Council Briefing 8/10/26

Good afternoon.

Colleagues, today is August 10, 2026. The council briefing meeting will come to order.

It is 203 sharp.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Foster.

Here.

Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Kettle.

Here.

Councilmember Lin.

Here.

Councilmember Rink.

Here.

Councilmember Rivera.

Councilmember Saka.

Here.

Councilmember Strauss.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Here.

Councilmember Rivera's excuse, Councilmember Juarez and Councilmember Strauss are excused until they get here.

So if there's no objection, the minutes of July 27, 2026 will be adopted.

For the record, Council Member Juarez is here.

Welcome, Council Member Juarez.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

The referral, excuse me, there are 26 items of the introduction and referral calendar.

There are five items on the consent calendar, three from Parks and City Light, minutes and bills.

We have no presentations today, but we do have three proclamations, colleagues.

So, we'll start with, I'm going to ask each council member to introduce the proclamation and seek their final feedback before I request the roll call for council members to fix their signature to each proclamation.

Council member Saka, you have a proclamation recognizing August 11th as West Seattle Little League softball day.

Council member Saka.

Sure.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

So, colleagues, we have a history in this chamber of honoring various sports teams and legends from the Seattle Storm to the Super Bowl champion Seahawks to, most recently, Salmon Bay FC in their championship.

Rainer Beach Boys earlier this year as well.

Proud to be introducing one to honor the West Seattle Little League 11U softball champions as well.

I'll read a few select passages from a few West Seattle media outlets.

This first one from the July 26th of the West Seattle blog.

West Seattle Little League is proud to celebrate an incredible milestone as our 11U all-star softball team captured the 2026 West Washington State Championship title on Saturday.

After losing its opening game, West Seattle Little League battled through the consolidation bracket, earning a spot back in the championship game.

The team defeated opponents by a combined score of 55 to 10, going six and one in the state tournament, playing seven games in seven days.

They defeated the same team that handed them their very first loss, not once, but twice to claim the state title.

The championship marks a historic achievement for West Seattle Little League softball.

The league launched its softball program in 22, making this the program's first ever state championship.

It is also just the third state title in West Seattle Little League history, joining the 2017 11U Boys Baseball Championship and the 2018 12U Boys Baseball Championship.

And some folks have asked, well, Does this mean they get to play in the Little League World Series?

Because if you were like my household, yesterday we watched the Little League World Series on TV, on national TV, ABC at noon.

We watched North Carolina win the whole dang thing.

So I'll read a passage about this from West Side Seattle from the reporting on July 25th.

The state champion does not advance to a regional play in this group, but does not have regional action and an eventual World Series in Greensville, South North Carolina for this age, but it does at the next age.

So they would be eligible if they one again, potentially, you know, next year.

So really excited to bring this forth and ask for your support in joining me, honoring our girls in West Seattle.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

For the record, Councilmember Strauss is here.

Welcome.

Are there any comments regarding the proclamation before us before I take the role for us to affix our signatures?

Anyone?

Okay, awesome.

I'm really excited to sign this.

Councilmember Saka, thank you for bringing this forward.

Will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signatures affixed to the proclamation, recognizing August 11th as West Seattle Little League Softball Day?

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Eight signatures will be affixed.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

and congratulations to the 11...

it's 11...

11 U.

11 U.

And U is under, is it U?

Yes.

Okay, okay, 11 and under softball team.

We're gonna now move on to our second proclamation, and that is from Councilmember Saka, recognizing August 11th, or excuse me, 15th as Alki Beach Pride Day.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Colleagues, really excited to bring forth another proclamation honoring significant contributions of specific organizations and groups within West Seattle that have really have citywide impact.

So this one is Elkai Beach Pride, which returns for this Saturday, August 15th, for its 12th year.

Really exciting.

Co-founded by Stacey and Jolie Bass Walden, two black women.

This festival is deeply rooted in the LGBTQIA plus community.

And black and brown leadership.

By continuing Pride events into late summer, not just June, late summer, Elkai Beach Pride helps sustain LGBTQ community visibility and help amplify existing support.

as the only beach-based pride celebration in Washington State, and one for, you know, communities of color to celebrate, starting with as well.

Elki Beach Pride offers an open air, airy, and welcoming environment.

I'm looking forward to presenting this proclamation in person with community on Saturday and joining community in this uplifting joy, inclusion, and pride-based celebration on the beach.

I ask for your support.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Colleagues, are there any comments about August 15th as Alki Beach Pride Day?

I will say thank you, Council Member Sokka.

It's really meaningful because of the work that Stacey does and her team and Alki Beach Pride is a true gem of the city.

So you'd be recognizing it just as really meaningful as well.

So thank you for bringing this forward.

Good job.

All right.

Seeing no further discussion, will the clerk please call the roll to find out who would like to affix their signature to the proclamation?

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Councilmember Rink?

Yes.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Eight signatures will be fixed.

Thank you.

We'll move on to our third and final proclamation, Councilmember Saka.

No, I'm just kidding.

Gotcha.

Okay, Councilmember Rink has a proclamation recognizing August 11th as Susan Hahn Appreciation Day.

Councilmember Rink, please lead the discussion on the proclamation.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Colleagues, tomorrow we'll be presenting our proclamation to honor the work of Susan Hahn of Seattle Channel, the award-winning Seattle Channel at Full Council.

Now, Susan served as a senior producer at Seattle Channel since 20, sorry, and her work as a journalist has actually spanned more than 40 years in Seattle and she is now retired.

Now, I was shocked with that news when I sat down to do a City Inside episode with Brian Callanan and naturally I was like, we have to find a way honored Susan and the incredible work that she's done sharing our city's history, highlighting people's stories, and was really thankful for Brian Callanan's work working with my office to put together this really beautiful proclamation that celebrates and highlights many parts of Susan's career.

And I know we'll be talking more about this in full chambers tomorrow, but just to highlight a couple of high notes, I didn't know that Susan spoke four languages.

is immensely talented, but she also, the bulk of her work at Seattle Channel has been dedicated to producing more than 250 episodes of City Inside Out.

And paired with that under her work, she has won eight regional Emmy Awards and contributed to Seattle Channel Station Excellence Award in 2025. So that's just a little snippet.

I'm sure we will all be ready to sing Susan's incredible praises tomorrow when we present this at full council.

This draft proclamation was shared with council offices on July 29th, and we set a deadline for August 4th for feedback.

We didn't get any feedback from council offices on the draft, so we sent the proclamation to the mayor's office.

Mayor Wilson has added her signature.

For tomorrow, we're expecting three speakers, including Brian Callanan, host and producer of the Seattle Channel that we all know, as well as Shannon Gee, general manager at Seattle Channel, and Susan.

of course.

So I'd appreciate your signatures and open to any questions.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Rink.

Are there any comments regarding the proclamation?

Awesome.

Seeing none, easy money.

All right.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

Looking forward to the celebration tomorrow in chambers.

So will the clerk please call the roll to determine which council members would like their signatures to be affixed to the proclamation?

Councilmember Foster?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Aye.

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Lin?

Yes.

Councilmember Ink?

Yes.

Councilmember Saka?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Eight signatures will be affixed.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Now we're going to move on to the next agenda item.

So we got those three proclamations all set.

We're now going to begin our discussion and preview of City Council actions in Council and Regional Committees.

This is a reminder for the public that Council will be on recess from August.

Our last in day is August the 21st, and then we return on August the 8th, or excuse me, September.

Everyone looked at me crazy.

August the 21st will be our last day in chambers where meetings and then those pause all the way until September the 8th, and that's when Council returns, so the day after Labor Day.

So there's a lot of information that we have that is coming to committee before the recess.

And I guess we'll just jump to the right, if that's cool.

Council Member Sokka, you are first, my friend.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

So first on the substantive committee business, colleagues, our next Transportation Waterfront and Seattle Center Committee, formal name and formerly known as STEPS, that's going to be held next Thursday, August 20th.

I think it's the 20th at 9.30 a.m.

The agenda on that one is still being finalized, so stay tuned.

In terms of community events, I'll highlight a few cool events.

And for the rest, check out my social media.

But a few I'll highlight here today includes Neighborhood Night Out.

Last Tuesday had the pleasure of joining as part of our Seattle implementation of the National Night Out event.

I was able to personally join five or six of them myself, and concluding with my own Neighborhood Night Out event in North Delridge.

But such a wonderful opportunity to connect with constituents, neighbors across the district, and hearing directly from community members, including about kind of substantive issues that they care about the most and who brought what potato salad and what cookies to avoid and steer clear of all the neighborhood stuff too.

That was a fun conversation.

Also honored last week to join leaders at the City's Office of Sustainability at the Georgetown Farmers Market last week.

So, OSCE has partnered with the Georgetown Farmers Market, which is one of 23 farmers markets in the Seattle area or in the city of Seattle that accept fresh bucks and helping ensure everyone has access to fresh healthy produce and you know through the the contributions and leadership of folks in this office or in this body, including Councilmember Ring, Council President.

Myself last year led a few budget initiatives to help drive and improve access, address food insecurity at a critical time during the federal snap cuts.

among other things, and so it was great to see some of this work firsthand.

On top of that, got to purchase a few great items myself, and yeah, it's great to share the joys of events like a farmer's markets like that directly with community.

So love that.

On Saturday, another cool event was the Duwamish River Fest, which was a wonderful celebration of history, of culture.

Frankly, that brought together people celebrating the future of what that community is and can be as well.

So this year's festival, included partnerships with Sopa Supa and Cultivate South Park, bringing even more community energy, creativity, and vitality to the event.

I'm honored to participate in that event alongside Councilmember Foster.

Thank you for joining us, and it's great to share that space with you.

But such a great event, and more to come.

South Park is alive and thriving.

and thriving.

So in any event, that is all I have from my perspective.

I welcome any questions, comments, feedback.

If not, I will pass it off to my...

am I going right?

To my right, Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Council Member Saka, Council President.

So next up for public safety is tomorrow.

tomorrow morning, and we have three items on the agenda.

It's going to be very busy.

We're going to move quickly through them, but also give each the attention they deserve, although maybe a little bit less for their RVs.

That's going to be an introduction.

But importantly, we're going to have a bite of Seattle security response quick look.

with Interim Chief Sales and also Director of Public Safety Holcomb and others.

So that's going to be tomorrow.

But this is kind of a setup too because we want to have on our calendar for September 22nd a hearing review of the mass shooting and to see what lessons learned and how can we move forward in multiple areas to include major venue, major event security, but importantly and most importantly, the gun violence that we're seeing, particularly amongst our young people.

So that's gonna be the Bite of Seattle security response quick look tomorrow.

and then followed later by a more full meeting agenda on that item.

Right after that will be Harborview.

and looking at the challenges that we have with medical declines at KCJ.

And that will be Harborview itself participating along with SPD talking some of the stats.

And as I kind of alluded to, we have RVs partnering with my colleague from District 6 regarding the issues related to RVs.

I'll let him speak to that if you like.

And it's something that I'm well aware, I've been working along with Councilmember Saka.

It does have an industrial area predominantly, although it's an issue across the city.

So those are three for tomorrow.

For this week, you know, today I met with Pioneer Square Alliance and SOTO, VIA, talking some of the issues related to, in some respects, that West Precinct issue.

I also met with Interim Chief Sales from SPD, again, along with Director of Public Safety Holcomb from the Mayor's Office.

You know, different constituent meetings, OPA on Thursday, another important area, and I'll be at the Seattle Metro Chamber event on Thursday.

And then Friday, Seahawks Training Camp.

So that should be interesting.

And right now, I should add, too, tying into other public safety, scheduling for a meeting with the NYU group that's looking at our tech program.

So that should happen on Friday.

Next week, a bunch of different visits, like Uplift Northwest, which is a great organization.

and also going in terms of parks down to Smith Cove Park.

There's been a lot of work getting a site visit of that.

Very excited for that and the other District 7 parks that are in work right now or will have like shovels in the dirt next summer, for example, throughout the district.

And last week, colleagues, I was in Western New York, although I was at committee and council on Tuesday, plus had a meeting with Port of Seattle on Wednesday.

I am still the block watch cap for my neighborhood, Councilmember Sanka and everyone.

But unfortunately, this year, because I was out of town, driven more by family scheduling dynamics than anything else, I had to miss, even though I scheduled it, registered and everything, I could not make my own night out.

But my neighbors gave me the debrief, and it was, as usual, a great opportunity for everyone to get together, which is really important if we start talking about safety of neighborhoods.

You know, part of it is you have to know your neighbors.

So I really applaud the night out program and thank for everyone that was there.

I should also note, too, my staff made a visit out to Jacobs Agro, which is a Black-owned farm.

So there was a tour that was sponsored by Pike Place Market.

They're a produce vendor at Pike Place Market.

And I was not there, but my team was.

Some of my staff were.

So that is it.

Councilmember President and colleagues, any questions?

Otherwise, I'll be passing off to Councilmember Juarez.

No, I got no questions.

Thank you for that.

It was very thorough.

He taught me how to salute, so I'm trying to do that better now.

Oh, it was a right-hand one.

Man, that's on TV forever, too.

Okay.

All right.

Apparently I wasn't paying attention.

Sorry about that.

Right hand.

Thank you.

You just had to point that out, didn't you?

Appreciate that.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

My ride or die.

Okay.

So, Council President, let me give you a little brief overview, and I will be brief.

Parks and City Light Committee met on August 5th.

We passed three items out of committee.

I believe that they are on the consent calendar for tomorrow, but very quickly.

Council Bill 12161 regarding an ordinance to update the voluntary green power solar program.

Council Bill 121269, Seattle City Light Ordinance to execute the first amendment to the Boundary Hydroelectric Project and a resolution out of Seattle Parks and Rec for State Recreation and Conservation Office 2026 grant application.

These are actually pretty normal.

It's basically giving them permission to accept money from the county and the state.

First, I want to note that Sofia Suarez did her first time clerking, and she did a great job.

I want her to hear that.

Let's see.

I want to remind everybody that Wednesday, August 19th, the Parks and City Light Committee is canceled.

Our final committee will be Wednesday, September 16th, where we'll discuss the Lake City Redevelopment Plan Part 2, and I should note for the record that is now going on 11 years.

And real quickly, we got notice this morning from the Nisqually Tribe.

We want to take a moment to pause and recognize the passing of the Nisqually Tribal Chairman, Ellery Kanchoke.

He passed away on August 4th.

And as many of you know, the annual intertribal canoe journey was being hosted this year by the Nisqually Tribe.

That's where everybody got the idea about land acknowledgements, which I'll explain later.

A statement was released by the Nisqually Vice Chair Frazier saying that, quote, Ken was happy to know that all of the canoe families had arrived safely and that protocol had begun.

and has been progressing as we worked so hard to plan.

Although we miss him dearly and remain committed to honoring the loss of our loved ones, we are working to finish the work of the canoe journey as hosts for the 2026 paddle.

This has only been possible through the generous help of all of you in attendance, he's talking about tribal community, tribal leadership, indigenous folks, holding us up and carrying us through.

This was Ken's way to put the community first and has been an honor to help him complete his work, end quote.

and with that we want to keep his wife, Rose, and their children, Laura Lee, Josephine, Samantha, Marlene, Milan, Robert, Joseph, and Cheyenne, and seven great-grandchildren in our thoughts and prayers.

And that's all I have, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Juarez.

Councilmember Strauss?

Thank you, Council President.

I will try to be brief, but we have six pieces of legislation coming to Councilmember Kettle's committee tomorrow, so I'll attempt my best.

In the Finance Native Communities and Tribal Governments Committee, we have a few bills coming to full council tomorrow, five appointments.

are reappointments to the Indigenous Advisory Council, and we have two bills, one being the mid-year grant acceptance, which is charter authorized and required that we approve the grants, as well as the mid-year supplemental.

I'm hearing that there might still be a couple amendments out there for the mid-year supplemental.

I appreciate all my colleagues working on Working on your changes.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

And so our next Finance and Avent Communities and Tribal Governments Committee will be on September 15th because next week's committee will be canceled.

So just for your awareness.

And that September 15th meeting will be the final committee meeting before we get into budget, which will just be budget all the time.

Moving on to...

yes, it's true.

And so, then moving into public safety tomorrow, The Public Safety Committee will hear my package of six bills called the Vehicle Resident Assistance Program.

We know that around one out of every four people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in our region is living in a vehicle.

That data comes from the 2024 point in time count.

I think that that count undercounts and doesn't do a completely accurate reading, but it is what we have.

and that's a significant part of our population.

We know that their needs are different from those people living in other types of unsheltered homeless situations, yet the City of Seattle at this time, we have zero shelters set up for people living in their vehicles.

We don't have any safe lots open.

We don't have any teams built other than a pilot team at SPU.

for vehicle assistance, and then we have the wastewater pump team.

We rely on contracted outreach for the majority of our services.

Two-thirds of those contracts are run by an organization that is fiscally sponsored by another one.

I just say all of this because it is a gaping hole in how we address homelessness to not be able to provide the services to people who have very unique needs compared to couch surfing, compared to youth homelessness, compared to street homelessness.

We have programs in place for all of these different folks.

I totally went off script.

We also...

Turn in the page.

Turn in the page.

We also know that the city's current approach to RVs, to motorhomes, is not working, and we need tools to help people living in these vehicles to get inside.

We need tools to address the RVs that are a small minority of RVs that are not being great partners in the neighborhood.

What we see with this permitting that I'm putting forward, we'll get into that in just a minute, is we I want to be able to say, because again, RVs have been built over the course of time with a whole course of different types of materials.

I share with everyone here, we all threw away our Nalgene bottles that are 15 years old, and we got new Nalgene bottles because we found out that there were BPAs in the plastics, right?

So if you think back to an RV that was built 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, That 1983 Subaru station wagon that was made out of steel, cloth, and some plastic is very different from the RV that was built in 1983. So these are unique types of vehicles that are on our streets.

What I'm saying today is that in a year from now, RVs and fifth wheels need to be parked on private property and not on the city streets.

And between here and there, we have to take care of the people who are currently living in their RVs and their motorhomes.

So all of the, we'll get into some of the, I'm spending more time on this right now.

I know that I emailed all of you this last week, but I'm spending a little bit more time right now because I know Councilmember Kettle has requested, just we've got a lot going on in public safety tomorrow.

And so the resources, the city side resources, the contracted outreach resources, the shelter resources, the case management resources, those would be available to anyone living in any type of vehicle.

The regulations and the permits are only specified for motorhomes and travel trailers, commonly called RVs and fifth wheels.

And those portions of the legislation don't go into effect until April 30th.

And my request is that the first 90 days is just like a red light camera where you get warnings for the first 90 days, that we do that.

So what we're looking at is full implementation is a year from now.

and that's enough time to say we are changing the regulations on this one type of vehicle and we're trying to make sure that we take care of everyone that is residing in that type of vehicle.

Just real quickly, it does three things at a high level.

It increases funding that we have been putting in the budget, so this does not change the structural budget deficit.

This does not cut anything from anywhere else.

We have $3.5 million ongoing funding and $1.5 million one-time funds.

So there's that.

It also makes administrative changes to leasing shelter locations, land use code changes to create shelter storage, and clarifications of the junk vehicle ordinance to address vehicles that are not lived in.

And then from there, it creates the vehicle resident assistance permit to give that stability and pathways into shelter and housing, and to help better connect outreach workers to the people who live in RVs and fifth wheels.

They have to remain engaged in city services.

They have to follow existing traffic rules, parking 72-hour rules, all that, and just kind of be a decent neighbor.

I mean, it's not...

And so that's all spelled out in that.

It is accomplished by creating a city vehicle team to work directly with contracted outreach.

expanding outreach contracts to better assist them.

If we have a fiscally-sponsored nonprofit doing two-thirds of this work, we need to create some changes there.

We need to have them to be better supported so that they can interact with our city.

We're going to fund additional safe lots and shelter, create shelter storage so that folks that are living in their vehicles can store their vehicles while they move into shelter and then also into city.

If we have city-supported housing that they want to move into, and they need that transition space, we can store their vehicle for them there as well.

We're also gonna create that vehicle resident assistance permit for people living in motorhomes and travel trailers.

And we're gonna create new regulations only applied to unpermitted motorhomes and travel trailers, allowing them to stay on our city streets for two hours at a time again not effective until April 30th of next year.

And then lastly, we clarify the junk vehicle code for not lived-in vehicles.

The six pieces of legislation are the resolution tying everything together, the appropriations, land use code change, the vehicle resident assistant permit, junk vehicle code, and then the signing authority for FAS.

And...

That is what I have for you today.

We are going to upload this into Legistar tomorrow.

And so if you do have feedback, I will happily take feedback to do pre-introduction changes.

This is a go fast then go slow moment where we are going fast right now, where we shared this with everyone.

I've shared this with folks for quite some time, but we publicly posted this on Friday.

We'll have the committee meeting next week, but then we won't take final action in Councilmember Kettle's committee until September.

And then we likely won't take final action in full council until early October.

And then this bill does not come into effect.

The permitting part does not come into effect until April.

and then...

So that's what I mean by it's gonna go fast and then it's gonna go slow.

Thank you everyone for your assistance here.

And so if you do have feedback, I appreciate all of you and your help.

If you do have feedback between now and then, I am more than open.

You know, we're meeting with stakeholders.

I have been back to back all day.

I know some of you have been trying to get my attention, but we've just been back to back because we don't want to have unintended consequences.

We don't want to leave people worse off than they were before.

And I want to get everyone's feedback into this legislation.

just stating we've got time, we're in a go-fast moment, but then the rest of this process is go slow to make sure that we get it right.

I have other stuff in my report, which is Sound Transit.

Sound Transit is part of my regional committee.

Council Member Saka should be excited to know we're going to start initiating the purchases of property in West Seattle for the West Seattle extension line and Sound Transit has not quite gotten me their vacant building policies.

I have said to them that they need to update their vacant building policies before we start purchasing land in West Seattle because I don't want Sound Transit to own some dilapidated properties in your neighborhood and leave them unattended.

They have not gotten that policy finished right now, but they do remain on track.

So that's both good news.

So we'll be moving forward with that.

Like some of you others, I canceled office hours last week so that I could go to a neighborhood night out.

It was a ton of fun.

I got around to a bunch of different neighborhood night outs.

It was just such an exciting experience to get to talk to people literally on their own block.

and have some really candid conversations about what's going on in our city right now.

I do have office hours this week, and I believe that's it.

Colleagues, do you have any questions?

No.

Well, with that...

Oh, and if you do want to sign up, you can hit the Request a Meeting on my website.

Over to you, Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss.

Way to stay focused under pressure with that spill.

That was great.

And I'll just say no questions for you on the Sound Transit piece, but I'll follow up with you.

Our office has had some early conversations with Sound Transit around properties that are currently used for storage.

near some of the light rail stations, and we wanna be a good partner in making sure those are spaces that are welcoming for the community.

So I really appreciate your intent and the long body of work that you've done to get to this upcoming policy.

Okay, I will work for brevity here.

So colleagues, we will have in my committee this week, we are gonna have the beginning of the appointment process for the mayor's selection for the Office of Housing Director.

So that process will start this Wednesday.

So we look forward to engaging with you all on questions that we have for the appointee for Kelly Larson.

We are also gonna have a discussion and a report from the Office of Housing on their 2025 annual reports and statements of legislative intent.

That's actually really exciting.

So that we are gonna have some conversations about the housing levy investments and get an understanding of where we are with those.

I think we're looking forward to some good news.

We'll also get an overview of the 2025 MHA annual report.

So those are in committee this week.

Tomorrow we will be voting at full council on the junk fee legislation that our office has been sponsoring.

We have had that in committee three times, and we just voted it out in a special committee meeting.

And I know there are some amendments coming to full council.

I wanna appreciate folks for the engagement with our office and the leadership from the mayor's office in sending that legislation down.

And we are looking forward to a full vote on that, or a full vote in council on that tomorrow.

and then lastly, I'll say I wanna appreciate you, Council Member Strauss, for your work on the mid-year supplemental budget and I'm really excited and wanna thank the folks in committee last week for your support of our amendment on the fund that we're gonna be creating in partnership with philanthropy that's gonna invest $400,000 a year, $400,000 starting this year in homelessness prevention for young people.

I'm just really, really proud of that work.

And we know that young people who are homeless are two and a half times more likely to experience homelessness as adults.

So while I don't sit on that committee, I wanted to take this as a opportunity to express my appreciation for your support of that amendment last week.

And we're gonna keep it churning until we get into recess.

So that's my update and happy to take questions.

All right.

All right.

Good afternoon, colleagues.

It's fun to hear what everybody's been up to.

Councilmember Strauss, you know, just hearing about the RV legislation and all the work.

It's an impressive sort of amount of work that goes into that, and so look forward to that discussion tomorrow morning.

On Friday, I went and toured an area down in Rainier Beach that has been kind of a hot spot down there.

It's private property and some unimproved right away, but it has been taken over by both uninhabited and some inhabited RVs.

and is definitely not sort of, there's definitely some public safety, some sanitation issues and I'll be curious to chat with you about how your legislation might work on, I think a lot of times the encampments can be particularly difficult when they're on private property because of just jurisdictional issues with our departments and so curious to learn more about that.

And then just when it comes to Sound Transit, I would also be excited to learn more about the property acquisitions, particularly around the station areas, if those are part of what's being looked at in West Seattle.

I know that Sound Transit tries to minimize the size of their acquisitions because of costs, which is totally understandable.

but that can leave some weird sized remnants, which are not very helpful.

We had a bunch of those on MLK that have been empty for over a decade now that we are finally converting into affordable home ownership, which is great.

But with a little bit more, with a larger acquisition, you can just do a lot more to convert that to some permanent use.

So anyway, wondering if there might be some opportunities here and be happy to chat later.

This morning had a delegation from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, sister city.

It's a port city on the southern tip of Taiwan.

It is also sort of becoming a little bit more of a tech city.

And so they were doing a tour up and down on the west coast, touring Boeing.

And so it was really wonderful to meet with them.

In terms of tomorrow, we do have two amendments.

One is the Supplemental Budget Amendment for two dedicated outreach workers for northern parts of District 2 as well as some overlap with the tip of District 3 and the North Rainier Corridor.

just given the ongoing very serious public safety concerns that continue to reach crisis level in that area.

Unfortunately, there was news reporting last week of another body on the west, northwest part of Beacon Hill.

in that greenbelt.

Not sure what the cause is.

Another shooting in some of the tents off of North Rainier and just continues to be a very significant concern, very close to businesses, residential neighborhoods.

Obviously, would love your support tomorrow.

Happy to answer any questions about that.

We also have a, we had an amendment to the junk fees legislation.

We updated it slightly.

The sort of general overview was we were trying to encourage non, basically alternative dispute kind of resolution to when a landlord basically charges fees that are banned, especially if the law is new, if they do so inadvertently, although that's not a requirement, but the idea is landlords might make a mistake.

There's a, under our amendment last week.

There's a provision that allows tenants to sort of demand that those be refunded plus double damages.

And if the landlord promptly cures within 30 days, then you're done.

You don't have to rely upon going to court.

You don't have attorney's fees.

You don't have additional penalties.

So it's a quick resolution for tenants, sort of empowers them to do something without an attorney.

but also there's incentives there for the landlord to promptly cure.

What we heard from some tenant advocates, and I think it's reasonable, is that if a landlord is put on notice that they've charged that fee that is banned, that they should be refunding to all similarly situated tenants in that building within that same 30 day cure period.

And again, if they do so, then they're done.

They don't have to go to court.

but if they don't, then any tenants who haven't sort of had those fees refunded and those damages paid would have that ability to take them to court.

So that's the gist of the amendment to the amendment that we'll be bringing forward to tomorrow.

We'd love if you have any questions or concerns about that.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Lin.

Councilmember Rank?

Thank you, Council President.

Just a quick look back.

On Friday, the Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee met and we heard three items.

A briefing from the Mayor's Office and Human Services Department regarding a plan to revert Human Services contracts from King County Regional Homelessness Authority back into City of Seattle and King County.

We also had a briefing on amendments to the Domestic Workers Ordinance.

The Office of Labor Standards has been working on updates to align city law with the statewide Domestic Workers Bill of Rights legislation that passed earlier this year, shepherded by State Representative Brianna Thomas.

from the 34th Legislative District, have to honor West Seattle.

The amended ordinance would establish requirements for written agreements and records retention, use of entitled paid and unpaid leave, and advance notice of termination.

It would also prohibit retaliation for taking permissible time off.

and then we received a briefing on the fair pricing and transparency ordinance.

And colleagues, I just want to quickly reiterate some of the process points that I addressed in committee for everyone's awareness.

So the draft legislation will be on the IRC tomorrow, at which point central staff will finish their work on the bill memo.

Amendment concepts will be due a few days after the release of the central staff memo, and central staff will include a specific due date with their memo email.

At the August 21st meeting of the Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee, we will be briefed by central staff on policy considerations for this bill, and importantly, any council members with amendment concepts will be asked to speak to them during this committee.

And in our first committee meeting following recess, we will vote on amendments and the underlying legislation.

So my team and our central staffers, Jasmine and Tomaso, are available for any questions you have on this piece of legislation.

Our next Human Services Labor and Economic Development Committee will be held the next week, so Friday, August 21st.

The agenda is robust and includes the following.

We're actually going to have a briefing, public hearing, and potential vote on an amendment to the Ballard BIA and the assessment formula.

We'll then have a briefing, public hearing, and potential vote on an amendment to the Broadway BIA in Capitol Hill.

I'll just note that this BIA legislation required a notice to public hearing.

This hearing will be to solicit input on the five proposed adjustments to the Broadway BIA's ordinance intended to stabilize the Capitol Hill and Broadway BIA's budget to better align the district boundary with current commercial activity.

Office of Economic Development and our BAA partners in Capitol Hill have been working hard to get consensus on these changes that will ultimately benefit the entire Capitol Hill neighborhood.

So looking forward to doing our part in committee to support the neighborhood.

Again, we'll have that central staff briefing on the fair pricing and transparency ordinance and a discussion from all committee members on amendment concepts.

We'll have a vote on the amended domestic workers ordinance and then a briefing and discussion on an ordinance related to commercial lease transparency.

So a continuation on our discussion of how we can support our small businesses in our communities.

I'll close on a very fun note because last month we had a community art competition out in District 6 in Ballard.

Thank you Councilmember Strauss for your partnership on that very fun event where we also issued our proclamation for everyone's favorite raccoon, Jimothy.

Now the two winners, we have a stained glass mosaic called St. Jimothy by Virginia McFadden and we also have an oil painting called Jimothy Takes Seattle, and this was done by Kayla Juliana Carabes.

These are now in display in the city hall lobby, so would encourage folks to take by when you're buying a cup of coffee or a latte or whatever.

is your choice over at City Grind.

Take a moment and take a look at these incredible art pieces.

We have so much talent in this city.

We actually had over 100 people show up with art pieces for everything from tattoos to pinatas to embroidery.

I mean, we really saw it all.

And so it was tough choosing some winners, but those two are the ones that rose to the top and it's been exciting to see them have a place in City Hall, at least through the end of the summer.

And that includes my report for today.

Happy to take any questions.

Any questions?

All right.

Awesome.

Love to hear about the artwork.

I saw it.

It looks really dope.

So Good job on that.

Colleagues, I'll be short.

On Thursday, August 13th, the Governance and Utilities Committee has been canceled.

Thank you for your time.

And is there any further business to come before that?

I'm so serious.

I got you.

So we will be discussing the confirmation of CTO Smith in our September meeting, September 17th.

That will come to that meeting, but this week has been canceled for our meeting.

Is there any further business to come before the council?

I don't have any updates, but social media is the best way for people to see what the heck I'm doing, and some newsletters, all that good stuff.

I will say, last but not least, okay, I want to give Capitol Hill a big shout out.

I thought the Capitol Hill block party was a success.

It is the economic engine, not the block party.

It is one of the...

but just the Pike Pine Corridor.

just needs a lot more attention.

So thank you all.

Some help is coming, obviously, with some of our ambassadors.

That will get picked up very quickly here, you all.

And so that ball has been rolling and has started.

So looking forward to getting that up and running very quickly here within the next month.

I can confidently say that.

So Councilmember Saka.

Thank you, Madam Council President.

Just want to Acknowledge and thank Councilmember Strauss for your proposed RV legislation.

I am still working my way through it.

It is very comprehensive, extensive, and I think thoughtful.

Six bills, a package of six bills to address a really important issue that Councilmember Strauss has previously led on through the budget.

I've led on through the budget process and sponsored, co-sponsored additional expansion RV safe lots, things to address it.

But what I think you're...

So I'm still working my way through it, but what I can confidently say is I think what I like about your proposal, at least at a high level, is that it recognizes that some of the efforts undertaken to date have been kind of fragmented, disjointed a bit, and that they're not working, and we need a more comprehensive approach, and so that's why I want to thank you for leading this, putting this together, and so I appreciate your leadership, look forward to reviewing it in more detail personally, and then in committee tomorrow and during the committee, and then offline one-on-one with you as well.

But I am grateful for your leadership in putting this together.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sokka.

I couldn't have...

All of the budget amendments, since you've been in office, you've been a co-sponsor of, and so I greatly appreciate your support over the course of these years.

Awesome.

Good job, Councilmember Strauss.

Because I will say, it's a complicated issue.

And so, of course, it needs a complicated approach and comprehensive approach that you have put.

and I like the effort of trying to figure it out, you know?

So I will say that.

He didn't hear a word I said.

I was giving him all the love, all the love, and he was over there talking to Councilmember Juarez.

Did you all hear me?

All the love I gave to Councilmember Strauss?

Okay, I just wanted to clarify.

Comprehensive love.

Comprehensive.

No, I was saying, and then my ending is that a comprehensive approach to a very complex problem on the street right now, and we've done this dance before at the city, and I think...

at least you're trying and I'm supporting that a thousand percent and we're going to figure it out.

So thank you for sharing the legislation.

Good job.

And we gonna rock it together, brother.

Okay.

Council Member Rink.

Thank you, Council President.

I just very quickly wanted to thank you for your leadership in the district.

And I say that not just as a citywide, but as someone who lives in the Pike Pine Corridor and sees the tremendous need of a focused approach and bringing resources.

So I just want to thank you as president of the district, too, for taking the step to get those resources out and get more eyes on the street.

I've really appreciated partnering with you, especially in the wake of would have been some really challenging moment, public safety moments in the district and shootings that definitely rocked our neighbors.

And so I just wanna thank you for taking that leadership and for your partnership.

Thank you for that.

And I'd be remi...

If I didn't say, Council Member Kettle, I appreciate you.

And you know, I got mad love for you, okay?

And I know we want the same thing.

and we have different approaches.

However, I appreciate our partnership, okay, Councilmember Kettle, because it doesn't go unnoticed, the amount of attention that you care for the community and public safety, okay?

So we're friends now, correct?

Councilmember Kettle, you're gonna say in that microphone, are we friends or not?

Always have been.

Always will.

And you're gonna let the public know that you told me that you love me.

Councilmember Kettle.

The appropriate way.

Professional.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Councilmember Ring, for those comments.

See how you're bringing everybody together.

Thank you, colleagues.

That's all I need to know.

All right.

No further business.

Bye.