve the quality of real estate development projects before they are built, and the only way to effectively save the mature trees that we have left in our urban forest, which, by the way, are rapidly disappearing.

Trees cannot be built like houses can.

Without meaningful input, we see an accelerated loss of existing naturally occurring affordable housing.

For example, older apartments being torn down to build new large houses.

This process not only displaces existing residents, but it can result in a net decrease of affordability in our neighborhoods.

Under the proposed bill, many low income housing projects would have the design review process canceled entirely.

I believe lower income renters and owners deserve the same benefits of a design review process that can result in higher quality residential buildings, as well as a tree canopy that benefits the health of the residents therein.

Please stand up for the citizens of Seattle who want to have input into building design and wish to save our trees.

Many of you promised during your campaigns to listen to the citizens.

Well, now is your chance to do so.

Please vote no on CB119769.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marty Koistra.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

Thank you, Council President Gonzalez, for this opportunity.

I'm Marty Koester.

I work for the Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County, a 180-member association focused on trying to ameliorate our affordable housing crisis.

I'm calling today to speak in favor of Council Bill 119769. We believe any emergency response package should prioritize supporting affordable housing production amidst the crisis we're now facing, which is only exacerbating and will continue to exacerbate what we know as the affordable housing crisis.

The affordable housing exemption from the ADR process is an important step to expedite affordable housing projects and start working on meeting this exacerbated need now.

I do not want to speak detrimentally of a good work of our dear friend Mr. Torgelson and his department, but if you've never developed affordable publicly funded housing, you really don't even know how hard ADR has become.

We set out a few years ago to completely rework the design review process to expedite the production of housing.

We still have a long ways conversation we will have once this crisis is behind us.

We will also talk about design review and its comparison to the redlining of the past and its potential detrimental effects on equity.

We all benefit when we prioritize the needs of the lowest income and most marginalized people in our community by creating affordable housing.

The members of HDC who do this very, very difficult and mentally stressful work on a day-to-day basis can tell you more about design review.

They can also talk about their passion towards quality.

I hear the comments being made about how design review on affordable housing could impact.

Cancel.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Marty, for being with us.

Our next speaker is June Blue Spruce.

Hello.

Hello.

I'm June Blue Spruce.

I live in Columbia City.

I'm grateful that the City Council has made it possible for me to participate virtually.

technology at its best can serve democracy.

I see no reason why in this technologically advanced city, the same can't be done for the design review process.

The process allows volunteer boards in eight districts to apply technical expertise and knowledge of the needs and concerns of local residents to review of construction projects and also solicits public comment.

This review is essential to ensure that all stakeholders have a voice.

The proposed bill defaults to SDCI, which tends to listen more closely to developers than to neighborhood residents, arborists, and designers.

Protection for neighborhoods in environmentally critical and sensitive areas are already weak and under-enforced in Seattle.

The proposal makes them more so.

If for a brief period review needs to proceed without public comment, the Design Review Board should conduct it, not SDCI.

I understand that building affordable housing and getting people back to work where it's safe to do so are critical priorities, but it's risky to sacrifice democracy in the name of efficiency.

Without adequate review, market rate housing goes up at a fast pace, accelerating displacement, gentrifying communities, and potentially reducing existing affordable housing, as Suzanne has already said.

We see this happening in southeast Seattle, along with the loss of urban forest areas that contribute to our collective health and well-being.

Please focus your efforts on creating innovative ways to conduct robust design review, not on weakening it during the current emergency.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Christine Vaughn.

I am Christine Vaughn speaking to CB 119769. I am not representing an official position of the Pike Place Market Historical Commission.

However I am speaking from my perspective as chair.

In this bill please limit its application to Seattle's housing crisis.

Please remove any administrative decisions that do not directly impact affordable housing construction.

One of the rationales for enacting this bill is to take away the responsibility of volunteer boards and commissions during this stressful time.

To my knowledge, no border commission has been consulted about this or about our willingness to continue to serve with online meetings.

It has been said that it would be difficult to train so many volunteers, yet people have quickly learned to participate in online meetings, even people who have never used this technology before.

It seems to me that in a city that values citizen participation, Encouraging participation means facilitating the function of volunteers, boards, and commissions, and our meetings that provide for people's input about development happening in their city.

Wanting citizen participation also means respecting the citizen's choice in voting for the Save the Market initiative that set up a citizen's historical commission with regulatory authority to protect the character of the Pike Place market.

a character determined in part by the design decisions that would be reassigned to administrative review.

This bill is primarily intended to address a housing crisis.

Please do only that which is required to keep affordable housing construction on track.

Don't dismantle even for a short time the operations of boards and commissions which provide citizens the opportunity to have input into the character of their neighborhoods.

As long as there is a quorum of any board or commission willing to do so, Please let us continue to do our important work.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Bradley Corey.

Thank you so much for giving.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to comment today.

My name is Bradley Corey.

I'm an architect practicing in Seattle.

I'm speaking on behalf of Council Bill 119769. I urge you to please approve this bill.

And want to verify that administrative design review maintains a significant public component.

There are comments that you're hearing today that make it sound as if all decisions will be made without that.

The process is still incredibly robust.

However, it does not have the meetings that are associated with the design review process that everyone is referencing.

There are still opportunities for public to comment at early design guidance.

master use permit submission and design review recommendation.

As has been noted multiple times on the call, this is an extraordinarily challenging time in our history.

We need to prioritize the production of more housing.

And I am concerned that without this bill, many of us are going to be sitting and waiting because we cannot get to these meetings.

Incredibly important, I think, at this time is to understand that we're talking about a finite period And to not disadvantage projects that are already in the process so that any project that is currently in designer view can proceed with the results of the determination made here.

We need to encourage the production of housing and not further slow it down by requiring this process to wait until it's figured out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, it is now 2.46 p.m.

We've been going for 20 minutes.

We have about...

We have about nine more speakers, so that's close to about 20 more minutes.

So if there's no objection, I'd like to extend public comment by 20 minutes.

Hearing no objection, we will extend public comment by 20 minutes to conclude with the list.

So the next speaker is Colleen McAleer.

Thank you, Council President and City Council.

This is Colleen McAleer, and I'm speaking on CB 9679. It's an exciting week for Seattle.

3,000 people participated in the West Seattle Bridge Town Hall, and that was exciting.

It was well publicized, easy to use, and also the public comment line for city council has worked just great.

But this bill, however, has received very little local press and very little outreach by the city or the council itself, and it virtually upends the city code and waves away its regulations that preserves the equity lens for commenting on cities' buildings, especially MHA.

Those projects were granted favorable height, bulk, and scale with the promise of those good design reviews to make them compatible.

It's a top priority for this city already for the Department of Construction Inspections to review MHA housing.

That design review ensures adequate floor space, light, trees, vegetation, sidewalks, and walkable access to transit.

We got to get those cars off the road, so that's one way to do it.

The lack of design review in taking the public out of that process will result possibly in displacement of folks and a different quality of life.

Better projects are always crafted with input from people who live there.

Design reviews, some historic preservation work can effectively be done virtually and made better by the public participation.

After sitting through the comments last week, it was abundantly clear that many of the folks who commented had a financial benefit to see this bill go over the finish line so they could get their projects, which were not so urgent, right into the public process or avoiding it for a year.

Without council members Herbold's amendment to shorten this scope and the term of the bill, it just doesn't work.

It's not an emergency under the governor's bill to protect public health from COVID-19, and it smacks of a backroom deal to eliminate the whole public process.

Please vote no and retain public participation.

Thanks so much.

Thank you for calling in.

Our next speaker is Betty Lau.

Hi.

Hello this is Betty Lau.

I'm with the I'm representing Friends of Chinatown and the Friends of Japantown speaking on CB 119769. First council members thank you for your work helping all of us during this emergency.

And secondly as you consider this legislation Please keep in mind the race and social justice principles of listening to and getting input from us communities of color.

And finally on behalf of Chinatown and Japantown I invite all of you to come visit so you could hear firsthand the perspectives of residents businesses property owners and other community members.

The Department of Neighborhoods has our contact information, and we look forward to working with you.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Andrew Grant Houston.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Andrew Grant Houston, queer architect of color, housing activist, and district three resident.

I'm speaking today in support of CB 119769, and specifically I want to speak in support of exempting publicly funded affordable housing from administrative design review.

I know this was one of the concerns of some of the council members last week, because currently the system allows for these projects to already go through administrative design review.

However, from my understanding, having collaborated with a number of other architects who go through this process, It seems like the process for administrative design review can be just as long, if not longer than a full design review.

And so because of the concern and need for housing, both outside of this crisis, as well as during it, I think it's important to exempt this and prioritize affordable housing and publicly funded housing for those who need it most.

Lastly, I want to really acknowledge the fact that even though we are trying to preserve an existing system, that system is inherently racist and has been since it was constructed in 1994. I think one of our larger conversations should be as to how we can create a truly inclusive design review if we keep it at all, and if not, how we have a larger conversation about our comprehensive plan and how we shift the development of the necessary housing that we need from being solely focused within the south end of Seattle to expand across the entirety of the city.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is going to be Anna Bonilla.

Good afternoon.

My name is Anna Bonilla and I'm with Enterprise Community Partners.

And I'm here again testifying on behalf of our office in support of CB119769.

And I will try to keep my remarks brief.

As we all know, we are facing unprecedented times, and collectively, we are facing extraordinary challenges for many months and possibly years to come as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

And what makes this crisis even more challenging is the fact that our communities have been facing an affordable housing challenge for many years now that has only continued to grow.

At a time when we were asking people to shelter in place, we've exposed what many of us already knew, that families in the most vulnerable communities do not have safe, stable, and affordable places to shelter in.

Now more than ever, we cannot falter on our commitments to affordable housing.

That means taking measures to meet the scale of these extraordinary times that we are living in.

We support a temporary exemption for affordable housing from the administrative design review process, and we support a six-month time frame in which to do so.

Our recovery is not a switch that will turn on and off.

It will require deliberate and methodical steps to do so, and that means that it takes time.

And we also support a temporary broadening of the authority of the Historic Preservation Officer over projects that are already in the pipeline, In this case, we have a project for affordable housing, Broadway Home, that would serve homeless youth.

Moving forward with traditional processes for engagement and even these virtual ones would further marginalize an already vulnerable population due to their most likely inability to participate in these new channels that we are engaging in for input.

We support the ordinance as a whole.

We thank the leadership of those for bringing this forward.

Thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Martin Westerman.

Do we have Martin Westerman on the line?

Can you hear me?

We can.

Good.

Go ahead.

Go for it.

All right.

I'm the president of the Seattle Green Spaces Coalition.

I'm speaking for the coalition and our partners on CB 119769. I call your attention to comments made by the former DPD director Diane Sugimura, who said, we are not going to let trees stand in the way of development.

The DPD is now SDCI.

While we hope the attitude has changed, in our experience, that has not happened.

In the Emerald City, development must be integrated with our natural capital.

That's trees, green spaces, and water areas.

It shouldn't be the other way around.

And as Ms. Sigley-Moore has said, and our experiences since have shown, SDCI can't generally be trusted to act in the public interest to balance built and natural capital.

So giving SDCI more freedom will only accelerate this negative pattern.

specifically then and other individuals and organizations we work with want you to consider these changes to CB 119769. First, we support Amendment 1. It says affordable housing projects should not be exempted from design review.

The current system has not slowed public housing development.

So why is there a reason to create these exemptions?

Don't fix what hasn't been broken.

We support Amendment 2 to reduce the temporary changes period from six months to two months.

City is already using virtual meeting formats for public meetings so two months should allow more than enough time for moving design review meetings to an Internet format.

We support allowing Seattle businesses business to be conducted with online meetings in lieu of in-person meetings.

We do not support giving waivers for potential landmark building processes.

And we do not support adding design review allowances and variances for SDCI during the exemption period.

All developers we believe should follow Seattle's land use code.

Thanks.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Mary Schlater.

Yes.

Yes, this is Mary Slaughter and I am calling in to oppose the bill number 119-769.

I would like to echo the points made by Suzanne Grant and June Bluespruce and the others who have spoken against this bill.

And I too agree that an SDCI can't be trusted to Protect our urban environment.

I've seen in my own neighborhood in Victory Heights District 5 how lots are cleared and large unaffordable buildings are put in place with absolutely not one tree preserved.

And we absolutely need to pay attention to our urban environment in this time when climate change is so detrimental to our environment here in Seattle.

Thank you for those council members who voted against this last week.

I encourage you to hold steady.

Thank you very much.

I thank you for calling in.

Our next speaker is Naomi C. Hello my name is Naomi C. I'm a student at the University of Washington and here to represent the Low Income Housing Institute.

I'm speaking in support of Council Bill 119769. I would first like to thank the council for their efforts to pass legislation that addresses a fundamental component of stopping the spread of COVID, and that is shelter and housing.

This ordinance is a unique opportunity to expedite the construction of hundreds of new affordable units.

The design review process adds thousands of unnecessary costs per unit to build affordable housing as a result of the cost incurred by waiting for review by design boards.

In many cases these projects have already yielded broad community support and are developed by reputable nonprofit organizations who are held to rigorous design standards through their funders and are committed to quality living environments.

We have a long time before we are finished dealing with this crisis and in the meantime housing will be a critical component.

Thank you for your time and your support.

And I hope we can get this one through.

I thank you for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Brandon Petit.

Hello.

Hello.

Can you hear me.

We can hear you.

Thank you.

My name is Brandon Petit.

I own two restaurants Delancey and Dino's Tomato Pie in Seattle.

I wanted to thank you guys for acting so quickly on capping third party app restaurant fees.

Restaurants are the second largest employer in the country with 10% of the entire workforce, and almost all of them are family-owned restaurants with 50 employees or less.

Some statistics say 99% of restaurants are family-owned.

Not only do we have a huge amount of employees that we support, but we also support an entire supply chain.

The one thing I wanted to mention is that even after this crisis, I'd like to find a way to continue capping those app fees because they are incredibly exorbitant and they don't relate to almost fees of many other industries.

For instance, on a $100 order through one of these apps, a credit card company would get about $3, the restaurant would get about $5 to $10 because profit margins are so slow, and the delivery apps will get $55.

Out of a $100 order, they're getting $55 because they charge The customer is usually around 25% and they also charge the restaurant 30% and it's a double dipping.

And there's tons of articles as well about how low they pay their contract labor and drivers.

So they're making huge profits and their sales are up during this crisis.

I'm glad that we've kept it now, but even after this crisis, I'd like to find a way to continue to cap it.

Just on one of my small restaurants that uses one app, So in one restaurant and one app, this saves $1,000 of fees per week.

And this is just a very small pizzeria.

And I also wanted to mention, as we're thinking about restaurants, that we also, for small business owners and employees, need to be thinking about rent relief for both restaurants.

Thank you, Brendan, for calling in today.

Our next speaker is Ruth Danner.

Thank you.

My name is Ruth Danner.

I'm president of stateofthemarketentrance.org backed by 90,000 voices of concern for Seattle's future dedicated to preserving affordability sustainability and quality of life for all who live work and play here.

I will address CB 119769. A week for the people of Seattle.

We are drowning victims of our own success.

Long before this pandemic the security of affordable sustainable living has been slipping from the grasp of young and old service workers and mid-level professionals alike.

Phenomenal growth and prosperity have driven real estate prices to breathtaking heights to the short-term benefit of some but with long-range consequences for all.

With each new tower the supply of naturally occurring affordable housing decreases.

The demand for service workers increases.

and real estate appreciation drives rents higher regionally.

MHA fees are insufficient to hold back the tide.

In a balanced system growth happens naturally organically at its own pace.

Shortcuts taken to stimulate growth artificially borrow from the future and inevitably the bill comes due.

CB 1197-69 strips this city of protections guaranteed by the Growth Management Act, and the OPMA.

It is presented in the name of affordable housing but is clearly designed to continue profiteering for the few while the water that once lapsed playfully at our toes now grows perilously deep.

As this meeting demonstrates there is no need to strip our system of public participation or citizen-led boards and commissions.

Eliminating public oversight facilitates unnatural and unstable rapid growth Shortcuts lead to shabby outcomes that lead to premature synchronized decline.

Please recognize the impacts of this fail and adjust now before it is too late.

Thank you.

Thank you for calling in.

Colleagues, that was the last person on our public comment list who was pre-registered.

We have no other public commenters who signed up.

I'm doing a last sweep of the list just to make sure I didn't miss anyone.

And it looks like we have gone through We will go ahead and close out this period of public comment and begin going through the items of business on our agenda.

First up is payment of the bills.

Will the clerk please read the title into the record?

I will move to pass Council Bill 119778. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded that the bill pass.

Are there any comments?

Hearing no comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Peterson.

Aye.

Malai.

Aye.

Stroud.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The bill passes and the chair will sign it.

I would request that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Moving into committee reports, agenda item one.

Will the clerk please read the short title of agenda item one into the record?

Agenda Item 1, Council Bill 119769, relating to land use review decision and meeting procedures, temporarily modifying and suspending procedures in Title 23 and 25 of the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thank you, Burke.

I will need somebody on the prevailing side to, on this motion for reconsideration to call up the motion.

Council Member Morales.

Sorry, I've lost track of where we are here.

I call the motion to reconsider passage of Council Bill 119769.

Thank you so much.

This motion does not require a second.

So reconsideration of Council Bill 119769 is now before the Council for consideration.

Council members, at the April 20th City Council meeting, we considered and amended Council Bill 119769. The bill as amended did not secure the needed seven votes to pass it.

and Council Member Herbold moved to reconsider the bill on April 20th.

So pursuant to the city charter, that motion was moved and seconded and held until this city council meeting.

We now have before us the motion to reconsider the bill.

Council Member Morales, as the maker, oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Herbold, as the maker of the original motion, do you have any comments?

I'll hold my comments, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Are there any further comments on the motion to reconsider the bill?

Again, we're not voting on the actual substance of the bill at this point.

We're still voting on the procedural vote to reconsider passage of Council Bill 119769. Hearing and seeing no comments, the City Council will now vote to reconsider passage of Council Bill 119769. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson?

No.

Stewart?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

No.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

That vote only required a majority, in other words, five council members present to be in favor of moving forward.

And so that motion carries.

And Council Bill 119769 is now before the Council.

Council Member Strauss, as sponsor of this bill, do you have any opening remarks that you would like to make?

Yes, thank you, Council President.

I'll try and make this short.

As we've discussed this many times before, this emergency legislation addresses design review, historic preservation, and permitting processes during the COVID-19 emergency.

It is temporary in nature, and the intention of this legislation is to allow critically needed housing projects to continue moving forward through the permitting process in a way that preserves public input and engagement and protects public health.

Specifically, the legislation would allow projects to opt into administrative design review for six months or until the design review boards are able to meet virtually or in person.

It would allow for pre-application community outreach to be done virtually and explicitly highlights how that can be done.

It would allow for minor decisions related to historic landmarks or historic and special review districts to be made administratively while suspending meetings and major decisions of the landmarks and special review boards.

Because the legislation is being enacted on an emergency basis, all provisions would lapse after 180 days and we are required to hold a public hearing within 60 days.

More than, the time sensitivity around this is more than 20 proposed residential projects representing over 3,500 housing units and a living facility are currently on hold because design review meetings have been indefinitely canceled.

Another 20 projects are expected to be delayed each month, creating a significant backlog for their design review boards that could outlast our current emergency.

It typically takes a project about a year to move through the design review process, so allowing these projects to keep moving is important.

Another 30 projects, including four affordable housing projects, are unable to proceed because they cannot complete their early community outreach until this legislation is passed.

There's also a minor landmarks recommendation that the Key Arena project needs and has been delayed for several weeks.

This will become a pinch point in May.

While departments have been taking steps to hold design review board meetings virtually, there are several barriers that still need to be addressed.

And I share with you that this is different than our city council meetings.

It's different than the design commission meetings because there is feedback and conversation that is needed.

on detailed documents and that can be confusing.

Even last week, I personally experienced not speaking for any other council members experience.

I was kicked off our virtual meetings here at city council twice.

We have only been able to start our public input last week.

And this is just, this doesn't even begin to cover the complex level of design review.

The size of the design review program, which involves 20 to 30 meetings each month, Council Member Lewis, I did confirm it's over 100 staff members who would need additional training and 70 volunteer board members with varying abilities and technological access.

There are also challenges with facilitating comment and sign in for these complex and technical documents that are graphic rich in their presentation.

We are all able to be together on this call today because it's our jobs.

And the design review process relies on volunteers dealing with all the challenges of this pandemic, which changes their availability for frequent and virtual meetings and doesn't guarantee that full participation is able to occur.

The Design Commission has, as I said, been able to hold a virtual meeting, which is promising.

Again, this is different than design review boards.

One of my amendments that we passed last week would require reporting in 60 days on the executive's progress towards these virtual meetings, and the legislation is written to virtually mirror the public engagement opportunities that community members would have if we were using the typical process.

I will, just as a final note, go over the amendments that we made last week that would allow projects to receive a recommendation through administrative design review process to remain in that process, allow self-nominated projects seeking landmark designation to negotiate their controls and incentive agreements, not the final designation, allow Seattle Housing Authority to utilize the design review exemption for affordable housing, clarifying community outreach requirements, improving tree protections by removing an exemption that would allow for hazardous tree removal to be done so administratively, allow another amendment to allow for administrative approval of door and window replacements in historic and special review districts, and allow for administrative approval of penthouses when those guidelines already exist.

Several more, I will leave it at that because we've had extensive conversation on this bill.

And also I would like to compliment Council Member Lewis for his community outreach on his amendment.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss for those introductory remarks.

I know that we have two amendments to manage as we discussed during Council briefing this morning.

So I'm going to go through the amendments at this point in the order that they appeared on the published agenda.

means that Council Member Morales will be up first, followed by Council Member Lewis on his amendment.

So I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Morales so that she can make her motion to have us consider Amendment 1. Council Member Morales, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 119769 as presented on the Morales Amendment 1. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill.

Councilor Morales, I will go ahead and hand it over to you to address the amendment.

Okay, thank you.

So this amendment would allow the Director of Neighborhoods to approve certificates of approval for some changes within the International Special Review District.

It would also remove a provision that would have allowed for virtual meetings of the ISRD board in lieu of in-person meetings.

If in-person meetings could not be held safely, ISRD board meetings would not be held for 60 days.

and the amendment also corrects some drafting errors that were in the version that we had last week.

The purpose of this really is, as I said this morning in briefing, to allow meetings to continue once we have, once we are able to meet in person again safely, but not meet virtually.

And the real point here is to protect the community that doesn't have a lot of access to technology and where we can't always have assurance that there will be sufficient language interpretation services available for some of these technical conversations.

And so the community is willing to just wait and gather again in when it's safe to do so after the 60-day period.

Thank you, Council Member Morales for addressing the amendment.

Are there any other comments on this amendment?

Council Member Herbold, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales, could you, for my benefit, explain to me how this amendment is different from the one that you brought forward last week?

The reason why I am asking is the guidance I received from the clerk's office is for if an amendment fails, in order for us to bring it back, it has to be a different question.

And so I would just really appreciate the clarity.

of understanding how this amendment differs from the one that you brought last week.

So what happened last week was that there were some drafting errors.

As I said, the intention was to eliminate the option for electronic meetings.

But what was actually incorporated into the language from last week would have would have allowed for the certificate of approval process, administrative process, to continue for the Pioneer Square Review District, but not for the International District Special Review District.

So part of the challenge was that there was just that drafting error that needed to be removed from what we were trying to accomplish.

So I'm trying to provide an opportunity for you to say that the effect of this amendment is different than the amendment that you brought forward.

Would that be an accurate statement?

Yes, because the effect of the previous amendment was much broader, had a much broader scope that it would have changed the ability of the ISRD to meet.

So this is sort of narrowing the scope of what had been proposed or what had been included in last week's version, and that was a mistake.

Perfect, thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold, for that line of questioning.

Are there any other comments on the Morales Amendment 1?

Okay, hearing none, I'm going to go ahead and, Councilmember Mosqueda, did I see your hand go up?

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate Councilmember Morales's work with the folks who brought up the need for additional clarity and happy to support this amendment.

Appreciate all your work.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to go ahead and close out discussion on this particular amendment.

Will the clerk call the roll on the adoption of the Morales Amendment 1.

Peterson.

Aye.

DeWant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Hergold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the amendment is adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

And I think this is an opportunity for Council Member Lewis to walk us through amendment two.

So I'm gonna hand it over to you Council Member Lewis to put amendment two on the table.

Thank you, Madam President.

I move to amend Council Bill 119769 as presented on Version 2 of the Lewis Amendment to on the agenda.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill.

Council Member Lewis, I'm going to hand it back over to you so that you can address your amendment.

Well, I'll just be brief.

I think we had a good discussion of this amendment during briefing this morning.

Just to reiterate some of the arguments that I brought up at that time, I think that for two reasons this amendment is appropriate.

First, that the buildings that are going forward under this pilot program are of a particular size and bulk, the design review is more important than for similarly situated projects that are not part of the living building pilot program.

I think, too, that given the status of the three projects that this amendment would address, all of which are midstream through the established in-person design review process, that it would be warranted for these projects to continue along in that path and go back to the design review boards, be they in-person or virtual.

to get the final go ahead to proceed to the master use permit.

For those reasons, I think that this amendment at this time is appropriate.

It's narrowly tailored.

It speaks to specific articulable reasons why exemptions like this would be warranted given the scope of the current ordinance.

And I would ask that the council approve this amendment.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Are there any comments on Councilmember Lewis's amendment?

Councilmember Mosqueda, the floor is yours.

I will defer to the prime sponsor.

I'm sorry.

Again, just want to compliment Councilmember Lewis on his outreach.

This is the very type of outreach and amendment file that I appreciate when engaging in land use decisions.

He did an excellent job of convincing me that this should come forward despite my request of no new topics on the bill because we're trying to get it across the finish line.

So just want all of Councilmember Lewis' constituents to know that he is doing work in their stead.

I appreciate it, despite my desire to really not engage in new topics on this bill since it's been such a heavy lift so far.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Mosqueda, you are recognized.

Floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Madam President, and I do appreciate the hard work that has gone into this legislation, both from the prime sponsor and from the folks who've been crafting amendments.

I know we're trying to do our best to make sure that basic city government functions.

in the time of COVID and making sure that our community constituent engagement processes don't miss a beat and you all have been exemplary in that action.

I do need to speak up as I noted this morning with my concerns about this amendment and offer First, a piece of clarification, and second, sort of my rationale for not voting for this amendment.

First, I think it's really important that we make sure that folks know that there's been a misperception about community engagement not continuing.

In fact, administrative design review mirrors the public engagement process that takes place during full design review.

It simply replaces the in-person comment period with a written comment period.

All the same public engagement opportunities exist, they just take a different form.

People can call, send written comments to SCCI rather than providing comments in person.

All steps in the administrative review process are publicly posted through SCCI's website, and if you sign up to be part of the administrative design review process, you receive notifications on all materials submitted planners, comments, and recommendations similar to full design review.

I would also posture, as I said in last week's conversation, it's arguably more inclusive to be able to accept phone calls and written comments than just having meetings in person.

Think about all the folks who are working two and three jobs, the people who would like to be there, but for their responsibilities.

We want to make sure that we're thinking about inclusivity and equity as we think about engaging in soliciting public comment, especially now during COVID.

I think that this bill strikes that nice balance.

Secondly, the reason that I'm speaking in opposition to this amendment is that I think that living buildings projects is exactly the type of outstanding projects that we'd like to see be able to get the design review process moving forward and get the green light to move forward so that we don't lose any interest in the ability to build these exact types of buildings.

These are socially just, sustainable, human health oriented green buildings.

As I talked about this morning, this is not just about setbacks or green roofs.

It's about incorporating nature in every aspect of the building design and the materials and the energy systems to create spaces that integrate the physical and psychological well-being of people and the health of the surrounding environment.

And I think it's really important that we think about how we encourage more developers to go this route.

So this pilot is extremely important as we think about reducing the amount of energy used, creating green spaces and and really facilitating that integration between community preference and what we'd like to see in these buildings.

I think the unintended consequence here is that if we pull out living buildings, there is a chance that folks who are interested in building greener buildings will opt for the administrative design review, and we've missed the opportunity to see more of these living buildings come into fruition.

And in fact, I'm worried about the message that we send to folks that might be considering future living buildings that they don't want to go down this route either.

I am appreciative of the conversation it sounds like you've had in districts.

I think that is important for us though to push back to say that living building projects just like this are exactly what we'd like to see to make sure that we can incorporate the public feedback that has already been received, work with SDCI to ensure that that public comment is integrated as we move forward and make sure for the environment's sake that we are encouraging, facilitating, and creating more opportunities for living building projects to move forward, especially in this time where we worry that with COVID, developers could potentially pull out of projects like this as uncertain economic forecasts cause people to question future investments.

Let's move forward, let's include living buildings in our efforts, and let's remember that this will absolutely allow for community engagement to continue.

as outlined by our department partners in previous presentations.

Thank you for letting me explain my position on this and for your ongoing work, colleagues, to make sure that the public comment is included and that we hopefully include living buildings as well.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any other comments?

I see Council Member Herbold, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

I have a question for the amendment sponsor, Council Member Lewis.

It's been said that there's a concern that for buildings that have submitted their permit applications as living buildings, that if we passed an amendment today that had those buildings that had already submitted their permits as a living building and were already in the design review process, that they would then, that that might somehow be a damper, might have a chilling effect on either those particular buildings or future buildings.

I wanna just clarify that this is only for buildings that have already filed their permits and already have a design review track.

This is not for future living buildings.

This is only for the ones that are currently on track.

I am speculating that the costs associated with redesigning one of those buildings to not be subject to the same design review track as they are before passage of this legislation would be pretty extensive.

So I'm just giving you another chance to defend your amendment or correct me if I'm wrong.

And I also wanna reference the point of the bill sponsor, Council Member Strauss, for the purposes of just, I know we all know what the rules are amongst us on the council, but for purposes of the viewing public, I just want to clarify that we don't require the consent of bill sponsors in order to bring forward amendments during full council, even in this very stressful time of trying to hear legislation, not in committee, but only in full council.

So we're working on a compressed time period, and I believe Council Member Strauss was only referring to his preference to not address new issues, but we as individual council members do, as long as we follow our rules, do have the ability to bring forward amendments, even in this time of compressed meetings.

Thank you.

Um, so I think there was a question in there for council member Lewis that I'll let him field in terms of the.

Procedure and council rules, I'll I'll address that since since I am the presiding.

officer, if you will, on these meetings.

You are correct, Councilmember Herbold, that so long as council rules are followed, amendments can be brought forward by any of us as individually elected council members.

I took Councilmember Strauss's comments as being a preference that that not occur, given that he is the prime sponsor of this council bill.

that is pretty ordinary.

Many of us on many occasions have have messaged that or signaled that in the course of advancing our legislation that that we're not supporting a particular amendment because of a feeling that it's untimely or opens up potential new issues that could compromise the need to to pass a bill on a particular timeline.

So I think you're absolutely correcting your observation that it's not a rule that new issues not be brought up.

But I do sort of want to agree with that perspective and with sort of my understanding of Councilmember Strauss' plea, which was let's minimize the issues we're considering here given that this is our second go around on this.

And I certainly respect his encouragement for us to expedite this.

Council Member Lewis, can you, would you like to address the question that was posed to you by Council Member Herbold and then I see Council Member Strauss has raised his hand.

Yeah very briefly.

I mean you know I think it is it's an open question to the concerns that Council Member Mosqueda raised.

I think they are well well taken and I'm glad that she did raise it as to whether kind of any kind of legislating around this pilot program could have a freezing effect or deterrent effect.

I think that's certainly something that is credible to bring up and credible to raise.

I would say that the way that the amendment is drafted, it would actually only ever for the entire history of this amendment affect three projects, because any subsequent projects that did come in, as Council Member Herbold mentioned in her comments, would immediately be put into the administrative review track.

um so it would only be these projects that are already engaged in design review have had a meeting um and are sort of locked this amendment would basically lock those three projects in so of the 15 current living building projects only three would be affected um no subsequent living building project would be affected by the amendment they would be able to take advantage of the of electing the administrative track that the ordinance provides but I do think the broader point made by Council Member McSkade is certainly fair and appreciated.

I would also add that be it procedural or not, I do appreciate Council Member Straus' indulgence in letting this issue be aired.

So I want to thank him for that.

And that can even be my closing comments too on the amendment.

Council President, if after Council Member Straus' comments you were to come back to me, I think I'll just rest on that and leave it.

there.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

I appreciate that.

And Councilmember Strauss, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you.

I think the fact that we've had this long of debate on this amendment is probably proving Councilmember Strauss's point around not wanting to introduce last minute issues into an already kind of complex bill.

But Councilmember Strauss, I'll go ahead and hand it over to you.

Yes, I'm just responding to Councilmember Herbold.

You are correct in everything that you've said.

And really, I just want to say thank you to Councilmember Lewis for bringing this process forward.

I'll end it with that.

Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.

Great work.

All right.

OK, Councilmember Mosquitto, one last time, I need you to really be succinct.

And let's try to move forward on this amendment.

Thank you, Council President.

You know, I am really hopeful that this legislation does pass today, and I'm hopeful that we get a chance to revisit the living building conversation that Council Member Lewis has started.

Thank you so much.

I know that you understand where I'm coming from, Council Member Lewis, so I appreciate the ongoing work that you are doing to try to elevate the issue of how folks continue to stay engaged in these conversations.

I should have asked the question this morning when we had the opportunity to hear from central staff.

I think that it does bear sort of Me underscoring, I think that we have a difference of opinion though, and perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but my my read is that projects in the future would not be able to opt into participating and living buildings.

later in their permitting process if this amendment is in place.

And so I'm not sure that I am reading it the same way.

I am hopeful that the amendment doesn't hang and we can continue to look into this question and have a conversation about the importance of living buildings in the future.

But I worry that if projects decide to opt into living buildings after they go through an early design guidance, they would be stuck in a full design review path.

And so that's where my concern is coming from.

I don't want to, I'm not going to sort of belabor the point anymore because I know you're about to call the question.

But I think that just precisely because this question is out there and I have a different read of it, I wanted to underscore my concern about the language as is.

I won't repeat myself.

Council Member Lewis, I appreciate everything you did to put this forward.

But I just wanted to be clear about where my concerns were coming from.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Councilmember Lewis, you are the primary sponsor of this amendment.

I know that you had indicated that you didn't have anything else to add, but just wanted to make sure that you had an opportunity to have the last word if you need to have it.

I'll stand by my previous commitment to rest it where I did.

That's what I like to hear.

OK, so we're going to go ahead and move forward.

I'm going to close out discussion on the Lewis Amendment 2 and ask that the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Version 2 of the Lewis Amendment.

Peterson.

Aye.

DeWodd.

No.

Strauss?

No.

Herbold?

Aye.

Juarez?

No.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

No.

Mosqueda?

No.

President Gonzalez?

No.

Three in favor, six opposed.

Thank you.

The motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

And colleagues, this is going to be a vote on the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to make We're going to vote on the passage of the bill as amended today and last Monday.

So are there any comments on the bill as amended?

I saw Councilmember Lewis first, then Councilmember Peterson, and then Councilmember Morales.

So I'm going to be really brief.

I mean, I do intend to vote for this ordinance again today, as I did last week.

I did want to flag just a couple of things.

First, you know, I continue to implore SDCI to develop a way to conduct these meetings online sooner rather than later.

You know, I actually, if there's any council members here that's privy to more information on the current status of that, since SDCI has now had an additional week to plan and prepare for that, If anyone can provide that information, that would be great.

Because I do think that it is critical.

It's really the underlying issue here.

There wouldn't even be any debate and this wouldn't be a contentious issue if we could see a plan of action or see some more public effort on the part of STCI to stand up those meetings.

So I would just flag that one more time.

Um, that, you know, I would urge the department to do that, uh, um, sooner rather than later.

The second thing I would say is, is I have talked to SDCI, um, and I know a number of folks in my district, uh, commented today, have been sending me emails, have been reaching out, um, some talking about particular and specific projects.

Folks at SDCI have told me that they're happy to work with my office to make sure people concerned about particular projects can get in touch, that their input can be taken in as Council Member Mosqueda indicated earlier into the administrative process and that they can be included in that administrative process.

So I just wanted to flag if there's folks that are still listening, if there's specific projects you're concerned about, contact my office and I'll make sure that you're put in touch with SDCI so that you can engage in the administrative process and those are the only comments I wanted to make before voting on this.

Thank you Councilmember Lewis for those remarks.

I am now gonna move over to Councilmember Peterson who's next in the queue.

Councilmember Peterson the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Again I want to thank Council President Gonzalez and Councilmember Strauss for providing us with an extra week between April 13 and April 20 to review this complex council bill 119769. I'd also like to thank the many constituents who have written with their views on the legislation.

Whether they are for or against this council bill, they clearly care about land use policies, real estate projects, their neighborhoods, and our city.

I also appreciate the various amendments from my council colleagues to try to make this legislation better.

To be consistent with my vote last week and based on my many years of experience in the field of commercial real estate finance, I will be voting no again because I don't think it meets the requirements of an emergency.

and I'm concerned that reduces input and discussion from the general public.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

We're not going to hear from Council Member Morales.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, everyone, for this long discussion.

I want to thank Councilmember Strauss and his staff for working with my office over the last week.

The last few weeks, we've heard lots of concerns from neighbors, particularly in the Chinatown International District, so I appreciate your willingness to collaborate with us.

I will say I do intend to support this bill and I stand conflicted in this.

As I said last week, I do think that this bill conflates some issues around affordable housing with lots of other issues.

It moves construction forward and we might think that that is generally a good thing.

But the only way to address the affordable housing issue is to prioritize and build affordable housing.

And this bill seems to be, especially as it relates to the Chinatown International District, the overwhelming majority of projects there are hotels and market rate condos.

So, you know, I was elected to ensure that we have a racial equity lens as we're making these decisions and quickening the pace of administrative backlog in the name of progress very often has disparate impacts on communities of color.

I was elected to stop displacement.

And knowing that making the development process easier is rarely a benefit for the communities that I represent.

And the trade-off is that what's seen as efficient for governments or for developers often means inequity for my community.

So I do plan to vote yes today and this will be my first and last concession in the name of easing process or relieving administrative burdens, especially if it means that it will accelerate disaster gentrification.

It's my responsibility to vote in a way that benefits my community.

Sometimes that means slowing down the process to ensure that their voices are heard.

But don't mistake that for naivete or for confusion.

That's about ensuring that those voices have access to power.

I know that we all wanna see affordable housing built and we're gonna have regular discussions about how to make that happen.

And I know that if our plans for a post COVID life mean going back to business as usual, we will have done this wrong.

So I look forward to continuing conversations with all of you about how to ensure that the recovery is just and equitable and that we work together to make sure that that happens.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Morales.

I know that we have other council members who might want to make a comment on the bill before we vote.

I'm going to give Councilmember Strauss as the primary sponsor the final word, but I see Councilmember Herbold has raised her hand.

Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

As I hope I've expressed over the last couple weeks, I'm generally supportive of this legislation, accepting the concern as I've expressed last with the section of the bill that exempts affordable housing from all design review.

I believe this section of the law is in conflict with the governor's proclamation 2028, relating to adherence to the Open Public Meetings Act and the State Attorney General's guidance on that proclamation.

This guidance states that the matter before the Council must be a matter that is either necessary and routine or necessary to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and current public health emergency.

My amendment failed last week by one vote.

Had it passed, I would have supported this bill.

Council rules dictate that I cannot make a motion for reconsideration of this amendment.

Because I wanted to find a way to support the bill, I considered altering the amendment substantially enough so that I could bring forth another version of my amendment.

But I was unable to find a substantial enough edit that would fulfill our council rules that a reconsidered motion be substantially substantially new question while also accomplishing my goal of removing the section that I believe conflicts with the governor's proclamation 2028 relating to adherence to the Open Public Meetings Act.

Finally, in order to find another way to support this bill, I also reached out to Seattle Department of Construction Director Torgelson, again, to see if the findings could be written.

The findings are the words in the bill that explain why it is, in this case, we feel that this is consistent with the governor's OPMA Act order.

So I reached out to see if the findings could be written differently to clarify that this section of the bill actually addressed a need related to the COVID-19 crisis.

For instance, I suggested perhaps there might be barriers to the existing SDCI policy that affordable housing be prioritized as a result of the current public health emergency or the passage of this bill, putting more other kinds of construction projects through administrative design review.

My hope was to include legal findings like these in the legislation that might create a legal path forward.

Unfortunately, Director Torgelson responded that, I mean, it's good news that this is the case, but it did not meet my hope to draft a different legal finding.

But the response was, ultimately good news, that if a significant number of projects were to move from full design review to administrative design review due to the passage of this legislation, and affordable housing projects were still required to go through administrative design review, we would continue to prioritize affordable housing projects in relation to market rate housing projects and commercial projects going through design review.

So consequently, I could not conceive of another finding to clarify that this section of the bill actually addressed a need resulting from the COVID-19 crisis.

Despite all of my efforts, I don't see a path forward for me to support this bill.

with that includes brand new policy to address a need unrelated to COVID-19 that is, I believe, out of the scope of the governor's proclamation.

I have been a stalwart supporter of affordable housing for three decades, and I heard many people testify last week and today that the need to change administrative design review predated the COVID-19 crisis.

I would have been interested in design review reform at the right time, but my commitment to the Open Public Meetings Act and the obligations to follow it when deliberating on new policy unrelated to COVID-19 is unwavering in principle.

Nevertheless, I really appreciate the support of amendments by council members last week that I have sponsored regarding a number of issues, including regarding historic landmarks that were supported by Historic Seattle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Gold for those remarks.

Are there any other council members who'd like to make some remarks at this point?

Okay.

And Council Member Juarez, I'm not ignoring you.

If you do have some remarks you'd like to make, I'm happy to hear from you.

Actually, for the love of God, let's take the vote.

Okay, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We will make sure that the record reflects that those are your comments to this bill.

You know, I just wanted to, before I hand it over to Council Member Strauss, who's gonna make the closing remarks, I do want to address Council Member Herbold's comments that she believes that the inclusion of certain portions of this bill run afoul of the governor's proclamation that prohibits us from considering anything that is either not COVID-19 related or that is neither routine nor necessary.

I do want to say that I and my staff spent quite a bit of time talking with the law department in consultation with the clerk's office to evaluate very closely this bill, just like we evaluate all of the legislation that comes before us to make a determination as to whether or not it is appropriately before the city council in the construct of the governor's proclamation.

Again, while I think that there could be different perspectives and points of view, and in fact, The example is right here.

It's a living example.

I think Councilmember Herbold has a much more conservative read of the proclamation.

I, however, came to the conclusion, along with the law department, that there's enough of a nexus here for us to appropriately consider this bill as COVID and emergency related.

So there is an argument that can be made.

There is an argument that has been made.

There is, you know, many conversations I've had with the Office of Housing, for example, related to the realities of how this economic crisis is going to impact not just access to affordable housing, but the development of affordable housing and our design review processes and permits and other administrative processes has a direct impact on what that pipeline will look like in the future.

So there is, in my view, a reasonable, rational connection between trying to address some of the operational issues that we control as government in the context of this emergency that I think merit action and consideration by the city council now through this council bill in order to address those real operational impacts that are before us only because we are in an emergency response period of time in where the way that business is usually conducted by these commissions and by the Office of Housing are directly impacted.

So I just feel really, I feel compelled to sort of explain my rationale and my reasoning for allowing this legislation to be on the introduction and referral calendar in the first place.

And again, I respect that there is a difference of opinion as it relates to the applicability of the governor's proclamation on this particular bill.

And colleagues, I will endeavor to work with each of you transparently and collaboratively on future council bills to make sure that we have consistent application of the governor's proclamation so long as it is in effect on future pieces of legislation that come before the council.

So with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Councilmember Strauss to close out debate so that we can, as Councilmember Juarez has so aptly put it, for the love of God, put this to a vote.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Member Juarez, for that extra little oomph of getting it.

Let's wrap this up.

So I want to start by restating my goal, which is to get this bill passed.

If Kevin Schofield last week wrote about this is what council looks like in the area in the era of OPMA, where open Public Meetings Act requirements require us to not count votes.

And so sometimes this becomes messy in the public's eye.

And so this is my request that if anyone we have heard from Council Member Herbold about what is needed for her to support this bill, if there's anyone who's not anticipating to support the bill who had done so previously, please make that be known before we take this vote.

You know, really what I want to say is this experience has demonstrated to me the complexity of working remotely on complex information.

very deep amounts of detailed analysis has to be done.

And working remotely can sometimes be challenging.

So I wanna thank my colleagues, Council Member Lewis, Council Member Peterson, I know.

Thank you for all of your thoughts.

Council President Gonzalez, it's been a pleasure.

Council Member Swamp, thank you.

Council Member Herbold, thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda, Council Member Morales, thank you very much for your work over this last week.

Councilmember Juarez, thank you for your get-it-done mentality.

And finally, I want to thank the staff, Noah in my office, Ketel, Allie, Lish, Vy, Alexis, Devin, Christina Gan, Christina Postowate, Anthony Oriama, for your assistance in this bill.

That's all I have.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

So I'm going to go ahead and close out debate and discussion on this particular bill.

And I'm going to ask the clerk to please call the roll of the passage of the bill as amended.

Peterson?

No.

DeWant?

Aye.

Strauss?

Aye.

Herbold?

Nay.

Excuse me?

Nay.

No.

Thank you.

Juarez?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Juarez?

Yes.

Thank you.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Seven in favor, two opposed.

Okay, the bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it.

I would ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Thank you, colleagues, for that conversation.

We're going to go ahead and move swiftly through our agenda.

The good news is that we spent a lot of time on that particular agenda, which is agenda item one, but it's going to be smooth sailing from here on out.

Item two is our next agenda item.

Will the clerk please read agenda item two into the record?

Appointment 1575. Appointment of Scott Haskins as member of Seattle City Light Review Panel for term to April 11, 2023.

Thank you.

I move to confirm appointment 1575. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to confirm the appointment.

Council Member Peterson, you are the prime sponsor of this appointment, and I'm going to hand it over to you to address the appointment.

Thank you.

Seattle City Light falls under my Committee of Transportation and Utilities.

The purpose of this appointment, 1575, is to fill the financial analyst slot on the City Light review panel.

This candidate, Scott Haskins, is highly qualified.

30 years of experience.

His lengthy resume is in our agenda packet before you today.

I look forward to his addition to the capacity of the review panel to oversee City Light's planning and rate setting for the next three years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any comments on the appointment?

Hearing no comments on the appointment, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Peterson.

Aye.

LeJuan.

Aye.

Rouse.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Misqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

9 in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the appointment is confirmed.

Will the clerk please read items 3 through 9 into the record.

Agenda items 3 through 9, appointments 1577 through 1583. Appointments of Estella Ortega, LaVaughn Griffin-Zalati, Cheryl A. Broom, Sean Van Eyck, Justin Marlowe, Bob Thomas as members working group for Performing Auditing and Andrew J. Lewis as Chair, Working Group for Performance Auditing.

Okay, I move to confirm appointments 1577 through 1583. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to confirm the appointments.

Council Member Lewis, you are a sponsor of items three through eight, and I am gonna hand it over to you to address those appointments, and then I will address your appointment as chair to this working group.

Thank you, President.

I'll move through it fairly swiftly.

You know, it's been great to work with your office, with central staff, with David Jones, the auditor, and with Parker Dawson to identify folks who would be good for serving on this work group.

You know, Acela Ortega is well known to all of us as director of El Centro de la Raza.

It's going to be really great to have her on so many of these work groups, and we're really happy to have her involvement.

Cheryl Brewer, King County Auditor, It'll be great to have her on board.

LaVonne Griffin-Villadez, the former elected auditor of the city of Portland, Oregon.

So it'll be really good to have her unique perspective as someone who was an elected auditor and in another jurisdiction.

Sean Van Eyck, with ProTech Local 17 as a representative of organized labor, has a lot of great ideas of how auditing can be more impactful in the City of Seattle to protect, expand, and advance opportunities for our employees.

Justin Marlowe is a professor at the Evans School who has a specialization and background in, among other things, performance auditing and oversight.

Bob Thomas served as a former liner for King County and for the state of Washington.

It's a really good group of folks, a big breadth of technocratic and community experience, and really look forward to what they're able to bring forward.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you so much for addressing those appointments.

We're going to go ahead and vote on all these appointments at once, so I'm going to go ahead and address appointment 1583, which is the appointment of you to be the chair of the working group for performance auditing.

I want to thank you for the communication that you've had with my office starting in January about your idea and hope to be able to stand up this working group for performance auditing.

I recognize that folks are eager to work on on this issue and have really appreciated your leadership thus far on thinking through what that work could look like.

So appreciate your willingness to step up as chair and thank you for all of your collaboration and work on this issue.

So I don't think I need to say anything else because folks here know you and I think appreciate what you are trying to accomplish through this working group.

So are there any other comments on the appointments?

Okay, hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Peterson.

Aye.

Sawant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms.

Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms.

Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Guerra?

Aye.

Ms. Barbara Buscato, as members, Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board for term to August 31st, 2023.

Thank you so much.

I move to confirm appointments 1568 and 1558. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to confirm the appointments.

Council Member Mosqueda, you are the prime sponsor of these appointments, so I am going to yield the floor to you to address the appointments.

Thank you, Madam President.

As I mentioned this morning, this is very timely to make sure that we move forward with the filling of the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board.

There's a lot of work on the horizon for the 2021 work plan.

The appointment number 10, Rebecca Finkel.

She's a resident of Wedgwood.

She's taking the food access representative position on the community advisory board.

Rebecca is a registered dietitian who has spent the last decade engaged in community nutrition and food access work around the city.

She has served As a clinical dietitian at Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, where she collaborated with Northwest Harvest and Within Reach to promote equitable access to healthy food, she's been an outspoken advocate for promotion of food security in the healthcare system.

And item number 11 on the agenda today is the appointment of Barbara Baquero.

She is a resident of the university district.

She is also taking the food access representative position on the board.

Barbara conducts research that focuses on designing and implementing community-based intervention to prevent obesity, chronic disease, and promotes physical activity and healthy diets among the underserved populations, particularly among the Latinx community.

and it's with great enthusiasm that we put forward these two appointments for the Community Advisory Board.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any comments on the appointment?

Seeing and hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointments?

Peterson.

Aye.

Dilan.

Aye.

Rouse.

Aye.

Aye.

Juarez?

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the appointments are confirmed.

Will the clerk please read items 12 and 13 into the record.

Agenda items 12 and 13, resolution 31943, a resolution to initiate a university district business improvement area.

Resolution 31944, a resolution of intention to establish a university district parking and business improvement area and fix a date and place for a hearing thereon.

Thank you so much.

So the clerk has read both items into the record.

We will address both items and vote on each resolution separately.

So we can talk about both of these items, but at the end of the day, we're going to vote on them separately.

So I'm going to move to adopt resolution 31943. Is there a second?

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

Council Member Morales, would you like to address both resolutions?

If it's okay, Council President, I was going to allow Council Member Peterson to address the resolutions.

Not a problem.

So Council Member Peterson, we'll go ahead and volley back to you and have you address the resolutions.

Thank you.

On the introduction and referral calendar we approved today, were three pieces of legislation, two resolutions, and one council bill to reauthorize the University District Business Improvement Area, or BIA, which was originally approved for a five-year term back in April 2015, so it's expiring next month.

The resolutions before us now, resolution 31943 and resolution 31944, simply kick off the process of reauthorizing the BIA.

The real meat of the legislation is actually in the council bill, council bill 119779, which we will have over a month to discuss.

The legislation has been deemed routine and necessary because of the expiration.

It's needed in order for the BIA to continue and we routinely consider BIAs.

I appreciate Council Member Morales as the Chair of the Community and Economic Development Committee for moving ahead with this.

And I am happy to work on this because it's in the University District in District 4. And I did hear comments today from the audience, and we intend to look carefully at this council bill after we kickstart the process today with these resolutions.

So I'm happy to answer any questions about the resolutions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Morales, would you like to add anything?

No, I think we're eager to get this process started.

You know, because of the not holding meetings, we were sort of held up a little bit in this process, and the expiration is in late May, early June.

We want to make sure that we have the ability to allow for the the required public hearing.

We also have to mail out notification to the rate payers through snail mail.

So we just want to make sure that we have time for all of those processes to take place and still get the actual final vote in time for the reauthorization.

Great, thank you.

I appreciate your all's partnership on this important issue.

So are there any other comments on either resolution 31943 or 31944?

Okay, hearing none, we are gonna go ahead and vote on each resolution individually.

So they've already both been read into the title.

So will the clerk please call the vote on the pending resolution before us, resolution 31943. Peterson.

Aye.

DeWod.

Aye.

Grouse.

Aye.

Purple.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Aye.

Lewis?

Aye.

Morales?

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

And I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

We'll now move to the adoption of resolution 31944. I will move to adopt resolution 31944.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

We've already had a debate and discussion on the resolution.

So I'm going to go ahead and ask the clerk to call the roll on the adoption of resolution 31944.

Peterson.

Aye.

LeWant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herbold.

Aye.

Warrens.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Mosqueda.

Aye.

President Gonzalez.

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries.

The resolution is adopted and the chair will sign it.

And I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

All right, folks, this is the last item of business on our agenda, and that is new item 14. So I would move to adopt resolution 31945. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the resolution.

So as the sponsor of this resolution, I'll quickly address it first and then ask for comments.

Colleagues, I already went through a very long description of what this resolution is this morning, so I don't want to belabor the point.

This resolution ratifies the mayor's executive order on placing a 15% cap on third party delivery services.

So this would apply to charges that are placed or passed on to a restaurant, a commission fee per online delivery or pickup order for the use of its services that totals more than 50% of the purchase price.

of such online orders would be prohibited until restaurants are allowed to offer unrestricted dine-in service and the governor's Stay Home, Stay Healthy proclamation is rescinded or the mayoral proclamation of civil emergency dated March 3rd, 2020 is rescinded, whichever proclamation is rescinded later.

This executive order also makes it unlawful for a third party app-based food delivery platform to reduce the compensation rates paid to the delivery service driver or to garnish gratuities as a result of this order going into effect during the duration of this order.

Importantly, In terms of enforcement, the city attorney's office will be the primary enforcer of this executive order, as they are for all executive orders.

Any person found to have knowingly violated this civil emergency order will be guilty of a failure to obey the major's emergency order and can be punished with a fine of up to $500 or $1,000.

or as otherwise provided by the municipal code.

So the context of the executive order is rather simple.

We were trying to, in collaboration with Council Member Herbold and the mayor, keep the executive order narrowly focused to address the relationship between third-party-based app providers and restaurant owners.

This morning I acknowledged that there will be a need for us to address the realities of the disparate relationship that exists between drivers and these third-party delivery apps.

Many of us on Council have worked with labor partners to lift up the stories of many of these drivers and other gig economy workers who are really working in a completely unregulated industry and have no protections whatsoever.

in this space.

And so I think it's important for us to highlight that we recognize that that is an issue.

Those labor standards is an absolute issue in need in the community.

But this executive order is designed to be much more narrowly focused on, again, that relationship between these apps and the restaurants and the contractual relationship between those two types of entities.

Nonetheless, We have included some language in this executive order to make sure that there isn't a negative impact to drivers as a result of the implementation of this executive order.

I am looking forward to staying in contact with our labor partners to make sure that as they are interacting with workers, that they are organizing, that we hear directly from them.

even if it's in an anecdotal fashion, whether or not this is having an unintended consequence on that sector of the labor in our city.

So I know there's much more to come on this, and I know that many of you on council have been, like I, working with many of the labor partners on addressing issues related to this particular issue.

I'm going to conclude my comments there because I made a lot of other comments during council briefing this morning.

Consider an amendment to the resolution, a suspension of the rules is needed.

So I'm going to, if there's no objection, the council rules will be suspended to allow consideration of amendment that was not circulated by noon today.

So hearing no objection, the council rules are suspended and we can proceed with consideration of the amendment.

So I'm going to hand it over to Council Member Morales so that she can make her motion.

Yes, I move that we amend Resolution 31945 by substituting Version 2 for Version 1B as presented on the substitute recently distributed.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded to substitute the resolution.

Council Member Morales, as sponsor of the substitute, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you to address the amendment.

Thanks very much.

This just incorporates both the recital that Councilmember Herbold had asked for earlier and then a couple of amendments that we added.

So I want to thank Council President Gonzalez for adding language that my office requested to protect drivers from wage theft by a tip garnishing.

As many of you know, last year DoorDash was found to be doing this to their drivers, and this will be an important protection to ensure that drivers are protected during this time.

We've also added language to ensure that app-based delivery companies don't discriminate against low-income neighborhoods as a way to retaliate against the city.

You may have seen that in San Francisco, this is what Uber Eats did, completely cutting off the low-income community of Treasure Island, which is just 15 minutes from the downtown San Francisco headquarters.

even going as far as trying to organize the low-income community against the city.

So these are all incorporated in this new substitute and I thank all of you for helping us to make sure that nobody gets retaliated against when we are trying to protect workers and protect low-income folks.

Thank you Council Member Morales for those remarks.

I consider all of these amendments to be friendly amendments and have absolutely no issue with incorporating them.

I think they're good amendments and strengthen the executive order and the intent of the executive order, so thank you for that.

Are there any additional comments on the substitute?

Okay, hearing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the substitute?

Peterson.

Aye.

LeBlanc.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

9 in favor, none opposed.

The motion carries and the substitute is adopted and version two of the resolution is before the council.

Are there any additional comments on the resolution as amended?

Council member Peterson, the floor is yours.

I just wanted to thank the council president for doing so much outreach to the various stakeholders.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Lewis, I see your hand.

You are next and then Council Member Mosqueda.

So thank you everybody for bringing this forward and I look forward to voting for the substitute again today now that it is the official resolution.

I just wanted to flag that going forward based on our conversation this morning I am interested in working with folks potentially on some kind of hazard pay ordinance.

I've been talking to some of our partners at the Teamsters and working in Washington about the possibility of pursuing some additional legislation as we discussed this morning.

I just want to flag my interest in that.

I want to flag my interest in that to the community as well who is watching this afternoon and concerned about uh some of the things that aren't addressed by the order uh and just wanted to let everyone know you know i for one i'm interested i'm sure some of my council colleagues are interested and i look forward to uh having that discussion this week.

Thank you Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Council President.

You know, I think that this effort is really important to make sure that workers are protected.

And I also want to make sure that we're underscoring the intent to reduce the fees that these large companies are imposing on small businesses.

I think Council President has spoken well about that concern.

Right now, we want to make sure that our smallest businesses are not having additional fees imposed on them.

And we've heard stories both anecdotally and we've seen some data that indicates That it is a hardship for many of these small businesses, these restaurants to have that fee imposed on them.

So I think that this will be helpful.

But the second part that we're talking about here is the food that our small businesses are creating have to be delivered to the homes of residents across the city.

and would not be done without the work of those who are on these app-based platforms.

I'm concerned that the original drafting of this executive order by the mayor's office didn't include a more robust conversation with the teamsters, with folks that work in Washington and additionally with some of the folks who've been reaching out to our office in an effort to engage in a robust conversation.

For example, the folks at Postmates who I think we're looking for some solutions as well.

I am appreciative of some of the language that you were able to get included in here.

to make sure that the order is clear that we don't want to see reductions in wages.

We don't want to see reduction in gratuity.

And as we also commit today to wanting to work with stakeholders, specifically Teamsters 117 and Working Washington, there's a few pieces that I'd like to call our attention to.

We've heard repeatedly that there's been ongoing training that's been offered to the fleet, if you will, of individuals to do the delivery, but this has not been accompanied by adequate PPE, so that's an ongoing issue that we know we need to see is personal protective equipment for all these individuals who are delivering food to our community members.

It's already been mentioned the desire to see hazard pay for these workers, and I fully support that.

Access to restrooms is something that we've talked about being a concern for not just those who don't have a place to use a restroom in their own home because they are houseless, but also for workers just like this, folks across the city who need access to clean, accessible restrooms and looking forward to making sure that the folks who are providing this service, delivering food, can also access restrooms in a safe way.

that also works for our smallest businesses.

I appreciate the language that Council Member Morales has put forward in conjunction with Council President Gonzalez to make sure that there is not a reduction in delivery services, especially in communities of color and those lowest wage communities, and that we ensure equity across the city by your location amendment.

And then finally, I think the council president has spoken well about this, but our concern I think remains around enforcement.

And I think we'll be looking for OLS to provide additional information because we know that people reach out to OLS as sort of the default.

agency where they seek information.

So looking forward to making sure that it's very clear to folks how to report if there are either unintended consequences or issues that might have cropped up that have not been fully addressed.

So again I want to thank the folks who've been working to highlight some concerns that are ongoing and I think the full commitment from this council as you've heard is to make sure that we address issues like PPE, training, hazard pay, and that we're intentional about coming back and working with all of you Teamsters, Postmates working in Washington and others who've reached out to our office and appreciate that this is one piece of the pie or one step.

as has been described today, to make sure that our smallest businesses, those restaurants, really don't have this being imposed on them.

That's critical, and I'll support the ordinance with all the work that you've done, Council President, and with the amendments that you've included.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Sawant, I thought I saw you raise your hand.

There we go.

Okay, just confirming.

You are up next.

Thank you, President Gonzalez.

I will be supporting this today, and I wanted to also reiterate the points that have been made by some other council members about The need to explicitly look out for the interests of some of our most vulnerable workers, you know, workers who are not even recognized as employees who are misclassified as independent contractors.

I certainly support having an executive order to protect Seattle's small business restaurants from being gouged by big app-based delivery companies, just as I have supported and helped organize for small business rent control.

However, I am in solidarity with the concerns that have been expressed by Working Washington, by the Teamsters, and by other community organizations that represent worker interests that We cannot stop with this executive order because we need to fully address the needs of workers either in the restaurants or the interests of delivery drivers who are risking their lives to help people stay fed or for very little compensation and in the absence of any kind of protective equipment, hardly any protective equipment.

And as Working Washington have said, they are an organization that has helping organizing delivery workers who will be directly impacted by orders such as these, as well as restaurant workers and workers with other industries.

And, you know, to quote Working Washington from their letter, when they expressed concerns about this executive order, they say gig delivery drivers among the lowest paid workers in the city with rates as low as $1.45 per hour after expenses on DoorDash.

And restaurant workers are at least protected by CF of minimum wage, $15 an hour minimum wage that our movement fought for.

But because delivery workers are often misclassified as independent contractors, they lack even those, many of those protections, many of the worker protections.

And I really strongly agree with Working Washington's letter.

And, in fact, there may be some of these demands earlier on and also by the grassroots strike of Instacart workers.

And the Working Washington letter actually reiterates some of the demands made by the grassroots strike of Instacart workers.

And to quote from the Instacart workers' strike statement on – and Working Washington, they are urging that the council really pushed for requiring a hazard pay surcharge of $5 per delivery.

And they say if that is for some reason not possible to enact under emergency rules, then you can, as an alternative, explore imposing a parallel 15% commission cap on the share of delivery fees and service charges.

and opportunity to take the workers, to help the workers providing the service.

I also would say that I strongly support the work that is being done by the Office of Labor Standards, but we have to make sure as a council we stand against any kind of budget cuts, and this discussion has come in the context of the tax Amazon legislation.

that we have to oppose any kind of budget cuts because the budget cuts will impact departments, city departments, like the Office of Labor Standards, who, if they have their staffing cut or their staffing is not able to be augmented, then the investigations that the workers rely on will not be able to be carried out in a timely manner.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll make this brief.

I appreciate our work to protect small businesses and we need to also identify how we can protect our workers who are delivering these foods.

We need to take into consideration how we can protect good actors such as Postmates and follow up with Teamsters and Work in Washington to identify ways to protect the people who are keeping us living the lives as normal as possible.

When I was in AmeriCorps, I was red carded as a wildland firefighter.

And firefighters, when they're just at the station, receive one rate of pay.

And when you have fire under your feet and smoke in your lungs, you receive H-pay because you're putting your life on the line of hazard on behalf of the rest of the community.

And I think that we need to have H-pay for our workers here in the city, making it so that we can live as close to life to normal as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Council Member Herbold?

Thank you.

I just want to underscore one of the points that's been made.

It will be, with passage of this emergency order, unlawful for a third party at a food delivery platform to reduce compensation rates paid to delivery service drivers or garnish gratuities as a result of this order going into effect.

I want to take some responsibility for the fact that I was an early advocate for us to use the vehicle of an emergency order to address this issue quickly and was assured that we would deal separately with some of the issues around minimum compensation for delivery drivers who are not otherwise considered employees.

I think it's really important to recognize that With this act that we are about to take, we are not only helping small businesses, but we are helping the people who are considered employees under the law of those small businesses.

We know that in Seattle, the majority of employees actually work for small businesses.

And so it's really important to recognize that this is an act that is designed to make it possible for small businesses to continue to employ people.

Many of the businesses in my district who came to me about this emergency order as was passed in San Francisco told me that they were considering that the paycheck protection program, what we referred to as PPP, which was a paycheck protection program, was going to be the thing that was going to come to their rescue and allow them to continue to pay their employees.

And it's because of the failure of the paycheck protection program to meet the needs of small businesses that they are then reaching out to the council on this issue related to capping service charges so that they can continue to pay their employees as well as stay open.

So many thanks to Madam President Gonzalez, as well as the mayor's office in working quickly to pull this together and look forward to continued work to address the needs of the drivers and moving quickly on that.

But I'm also, again, reassured that the order before us makes very clear what is not lawful, and what the process is for our city to have the city attorney enforce emergency orders that are violated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Well said.

I don't have anything to add to that.

I appreciate you highlighting those points.

Colleagues, any other comments before I go ahead and close this out?

Okay, no other comments, so I'm going to go ahead and ask that the clerk call the roll on the adoption of the resolution as amended.

Peterson.

Aye.

DeWant.

Aye.

Strauss.

Aye.

Herpel.

Aye.

Juarez.

Aye.

Lewis.

Aye.

Morales.

Aye.

Aye.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

None in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The resolution is adopted as amended, and the chair will sign it.

I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation.

Colleagues, we have one last item of business on the agenda, and that is the letter that Councilmember Lewis circulated during the council briefing meeting.

And so I'm going to ask Councilmember Lewis if you have any other comments to add before I ask the clerk to call that to a vote.

Well, actually, Councilmember Gonzalez, my office circulated three letters.

I just wanted to make sure that that was clear, or I guess I could ask what specific letter you're referring to.

I'm referring to any of the letters you want signed during full council.

Right.

So the first is the Amazon MLK letter.

The second is a letter to the University of Washington School of Medicine urging an equitable contract.

The third one is an arts letter about unemployment insurance reimbursement rate to our federal delegation.

Those are the three letters.

I didn't receive any changes in between morning briefing and now.

So I guess I would just ask, based on that, if folks have had a chance to review, all the letters were distributed last week before full council, I believe.

No, I think there was some letters that were circulated today just at 12.15.

Oh.

Yeah.

So that's part of the- I'm not going to hold those ones until next week.

But I was actually, I was under the impression that Those had been circulated earlier than that, so I apologize.

But the Amazon letter, I think, was circulated by the Labor Council itself.

So we could at least, I guess, call for a vote on that one.

And then I'll circle back on the other two to give people time.

Okay, before you do that, if you have concerns proceeding with any, with the other two letters, colleagues, if you could just sort of raise your hand.

It's just sort of an informal sense here.

I don't think anybody is signaling concern about moving forward with your letters.

So I think we can go ahead and just handle those now.

if that's all right, Council Member Lewis.

That's fine with me.

Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and have the clerk call the roll to secure Council Member's signatures.

Unless there's an objection from my colleagues, I'll ask that the roll be called on all three letters.

I'm not hearing any objections to moving forward that way procedurally.

So we'll go ahead and ask the clerk to call the roll to secure council member signatures on the three letters as described by Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Aye.

Council Member Strauss.

Aye.

Council Member Herbold.

Aye.

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Lewis?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

So, Council Member Lewis, you have, looks like, a unanimous signature count on all three of your letters, so you may go forth and prosper on distribution of those letters.

Is there any other business to come before the Council?

There is no other business to come before the Council.

The next City Council meeting, that was, I'm sorry, that was the last item of business on our agenda for today.

The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 4th, 2020 at 2 p.m.

It will be calling a virtual remote meeting as we have been doing.

As we all know, the governor's stay home, stay healthy order is slated to expire on May 4th.

We have not heard yet whether that will be extended or not.

So at this point, We are slated to continue to meet remotely through May 4th, so plan to utilize the Zoom function that we have been utilizing for our May 4th meeting.

I will stay in close contact with all of you as we continue to hear from the governor's office about how any of his announcements might impact our ongoing operations.

Thank you so much for your stamina and for being here today.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.