Transcript of seattle-city-council - Seattle City Council Briefing 32122

SPEAKER_02

Good afternoon, everyone.

SPEAKER_00

Good afternoon, everyone.

SPEAKER_06

Good afternoon, everyone.

SPEAKER_01

Good afternoon, everyone.

SPEAKER_06

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon, everyone Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council President Pro Tem Mosqueda.

Present.

SPEAKER_02

Seven present.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

If there's no objection, the minutes of the March 14, 2022 Council briefing will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

Colleagues, today on our agenda, we do not have any proclamations or presentations for our consideration of the body as a whole.

We are going to go ahead and hear from each council member as our weekly agenda sets.

Each council member will report out.

I will ask, before I ask you to approve today's agenda, for your consideration and opportunity to have Councilmember Strauss go last in the lineup.

He has asked to go last today in the report-outs.

And tomorrow, on the consent agenda, we will have four appointments, along with the minutes from the introduction and referral calendar, payments of the bills.

We're going to vote on all of those.

It's one consent vote, unless any Councilmember requests that any item be moved from the consent agenda for tomorrow.

For today, is there any objection to having the agenda adopted?

Hearing none, thank you very much, colleagues.

We are going to go ahead and go in the order of that roll call was presented in.

Again, that will be Councilmember Peterson, Councilmember Swann.

Then we'll go to Councilmember Herbold, Morales, Mosqueda, and Nelson.

Councilmember, excuse me, I will go last on today's list, and then Councilmember Strauss will go before me.

Councilmember Lewis is excused for today.

I will also read out their comments, and Council President Juarez, as I noted, is out for today.

Wonderful, colleagues.

Thanks so much.

We will go ahead and get us started.

Councilmember Peterson, thanks for getting us started today.

I'll turn it over to you.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, President Pro Tem Mosqueda.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

On tomorrow afternoon's full City Council agenda, there is one item related to our Committee on Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities.

That's Council Bill 120271, which finalizes the various agreements and Our next committee meeting of the Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities Committee will be Tuesday, April 5 at 9.30am.

In District 4 this past week, I met with leaders of the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce and we discussed the serious concerns about rising crime in that neighborhood.

This echoes concerns I've heard recently impacting East Lake and some areas of Northeast Seattle.

Just yesterday, there was a tragic murder on the western edge of the University District in the greenway adjacent to Interstate 5. Seattle homicide detectives are investigating after a man was shot and killed in a long-standing, unauthorized encampment near Northeast 43rd Street along I-5's northbound exit toward Northeast 45th Street.

People began to call 911 around 1230 p.m.

yesterday to report shots fired near this location.

Officers arrived and found a man already shot.

Seattle Fire Department medics attempted to provide aid, but the victim died at the scene.

Our office and constituents have repeatedly reported concerns with this growing encampment on this greenway next to the off-ramp owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Homicide detectives are investigating and ask anyone with information to call the tip line 206-233-5000.

While I appreciate the Harrell administration increasing its response to visible crime downtown, I'm confident that they will also ensure that other neighborhoods continue to get attention.

As we know, our city charter says there shall be maintained adequate police protection in each district of the city.

Neighbors in District 4 continue to lack community policing officers used to meet with neighbors and small businesses, identify crime trends, and build trust in the communities to which they were assigned.

As SPD's hiring plan strives to replace at least some of the 300 officers lost over the past two years so they can more quickly respond to 901 priority calls, I'm looking forward to the day when community policing officers can once again get out of their patrol cars and walk our neighborhoods.

That concludes my report.

Any questions before we turn it over to Council Member Solano?

SPEAKER_02

I'm not seeing any, and I just want to tee up for Council Member Swann.

Council Member Swann, we have a little change in the handoff.

You would be handing it off to Council Member Herbold.

SPEAKER_03

Thanks so much.

Thank you for reminding me about that.

I appreciate that.

And thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Good afternoon, everyone.

There are no items on tomorrow's City Council agenda from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee.

As we know, unfortunately, Seattle's democratic establishment, starting with Mayor Harrell, recently decided to end the city's pandemic eviction moratorium.

When my office brought forward the legislation to extend the moratorium till the end of the official declaration of the emergency, Only council members Herbold, Mosqueda, and myself voted in favor of it.

Today, Seattle's ordinance creating a defense against eviction for the six months following the end of the COVID emergency was unfortunately struck down in court because the law is means-tested, requiring renters to self-certify that they support financial hardship during the emergency.

And the judge said that the landlord did not have a way to challenge those self-certifications.

In my mind, and as I have said repeatedly, these renter rights should never have been means tested at all.

I have not had a chance to discuss with the city attorney's office yet because this just happened today.

Maybe they are planning to appeal.

However, if that is not the case, then my office has asked city council central staff earlier today to prepare legislation to correct any legal challenge preferably by removing the means testing from this law.

Last Friday, the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee continued to discuss situations when landlords have violated housing codes and renter rights and the difficulties renters and renter advocates had getting justice.

Seattle Department of Construction Inspections, commonly referred to by its initials as DCI, presented at the committee about how they investigate and enforce renters' rights and what powers they have and do not have to intervene when a renter calls their hotline.

Then we heard from a panel of renters and renter advocates about their experiences when their rights were violated and their attempts to get justice.

My office is regularly contacted by renters who are having their rights violated.

Sometimes their landlord has broken the law and other times they are subjected to conditions that are unacceptable but not illegal.

We have also found that far too often renters cannot get justice even when their landlords have broken the law.

By working with renters over the years and discussing the city's enforcement procedures with experts at the housing justice project and at the SDCA, my office is gathering examples where the city's enforcement procedures need to improve.

We intend to develop legislation overhaul how renters' rights are enforced in our city.

That is all from the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee and from my office.

Do council members have any questions or comments?

Seeing none, I will hand it off to Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07

Greetings.

Good afternoon.

Hello.

Thank you so much, Council Member Szilagyi.

I have no items on the full council agenda tomorrow from the Public Safety and Human Services Committee, but the Public Safety and Human Services Committee is meeting this week.

We meet tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m., and the agenda items for the committee include the following.

We will be adopting the Office of Police Accountability Director search process update.

I'll be moving that the committee members adopt the process as outlined in the memo and that Senior Deputy Mayor Harold Sherrill shared at the meeting on the 8th.

The schedule itself has been updated to include a public forum as requested during the discussion by Councilmember Mosqueda.

Also on the agenda, we'll be hearing from the office of emergency management on their 2021 race and social justice initiative report.

We'll also be hearing from Chief Diaz on the Seattle Police Department strategic plan.

And then secondly, we'll be having a second briefing and vote on a council bill that we heard in committee last time related to grants received for the Urban Areas Security Initiative.

I have one amendment to the legislation.

that is now linked to the agenda.

The amendment clarifies that expenditures made by the ordinance when spent on equipment for use by SPD and is subject to SMC 1418 regarding acquisition of surveillance technology that termination, in those cases where determination is made that the equipment is surveillance technology, the spending will not occur until after the new SIR is acted on by the City Council.

As far as updates in my issue areas, first Human Services Department update.

I want to share from the Human Services Department that the Senior Farmers Market Nutritional Program enrollment will be opening on April 11th.

It provides $40 worth of vouchers or checks to purchase fruits and vegetables at participating farmers markets all over the city.

And so this is for folks who are 60 years or older, 55 for American Indian and Alaska Native, also low income and live in King County.

Those are the folks who are eligible to apply.

and applications are available in multiple languages.

You can learn more at agingkingcounty.org forward slash SFMNP.

on the public safety realm.

I know that Council members have expressed their interest in the content of response to our statement of legislative intent requiring hiring incentive programs.

And I want to thank Council Central staff for recently providing an update on the timing of that report.

Again, that's a report requested in response to Statement of Legislative Intent 13-A-002.

For the viewing public, the latest update is that the report, though it was due on March 1st, the executive requested an extension through the end of last week, and has since informed us that it will be further delayed, but we are expecting a response the week of March 28th.

I want to add to Councilmember Peterson's remarks about the latest gun violence.

There were homicides last Thursday and two over the weekend, as mentioned by Councilmember Peterson, the shooting death.

in the university, was in an encampment, and then there was a Sunday homicide in Soto where officers noted that they were called to an encampment.

In addition, a suspect was shot in Seattle by officers after a reported robbery at a cannabis store in Bellevue.

SPD has been providing a weekly shots fired in shooting injuries and shooting deaths report.

And as of last week, homicides overall are at nine as compared to last year.

As I just mentioned, those numbers will be increasing with this week's homicides.

If you're just looking at the shootings and shots fired events, they're up 95%.

with 148 shootings and shots fired events as of now compared to 76 events last year.

Specifically shootings, which are a subset of that larger category, they are up 171% with 46 events year-to-date compared to 17 shootings last year, year-to-date.

The continued uptick in gun violence highlights the importance of our gun violence prevention initiatives.

I have been seeking information from both the Human Services Department the police department and the mayor's office about the progress in implementing $2 million in city funding to support the Regional Peacekeepers Coalition work, specifically with Harborview Hospital.

We all know that being a victim of violence makes it much more likely that same person will become, again, either a victim or a perpetrator of gun violence.

and we know that the higher review program reaches out to gun violence victims while they're still in the hospital to connect them and their family with services and whether or not that's social workers, counseling, mentoring, job training, housing assistance, whatever community resources are available to try to help folks from being shot again or picking up a gun and shooting someone else.

And so just like we are getting weekly data on gun violence, I think we need to really be ensuring that we are seeking to connect the victims and families for each one of these shootings.

to this program because if we really believe that the intervention through the Harborview program will deliver outcomes that save lives, and I do, I think the city has a responsibility to be tracking the use of this program and the city's investments in this program in real time.

I just want to flag that for folks.

We know How many of these shooting incidents are happening every week because of the reporting we're receiving?

I want to also get confirmation in real time.

how many of these victims and families are being connected to the gun violence prevention program in real time.

I don't think it's appropriate to wait until a year's funding is over or even a quarter's funding is over.

This is, I think, monitoring and oversight that we need to be looking at, again, in real time.

Also want to note that over the last few days, I've had my weekly scheduled meetings with City Attorney Davidson and Public Safety Director Andrew Meyerberg, discussed a variety of efforts specifically with the City Attorney, discussed the High Utilizers Initiative, and tried to clarify some information that we haven't received.

I think we received the infographic that talks about the issue that they're addressing, but not a lot of information around sort of how they're implementing it.

So I have requested sort of a frequently asked questions document for how they're actually implementing the initiative.

I think there was some some reporting that made it sound like everybody on the 113 by name list will be arrested if found that they are suspected of a crime.

I think the city attorney's office is taking a more person-to-person analysis and trying to match people as they continue to become involved with the criminal legal system.

Also, discussed a wide variety of topics with the mayor's office, the gun violence efforts that I mentioned, as well as the work around 3rd Avenue and Operation New Day.

And last week, I also had a great meeting with the mayor's office and the Seattle Police Department regarding the implementation of the less lethal weapons legislation adopted by the city council last summer.

And happy to answer any questions about that that folks might have about that.

work that still has yet to be completed.

On the Regional Committee update last week, the King County Regional Homeless Authority Governing Committee met, and we know that the Governing Committee will be reviewing the regional homeless authorities, homelessness authorities proposed 2023 budget next month with their goal that we vote on approval by the end of April.

I have asked the authority to schedule additional meetings so that governing committee members and the public have adequate time to review and understand the proposal.

And at that meeting, the RHA also presented on its unique approach to this year's point in time count.

And I just want to make people aware, if they're not already aware, that they are actually collecting from stakeholders who have awareness of locations where people are living unsheltered.

collecting those locations so that the researchers can go to those locations and ask residents what they need to find housing, and that will inform the point-in-time report.

So I have that portal for folks to submit those locations.

If you're interested, please contact my office.

And then lastly, the Thursday Board of Health meeting, we discussed the upcoming restructuring of the Board of Health.

This is a new requirement.

by state law, there will be some changes to the composition of the board itself.

Shouldn't affect the city of Seattle too much, except in the fact that some of the other areas where there are appointments are having some changes.

So that sort of has a little bit of an impact on the relative power, if you will, of each of the different components.

Other meetings coming up this week, I'll be meeting with the Highland Park Action Committee on Wednesday to discuss their ideas for affordable housing development in the neighborhood.

And that's all I've got for folks today.

Anybody have any questions for me?

Not seeing any questions or comments, I will pass it on to Councilman Morales.

SPEAKER_02

Councilman Morales, just a reminder for you as well.

We will have you handed off to Councilmember Nelson afterwards and Councilmember Nelson will be referring to Councilmember Strauss and then I will clean up.

Great, thank you.

SPEAKER_04

little bit of musical chairs today.

That's great.

Well, I first want to start by just thanking Councilmember Herbold for the comments about the gun violence prevention work.

I completely agree with you that that is a critical body of work that we have supported and need to continue to support.

That work is, if you don't know, the work of actually meeting victims at the hospital, providing support to them and their families is resource intensive, it's expensive, you know, the folks who engage in that work attend the family inside the hospital, they attend to family that is not allowed in, so they go outside the hospital, they try to keep two sides separated if That is something that's needed.

And then if we're talking about, you know, some sort of gang activity, they also work to get a family member to a safe house that often involves leaving town.

So they pay for transportation, for housing, for food.

and they support the family that remains behind and then they support with re-entry back into the community when it's safe to do so.

So there is a lot involved in that work and it is really important work in order to be able to prevent the next incident from happening and it is willfully underfunded right now.

So I want to thank Council Member Herbold for bird-dogging that, as they say, in Texas.

Okay, so my next committee, the Neighborhood Education, Arts, and Rights Committee is this Friday at 9.30.

We will hear 2022 work plans from the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Lots to talk about there.

We've got a lot of Afghan refugees coming into the area, and we know that we will very likely be having Ukrainian refugees coming as well.

We will also hear the 2022 work plan from the Office of Arts and Culture.

And we have 11 appointments, so buckle up.

We've got the Pike Market Development Authority, Historic Seattle.

We have, I believe, the Arts Commission, as well as the Community Involvement Commission.

So lots of commission appointments coming through so that these commissions can really get started on their work, which we know is important to the city as well.

Last week I also attended the Board of Health committee meeting where we heard from our director Dennis Worsham about the transition back into the workplace.

I know we're all possibly at different places in our comfort with that and so part of the reminder was that as we're easing up on masking restrictions He just wanted to remind folks that there are some settings where masks will continue to be required.

That includes public transit, jails, healthcare settings, and long-term care settings.

And we just heard from our own Council President this morning about some of the work that we will be needing to do at Council.

Director Worsham also mentioned several non-COVID related issues that the department is tracking right now.

And I just want to mention one, which is tuberculosis, which is rare, but has not been eradicated in the U.S.

And in fact, one of my children had a child in one of their schools just recently who had TB.

So they are ramping up public education campaign, they will be working with CDC.

And just to remind folks, TB as an infection is a contagious airborne disease.

There is also latent TB, which is somebody who has been infected but isn't necessarily contagious.

And part of the challenge, we've got about 100,000 cases of latent TB in King County, but about 1% of those do move into active contagious disease.

And so this is part of why the CDC will be launching a campaign in many languages to make sure that people know their status and to help people understand what options for treatment are if they do find that they are positive.

Okay, moving on to district issues.

Last week I met with representatives from the Seattle Rideshare Association.

They're looking to better understand the timeline with OLS as it relates to the deactivation protection and the fair share policies that support drivers.

So we will be following up with OLS on several questions that they had.

My staff and I met with the Bicycle Advisory Board to discuss visions for the Beacon bike route.

Last week, the SDOT met in our Transportation Committee and released a plan for the initial third of the route.

Once completed, that will be the South End's first and only protected direct bike route to the center city.

So for that reason it's really important not just for the folks living on Beacon Hill but anybody through the Rainier Valley that will be the one protected lane that you have to get into downtown.

And right now there aren't any concrete plans for moving that further down into the Rainier Valley corridor.

As I've said before, we really need more protected bike lanes so that people can get around their neighborhoods safely.

And for those who do need to get downtown, they also need a safe and direct route.

So I'm really excited about this plan and look forward to working with SDOT to make sure that gets implemented.

My staff and I took part in our bi-weekly Little Saigon meeting.

Folks are particularly interested right now in an issue that has been ongoing for quite some time as it relates to electronic benefits transfers.

So folks are coming together to try to brainstorm how to make sure that any fraud that is happening is not is not impacting EBT holders or the store owners themselves.

So they're just asking, the community is asking for some support in making sure that those activities are monitored and hopefully ended.

We also attended a community meeting with El Centro de la Raza.

They have a new housing complex that I'm very excited about coming into Columbia City.

We'll also be working with the Church of Hope.

This project will include 87 affordable units for families.

Over 50% of the units will be two or three bedrooms, which is exciting because especially in the south end, we have a real need for something beyond studios and ones.

This will also include a multicultural bilingual child development center.

It'll have a courtyard, a permanent home for the Church of Hope, and office space for Consejo Counseling and Referral Services.

So very excited about that project coming in.

We also attended the Facilities and Economic Development Committee of the Arts Commission.

The commission work plan includes supporting the Cultural Space Agency, which my colleagues will recall we stood up in the last year, and they are staffing up now as they move into the Grand Street Commons space in Mount Baker.

And you'll recall that we just approved a street vacation for this project.

And part of the public benefit of that is that they will provide space for the Cultural Space Agency.

So I'm really excited to get that project going as well.

And I think for us as a council, our next step will be making sure that that Cultural Space Agency is resourced in such a way to actually be able to deliver on what we've asked them to do.

let's see this week my staff and I will take part in our bi-weekly meeting with the Mount Baker community and then finally I will be attending a building tenant power workshop that'll be hosted by BC adult and this is going to be on the topic of social housing you'll recall this is something I started working on last year and continue to explore so I'll be speaking about the potential of adding that to our overall urban landscape in Seattle, and talking a little bit about what it might look like to build a portfolio of publicly owned housing.

Spoiler, this is not just low income, and I'm happy to keep talking about that with you all more, but it really is about how we can treat housing like we treat some other public programs like education, for example.

And we'll also be talking a little bit about some of the innovations that I saw and that I learned about from social housing leaders in Nantes, our sister city, when I attended several meetings there last year.

That is all that I have.

If colleagues have any questions, I'm happy to take them.

I am not seeing anything, so I will pass it to Council Member Nelson.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you very much, Council Member Morales.

There's nothing from the Economic Development, Technology and City Light Committee on the agenda tomorrow.

Our meeting is this week on Wednesday at 9.30, March 23rd.

and we've got two items on the agenda.

The first is a vote on the appointment of Michelle Mitchell-Brannan to the City Light Review Panel for position seven, which is the low-income advocate representative.

This is appointment number 02122. Ms. Mitchell-Brannan is the Director of Youth and Educational Support at the Atlantic Street Center, and she's been She's been serving on the panel for a little bit, and we're finally bringing forward this appointment, so that's exciting.

And then finally, we will have a public hearing on Council Bill 120273 to raise the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area's rate from $2 to $4.

And unless there are no concerns, I will ask for the rules to be suspended and a vote on this piece of legislation in committee.

Last week was a busy one, and some of the highlights include a meeting with Angela Dunleavy, who is the director of Fair Start.

We mostly talked about their workforce development programs, and I learned a lot of things.

For example, did you know that Fair Start produces about 130,000 meals a month?

And during COVID, it was the first year of COVID, it was about 160,000 meals a month.

And 75,000 of those meals go to residents in permanent supportive housing residences in Seattle.

So that's a lot of work, and they'll be bringing people back to the kitchens coming up, I think, this month or next month.

I got a briefing from Deputy Superintendent Williams on the Seattle Park District's Cycle 2 planning process, and also on the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department's public survey.

And while we were talking about the planning process, I happened to mention the community's desire for turfing of Judkins Playfields.

When I go to CD Panthers games, this is the first thing that people say.

So I let that be known, and I recognize that there's a process for public engagement on the list of projects to be advanced.

I attended the Seattle Film Commission's meeting and voiced support for elevating the work of the Seattle, of the Office of Film and Music.

I checked in with the directors of the Soto University District, Pioneer Square, and Little Saigon Neighborhood Business Districts, just about what's going on in their neighborhoods, and provided the update that I had on the recommendations that they forwarded during my committee hearing on my roundtable discussion on the impacts of, well, their public safety concerns.

So also met with the Northwest Energy Coalition's Director Nancy Hirsch and Amy Willis on some of their ongoing work.

And they had really good things to say about their relationship with Seattle City Light Leadership.

So that was good to hear.

I met with Gordon McHenry of United Way of Seattle King County.

And we talked mostly about their work on systems change, which I had not very much familiarity with.

I had a great panel discussion with RHA CEO Mark Dones and City Attorney Ann Davison at the Downtown Seattle Association's annual State of Downtown event.

And then finally met with the leadership of Cascade Bicycle Club and Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

And that was all during the day.

And I already spoke about our evening community work.

My I and my staff attended a an appreciation dinner for Seattle Police Department that was hosted by the Asian community.

And we attended Seattle subway celebration of the passage of the robust transportation package.

and attended the Golden Circle Awards and Lunar New Year celebration hosted by the Organization of Chinese Americans.

And so this week, I will be attending the Regional Leadership Conference.

It's an annual event, and this is the first time that it will be taking place for the last couple years.

So I will be there from Wednesday to Friday.

That's it for me.

Any questions?

All right.

I believe that I now pass it on to Councilmember Strauss.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem, colleagues.

This week and last week in District 6, I was very excited to finally reopen our District 6 office coinciding with Mayor Harrell's return to office protocols.

As you may know, I opened my district office on the second day on the job and in my ninth week in office, we temporarily closed it due to the pandemic and public health guidelines.

We will continue to monitor and adjust our office protocols based on public health data and information to assess the use of the office.

And I can tell you, we are very excited to have the office reopened.

Last week in District 6, on Wednesday, I welcomed the Prince of Sweden and 50 Swedish business leaders and entrepreneurs who are visiting the United States this month.

His Royal Highness Prince Daniel bestowed Eric Nelson, the Executive Director of the National Nordic Museum, with the honor of Knight First Class Royal of the Royal Order of the Polar Star.

This was because Eric Nelson received this recognition in 2020 and it was presented this last week due to the pandemic.

He received this honor for his leadership in our community and leading the funding and construction of the building that the museum now calls home.

His efforts created a world-class building meeting the museum standards and that allowed him to continue leading, gaining even more recognition for the museum as it is now the National Nordic Museum.

It's a national museum, which is incredible.

And with him serving as executive director of the museum transformed from being the Nordic Heritage Museum to the National Nordic Museum and from being in an old school to being in a state of the art building.

So congratulations, Eric.

It was an amazing honor to get to be present with you to watch you receive that honor.

Last week in District 6, I also met with Parks Director Christopher Williams to discuss the upcoming Metropolitan Parks District Spending Plan.

If you have projects in D6 you'd like to have included, please do let me and my office know.

My staff and I also attended a walking tour on Seaview Avenue discussing the safety improvements that are being planned to be implemented this spring to increase pedestrian safety on that street.

I also hosted my weekly office hours with D6 residents on Thursday from 2 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

I met with three people from Green Lake, two from West Woodland, one from Whittier Heights, and two from Ballard.

We discussed public safety, homelessness, Leary Triangle waste management, and Green Lake walking loop changes.

I had a really nice conversation with a woman from Ballard.

I'll be honest, we don't agree on everything, And even when we don't agree, we speak candidly and with respect.

She wanted me to share that she appreciates when we lead by example of civility because we set the examples for ourselves, each other, and the public.

And while it was a very fun conversation with a lot of it, I'll leave it at that.

It was really great to speak with you.

And last week and this week, I continue to hold my weekly operations meetings coordinating with community leaders, governmental entities, and non-governmental entities to make meaningful interventions to address homelessness in specific places in District 6. If you would like to meet with me for a status update or more information, please do sign up for my office hours that we have every week.

This coming week on Tuesday in D6, I'll be attending the North Seattle Industrial Association meeting.

On Tuesday, I'll have my regular meeting with Police Chief Diaz.

Wednesday morning, I'll be attending the Green Lake Chamber of Commerce meeting.

And on Thursday, I hold my weekly office hours with D6 residents from 2 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

Here at the Land Use Committee, there are no items from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's full council agenda.

There's one item from the Land Use Committee on tomorrow's introduction and referral calendar, a resolution that ratifies the countywide planning policies which were adopted last year.

The next meeting of the Land Use Committee is this Wednesday, March 23rd, starting at 2 p.m., and we have an agenda of four items, a public hearing and vote on Council Bill 120265, which extends the Bringing Business Home Bill for six months as permanent regulations are finalized, a discussion and vote on Council Bill 120207, Council Member Peterson's Tree Service Provider Registry Bill that I've co-sponsored with great excitement, and a briefing and vote on the resolution ratifying the countywide planning policies.

We will also have a briefing on the maritime industrial strategy process for anyone who wants more information or to weigh in.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

Colleagues, that is my report.

Are there any questions?

Seeing none, I will pass it to Council President Pro Tem, Council Member Mosqueda.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Strauss.

And colleagues, I will start with Councilmember Lewis's update.

Councilmember Lewis is excused for today.

He does provide the following updates.

First, from the Clean Cities Initiative, he has a weekly report out.

These are statistics from the week of March 7 through 13. The Clean City Initiative reports that there was over 103,000 pounds of trash collected from 46 sites, over 2,430 needles collected, and that clean up focus sites include Hutchinson's Playground and Meadowbrook Community Center.

Reporting out on items related to the library, the library reports that pickup lockers have reopened at High Point and Rainier Beach.

The number of reopened pickup lockers will be expanded at more branches throughout the year.

And the book spiral and reading room at the Central Library will also reopen as the library begins to expand its hours of operation.

The library will return to pre-Omicron hours on Wednesday, March 30th.

To see the full list of hours and the branches nearest your location, please visit spd.org backslash today.

Any questions for Council Member Lewis's report out?

Hearing none, I'll go ahead and move on to my report out.

Colleagues, I want to say happy Holi from folks who had the chance to celebrate, including the team in my office.

Happy Holi.

I hope you had the chance to celebrate on Friday and had a colorful weekend.

The next Finance and Housing Committee meeting is on April 6th at 9.30 a.m.

We are finalizing our agenda still, and as a reminder, if you have any amendments that will Affect the capital projects watch list which was presented in our committee last committee meeting Please make sure that you're submitting those to Brian.

Good night by tomorrow.

That's March 22nd at noon This is the ongoing list of large capital projects that are being provided to City Council per a request that Councilmember Herbold spearheaded with Councilmember Bagshaw at the time to make sure that we had additional eyes, accountability, and transparency on some key capital projects.

So that capital projects watch list was reviewed in our committee.

If you do have any questions, please reach out to central staff.

The materials are also online from our last committee meeting.

and you'll have the chance to see if you do have an item or two that you'd like to amend into that list you are welcome to.

Again, recognizing that the staff is limited in their time and capacity, so we want to be very thoughtful about the number of items on that watch list.

We will have a briefing discussion and final vote on that watch list in our committee meeting, as well as items that are still being finalized.

Again, that is not until the first week of April, April 6th at 9 30 a.m.

For full council, there are no items from the Finance and Housing Committee on this week's full council agenda, but I would like to take this chance to report out on a few items that happened last week.

Number one, as you heard, I am a newly appointed board member of the National League of Cities and did have a chance to travel back to Washington, D.C.

to participate in the board meetings.

and also in the general sessions.

Colleagues, I did get an invitation to participate in a forum or a panel conversation in front of the full audience for the opening day and was able to represent all that Seattle did with our Seattle Rescue Plan.

and the important work that we had done in the city and municipal level to make sure that the American Rescue Plan Act dollars got directly out to those who were in most need as a result of the crisis that COVID had either created in terms of economic crises or worsened in terms of economic inequalities and was really proud to be able to report back on behalf of the City of Seattle along with mayors who were part of the panel and talk about how we use our Seattle Rescue Plan dollars to fight trickle-down economics, to put dollars directly into the hands of child care providers, into the hands of artists and cultural workers, into the hands of our smallest businesses and our lowest income workers.

I talked a lot about the 50 million dollars that we got out the door in the first tranche for housing and homelessness investments, 23 million for small business support, and nearly 50 million again for our housing efforts.

Proud of the 25 million that we got into the hands for folks from direct cash assistance and there was a lot of great follow-up questions and conversation about the 3 million for child care appreciation allotments, and then the soon-to-be-out-the-door $5 million for child care facilities, and couldn't miss the opportunity to say we need more.

And to thank the National League of Cities for all the work they did to make sure that cities were directly receiving funds, not only through the American Rescue Plan, but the follow-up work that was done on the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, that we will be in a good position to work through our regional partners to bid on some incredibly important infrastructure projects in our region, not just roads and bridges, but using these infrastructure dollars to correct past harms that infrastructure money has done in the last century, half century, where we've seen infrastructure dollars divide communities with freeways.

I think there's a lot of interest in using these infrastructure dollars to reconnect communities and think about how we get folks out of cars as well.

So I was excited about that panel presentation along with the New York City Mayor and Hutchington West Virginia Mayor and the main speaker that day was of course President Biden and also I got the chance to meet Mr. Buttigieg as well.

So great attention on the City of Seattle.

Thanks again to the National League of Cities for all of the work that they did to set us up so that Seattle could be featured that day.

in D.C.

last Monday.

While there, I also had the chance to meet with members from the AFL-CIO, members of the National Employment Law Project, and council members from the District of Columbia Council, including D.C.

Council Member Silverman and local caucus member as well, and along with their D.C.

Council Chair Mendelson.

Upon returning back to Seattle, I participated in the Progressive Caucus Action discussion on training for folks about how to engage in local and state advocacy opportunities, looking at movement tools and training strategies to talk about how we utilize federal dollars, specifically the American Rescue Plan Act funds, again, to make sure that we were directly investing in opportunities to lift up low-wage workers and our smallest businesses.

I was joined in that presentation with the State Innovation Exchange Director Jesse Ulibarri and State Representative Mallory McCrow.

On Friday, I had the chance to cheer on OL Reign.

It was their first game that they played in their new facility and venue, and that being Lumen Field.

We have award-winning national, international renowned players on the OL Reign team.

and really want to thank Ola Rehn, CEO, Vincent Bertholdt, and also Beth Knox, who's the president of Seattle Sports Commission, along with the whole crew that was there as well.

I did have a chance to see Council Member Nelson's staff, as well as many members from the King County Council, State Ledge, and our own Governor Inslee.

This week, I will be attending a briefing with Senator Murray and Senator Cantwell, hosted by the Association of Washington Cities.

I believe Councilwoman Strauss, she might be there as well, to talk about important issues affecting our city and region, including COVID-19 response, infrastructure, transportation, affordable housing, broadband expansion, and assistance to make sure that we get additional assistance to the city of Seattle.

And like I did last week in D.C., I know that our congressional delegation is very much supportive of not only the Build Back Better Act, but trying, if we can't get that bill passed, trying to break it up into a number of components to especially get child care for all and continuing our call for student loan relief, Medicare for all, and making sure that more assistance comes to cities to really make sure that we never go back to the old normal and we cover more equitably.

Also want to take a second to thank our sister city, Tashkent, or there was a Tashkent Seattle Sister City Association event to celebrate the annual Navarroos celebration on Saturday.

And I want to make sure to give them a shout out.

They've been very generous with opportunities to engage with our staff, especially Chief of Staff Sejal Parikh and our team over the years.

So I'm glad that they had their first in-person celebration in two years.

And lastly, on behalf of Finance and Administrative Services, I want to thank them for their ongoing work to respond to COVID.

There's been a few conversations today about how folks are beginning to come back into their offices if they've been fortunate enough to work from home.

And FAS has continued to do this work largely on the front line.

distributed over 263,000 masks.

They are working quickly to make sure that folks who are at the Lumen mass vaccination site are creating opportunities to hear from their employees and provide additional feedback to FAS Human Resources on how their experience has gone.

Wanting to make sure that the folks who participated in the vaccination efforts over the last two years have really, you know, make sure that we're giving them a chance to really be called out for their great work and.

Looking forward to hearing more about how that part that work has resulted in an impact on their career and their career paths.

One of the folks that we heard about was that Kathy Dachshund Johnson, Devin Berry and Becky Stover are all folks who were supervisors and leads at the vaccination site and their work has inspired so many others.

And looking at some of the feedback that the folks at FAS have received, many of the people at FAS are being credited for the volunteers looking for ways to change their careers and career pathways so that they will continue to be involved.

with public service given the positive experience they had as part of the FAS Lumen team, providing life-changing experiences for folks to save lives and work in the public sector, so really excited about that.

The FAS Director's Office has also developed a new return to work signage.

That information can be found at the links on the FAS site under Know Before You Go.

This provides guides so that offices and departments can provide support to employees and managers as they return to city facilities, specifically for sites like Seattle Municipal Tower.

And a guide for the departments and managers who might be considering workplace changes or improvements is also on that site.

So take a look at that at Know Before You Go.

There's also construction going on currently at City Hall on 4th Avenue.

FAS wanted to make sure that you knew that the capital development team is continuing to monitor the fence construction area on 4th Avenue and the concrete situation continues to have an impact on that project.

Again, I want to thank the concrete workers, especially those members of Teamsters 174 who have been on the strike line for over four months and while some of the work will go on because of their good faith efforts to try to respond to some of these concerning consequences from the employers not coming to the bargaining table in good faith, they continue to be without a contract that honors their work.

So again, a shout out to the workers for all that they are doing, especially given that some of them have had to return to work.

We want to make sure folks know that our solidarity is still with them.

Lastly, FAS is purchasing and contracting for their Priority Hire Advisory Committee.

It's reviewing drafts for their 2021 Annual Recommendations Report to the Mayor and Council.

The Priority Hire Advisory Committee plans to finalize their draft in the next month, and that will give you all a chance to see what great work they're up to and how we can continue to promote priority hire within our city.

Colleagues, that's it for me as well.

Is there any questions?

Okay.

Well, we are under an hour.

I will take that as a sign of efficiency.

This does conclude the discussion on the preview of Seattle City Council actions, council and regional committees, and items of business on today's agenda.

Our next regularly scheduled council briefing meeting is scheduled for next Monday, March 28th, 2022 at 2 p.m.

without hearing any additional items.

We will see you tomorrow at 2 p.m.

for our full council deliberations.

Take care, everyone.

Have a great afternoon.