Governance and Utilities Committee 7/09/2026

Hey, good morning, everyone.

The July 9th, 2026 meeting.

Good morning.

Hello, everyone.

Good morning.

Good morning.

We're starting.

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We kept you waiting.

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And we're live right now on TV.

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Good morning.

The July 9th, 2026 meeting of the Governance and Utilities Committee will come to order.

It is 9.36 AM.

I'm Joy Hollingsworth, Council President.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

Councilmember Strauss?

Here.

Vice Chair Juarez?

Chair Hollingsworth?

Here.

Chair, there are three present.

Awesome, Council Member Juarez is excused, and Council Member Rivera is excused until she gets here.

Happy July.

It's July, right?

Happy July.

We're gonna jump right in.

We have a full agenda, so we're gonna jump right into the meeting, and I know that we have some committee meeting members that might have hard stops, so we're gonna power through.

We're gonna now consider the agenda.

If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We'll now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should be related to items on today's agenda or be within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have?

Chair, we have six in person, none online.

Okay, awesome.

Each speaker will have two minutes.

The public comment period, I'm gonna read the directions, will be moderated in the following matter.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered on Council's website and the sign-up sheet available here in Council Chambers to my right, your left.

If you have not registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment period or on the Council's website.

The link is listed on today's agenda or by signing up on the sign-up sheet.

When speaking, please begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

you will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left.

So you still have 10 seconds, you'll hear a chime.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time, the speaker microphone will be muted so we can call on the next person.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

I see we have Marta Johnson followed by Mayuri, Mayuri, May, did I say that right?

Okay, I'm sorry.

Peter, we have Becca, Sarah and Michael, welcome.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yeah, okay.

Hi council members, my name is Marta and I'm here with 4Seattle.

I'm also a resident of Fremont.

I'm here today in support of the utility discount program expansion.

Thank you council member Strauss and Chair Hollingsworth for your efforts with this legislation.

As we expect large utility rate increases next year, now is the time to make sure this pre-existing program gets effectively delivered.

Expanding who qualifies is a chance to reach more individuals and really deliver the dollars we have set aside.

I've spent many, many hours talking to families, workers, and seniors across the city, and one theme is very, very clear.

It's becoming harder and harder to live and age in this city.

The UDP program is a much needed step to bring relief to these individuals.

I encourage you also to support the amendment to require yearly reporting for enrollment numbers, and I also believe and encourage you all to consider creating a yearly enrollment goal.

This is an accountability measure that will ensure we are all moving in the same direction.

We have a real opportunity here to show that our city can deliver and bring real savings to our residents.

Thank you for your time and all your work.

Thank you, Marta.

And for the record, Councilmember Rivera has been here the whole time.

I apologize.

I missed that.

Councilmember Rivera is here.

Really appreciate that.

Thank you, Marta.

Next we have Mayuri and followed by Peter Wu.

Thank you, Chair Hollingsworth and council members.

My name is Mayuri Rao, and I live in Mount Baker, and I'm a member of 4 Seattle.

I'm here to ask you to support the utility discount program legislation.

I'm a primary care physician, and many of my patients are living on fixed incomes, and I see every day how rising utility costs affect their health.

Last winter, one of my patients, a disabled veteran, told me he'd been rationing his medications so he and his wife could keep the heat on for their newborn.

We connected him to help he was eligible for, but not before he'd been making this impossible choice for months.

People don't know what they don't know, and I hear again and again in my work that the stress of navigating complicated benefit programs is a double burden on top of financial hardship and health challenges.

My patients give up, and they suffer.

A responsible public program has to make sure the people it's meant for know about it and can easily enroll.

I especially appreciate that this bill will work to make signing up for the utilities discount program simpler.

The city has already set aside funding, so let's make sure it actually gets to families in need.

I hope you'll move this forward, and thank you.

Thank you.

How do I say your last name?

Rao.

Dr. Rao.

Thank you.

We have Peter.

Welcome, Peter.

Followed by Becca and Sarah and then Michael.

Welcome, Peter.

Hi, thank you for your time.

My name is Peter.

I live in Columbia City, and I'm also here to help ask you to pass the UDP expansion.

I support the expansion because it's been a massive boon in the life of a close family friend.

My family friend is an elderly Chinese immigrant who only worked for about 10 years before retirement.

so her social security hasn't been enough to cover her bills and she's actually been enrolled in UDP and it's been a huge boon in being able to survive and take care of her sister's medical needs.

I particularly urge you to make enrollment automatic so that others are able to get in the program.

As I understand it, the city already knows who most of the eligible people would be, but less than half are enrolled.

My mother helps with translation support every year with my family friend so that she can get enrolled in all these programs, and she always needs the translation support because she's so stressed trying to get through all the paperwork.

And with less than half of eligible residents receiving support for UDP, The city must act to enroll other seniors who might not have the same level of advocacy and reduce the paperwork burden for everyone.

I also support the annual reporting requirement and ask you to provide a goal for enrollment to ensure the city is living up to its ideals.

Thank you for your time.

Awesome.

Thank you, Peter.

Next, we have Becca.

Welcome.

Followed by Sarah and then Michael.

And then we'll go online to David Haynes.

Good morning.

Thank you, council members.

My name is Becca Miller-Rose.

I live in Columbia City.

I also work, actually, in senior health care and see firsthand how utility discount programs are.

I'm here to support the utility discount program expansion legislation, and I see firsthand how that impacts people.

But also as a citizen of the city, I think we all feel the zeitgeist for having a government that can truly deliver and a government that's holding itself accountable.

The zeitgeist is strong.

We are hungry for this now more than ever.

I think I'm part of the For Seattle group and part of what we are coming together for is good intentions aren't enough.

It's a credit to the city that we have this program, but having the program is not enough.

We need to ensure that the program is working, that it's getting to people, that it's having an impact, that our government is delivering for the citizens of Seattle.

And I think there's a really strong feeling right now in the city that this is what we're asking of you all, and this is what we're asking of our government to be accountable to its own ideals.

And I think this is a great opportunity to move a step in that direction.

So thank you all for your work on this.

Thank you, Becca.

Becca Miller-Rose.

Sounds like a nice designer purse.

Yeah, that's dope.

Sarah.

Hi.

Good morning, council members.

Today I'm speaking on the annual status report, and I'm also here to thank you for your work on the UDP program, which I'm already qualified for, but I think it should be accessible and easier to apply for because currently it's kind of convoluted.

There's a lot of limited deadlines and things going on.

and making it easier, I think, would help a lot of people, especially of how unaffordable things are becoming.

This one thing with the public safety report, it's just kind of concerning a lot of the remarks on how none of the public safety comments have been implemented.

I know there's work being done on that.

There's been a lot of transitions.

But I think it's kind of important, especially Certain neighborhoods have more impact on that.

There's a lot of safety issues, especially if people have to walk around in public and don't have the ability to drive place to place.

But again, thank you for the UDP program.

It is a very great resource, and it has helped thousands of people and, well, thousands more.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Sarah.

And it's good to see you, too, as well.

Michael.

Hey, Michael.

Hello.

So I'm Michael.

I'm a Finney Ridge resident.

I'm here to support the Utility Discount Program.

Paperwork is a burden on all of us, but I think it should be less of a burden on those eligible to receive this program.

So I support easier enrollment.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Michael.

Next we have, we're going to go online.

You're going to press star six.

Unmute yourself, Mr. Haynes.

Hi, thank you, David Ains.

I think it's pretty obvious that the city auditor is not qualified nor trustworthy to analyze the effectiveness of bad policies regarding public safety, where you're literally capitulating the integrity of oversight by just copycatting Baltimore.

Like, let's just leave the responsibilities of gun violence prevention up to Baltimore's bad policies and ideas to manipulate the statistics, to line the pockets of felons who are running interference for evil criminals.

It's like the auditor looks the other way when a 25 year old, a 26 year old is being listed as youth.

and it's not fair, it's revolting that you all are adding another layer of oversight because the council refuses to have proper oversight because you fear the bad policy that you're financing is gonna come back to bite you, so you're gonna leave it up to another watchdog agency.

I think we really need to call out the city auditor who's just capitulating their responsibilities to the Human Services Department who has absolutely no business run interference for criminals.

We have a homeless crisis of innocence being victimized and the Human Services Department who volunteered to be the most racist department in this city is literally using millions of dollars to run interference for black and brown drug pushers because you all listed them as the most vulnerable, like seeing them to be prioritized for housing and services first.

Let's just pay the gun-telling criminals to move elsewhere.

Let's just pay the criminals their free rent and food so they don't rob somebody for a little while.

You all should be kicked out because you all are still lying in the pockets of the Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd protesters who showed up at City Hall a few years ago and shook down the council and shifted the paradigm away from improving the war on drugs, causing a continued implosion.

You all shifted what?

Thank you, Mr. Haynes.

I will say you always say black and brown people are drug pushers.

And so I know I don't really respond to everyone's comment, but I think we're more than that.

All right.

So anyways, thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Public comment period is now closed.

And will the clerk please read, thank everyone for their comments and for coming down and for Seattle folks and people online.

I really appreciate you taking your time out of your day, whether you left work or you know, took off any of those things to come down to give public comment.

All right, so thank you.

Will the clerk please read item number one into the record.

Agenda item one, appointment 3542, appointment of Zahur Ahmed, the Washington State Convention Center, public facilities district board for a term to July 30th, 2030 for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Awesome.

We are super excited.

about our appointment.

Thank you.

Good to see you.

Welcome.

And please present yourself.

And you can- Of course, she's Jen.

Okay, nice.

And you can jump right into it.

Good morning, thank you so much.

Jen Lemaster, President and CEO of the Seattle Convention Center.

Good morning and thank you all for the opportunity to speak in support of Zahor's appointment to our board.

Before I make comments about Zahor, I wanna just begin by acknowledging our outgoing board member who is a city appointee, Mr. Bob Flowers, who has served us for 22 years, and the public with distinction.

Bob brought deep financial expertise, steady judgment, and a real passion for meetings and events, especially for the economic impact they create.

His service has helped strengthen the Convention Center as both a public asset and an economic engine, and we are very grateful for his commitment and leadership.

As we look to the next chapter, Zahor is an excellent appointment to continue that tradition of strong financial stewardship and industry expertise.

Zahor brings decades of experience in hospitality, finance, hotel operations, asset management, and is a downtown leader.

As the CFO and Vice President of R.C.

Hadreen Company, he has been directly involved in some of the most important assets in Seattle, including the Hyatt Regency, which is the largest hotel in the Pacific Northwest with 1260 rooms and 100,000 square feet of meeting space.

Zahor's experience is highly relevant to the Convention Center's work.

He understands construction finance, long-term debt, permanent financing, banking relationships, internal control, sales performance, operations, and the broader tourism economy.

Just as important, Zahor understands the ecosystem around the Convention Center.

He has served in leadership roles, including board chair with Visit Seattle, the Downtown Seattle Association, the Washington Hospitality Association, and the Hospitality Finance and Technology Professionals.

All this means he understands how meetings and events connect to hotel performance, restaurant activities, small businesses, downtown vitality, tax generation, and the overall competitiveness of our destination.

This is a public board responsible for stewarding a major civic and economic asset, and Zahor brings the financial discipline, governance experience, and industry knowledge, and not to mention a love for Seattle that will serve this mission well.

I'm grateful for his willingness to serve, and I strongly support his appointment to our board.

Awesome.

Welcome, Zohar.

Would you like to give some comments?

Good to see you.

I wrote all that.

I don't know.

Anyway, I just wanted to say a couple of things.

I think my resume, everybody has that, so I don't need to reiterate any of that.

But I think working with Dick Hadreen in Seattle for past 27 years and bring his enterprising skill to the boards that I have served at DSA, Visit Seattle past chair and Washington Hospitality Association past chair and a current board member for all of those.

I think that serves me well.

And I think biggest thing that I think about right now is the convention center's overall viability in the future.

We have spent over $2 billion in the construction of this convention center and the bonds do expire and they do come up for renewal.

and what serves the bonds is the occupancies in the hotels and the tax we collect from it.

So I understand being part of the hospitality industry for about 40 years as to how important that is to grow that segment of Seattle business strongly.

We should not be a discount city, which is what we are viewed at right now.

We need to be a prominent city in trying to establish good rates, good occupancies, good jobs for our people.

So I think those are all good things and I think I bring a lot of experience in all those areas to serve on the board.

So thank you for considering.

Awesome.

Thank you, Zohar.

I know we've had a chance to meet and your resume.

The only thing I will say is that you went to UNLV.

I'm just fine.

You're a rebel.

Anyways, I'm just fine.

Colleagues, are there any comments?

Councilmember Strauss?

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for your volunteer service.

And you've seen some transformation downtown with the new Convention Center, with the Overlook Walk, with the new waterfront and even the entryway into Pioneer Square.

We see Occidental and Pioneer Square operating differently now after the waterfront has made that last two block connection inland.

What's your vision?

Where do we go from here?

I mean, these are big civic projects that we've completed.

We have a different feel downtown today than when we did in 2019. Where are we going from here?

I think we have the basics, right?

So we have the basics and more in Seattle right now.

With the Convention Center, I was part of the public facilities districts when it was created with Frank Finner and the folks first thought about how the convention center should function.

And the idea was to grow that business tremendously, to grow that business almost double the convention citywide convention business and we are not there yet.

I think that's where I'm on the board of Visit Seattle as well so there's a push from us, the hoteliers, to increase that segment of citywide and create all kinds of fundings that's necessary to make sure we are competitive in the business convention world in the United States.

We don't want Chicago and Phoenix and San Francisco to eat over lunch.

We want this to be the prominent convention space for especially the technology and for medical bioscience those are the areas very important to Seattle and we want those folks to come over here to meet and grow and you know leave their money here so that's the big part of it and I think one of the things is I mean if you look at Seattle retail and restaurant and bar activities all of them are subdued and dim I think and they are not to their potential.

And that's all gonna come back.

When you have visitors in the city, it just lifts all the ships and it's gonna bring the business environment up and we need to help everybody.

So that's the vision.

So just bring more business to Seattle.

Wonderful, I thought you were gonna say Lid I-5 so that we can connect the convention center up to Capitol Hill.

And I say that seriously because we have the Revive I-5 project that is partially stalled, so we're taking care of the Ship Canal Bridge, but WSDOT did stall the other work.

And this is our once in, 50-year opportunity to use the private-public partnership to reconnect Capitol Hill with downtown and right there at the convention center.

If there was a public square connecting up to Melrose Market, that would be much more attractive a crossover the freeway.

And I say this because Washington DC was able to live 395 with zero public dollars and actually created a lot of privatized space.

They used all private funding and it created that civic space while also, and this is my other kicker for downtown, is I'm always pushing for more residential.

because we've seen with office space, it's not utilized and it creates a hole in our community.

What are your thoughts there?

No, I think I've been to several LID I-5 meetings and I was part of that effort as well.

But I think it's a fantastic idea to LID I-5.

I think that's a connector between the north and the east and the west.

And I think it's also creates that green space in the middle of the city that will be just like, you talk about Central Park and all those things.

It can be housing, it could be retail, it could be a park.

So it's all of that stuff.

I think as an amenity for Seattle, as an improvement to the city, that is a fantastic idea.

As a convention business, you know, I think about in the terms of what attracts convention business and what brings the people to Seattle.

I mean, that'll be a part of it, but I think we just need to be more aggressive in as to how we are approaching that world.

But I think LIDA 5 is wonderful and I think our office is part of that effort as well.

Wonderful.

I can't miss an opportunity to bring it up, because if WSDOT doesn't take these public-private partnerships into consideration really right now, we're going to miss that opportunity, and it's going to have to be all publicly funded, which becomes much more difficult and less vibrant, to be kind of frank.

I think with the convention center's location where it is, that just makes sense definitely a lot more.

Well, thanks for listening to today's public service announcement.

Noted.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Mr. Ahmed, for volunteering, for contributing to the public discussion and the work that the Convention Center does.

And also thank you to Ms. Lemaster as well for all the work that you've done.

Obviously, many meetings, we've come together and spoke on the issues related to Convention Center, the area, public safety, all the above.

Councilmember Strauss talked about a little bit longer term, medium, longer term.

I just wanted to ask, and I bring this up because I had a discussion yesterday with Inspire Washington, and I had a meeting with the mayor yesterday afternoon, and I said, you know, normally after a big event, a big exercise, a big operation, we have a lessons learned event or an after action report.

And we just had a situation, yes, United States lost in the round of 16 in the World Cup, But America won and Seattle definitely won in terms of the World Cup, FIFA World Cup.

And I bring this up because there's so much momentum with FIFA World Cup that was built up.

And it's like, as I say oftentimes, nothing builds momentum like momentum.

So how do we continue this momentum?

And this plays into the Hospitality Association, the hotels, the restaurants, the convention.

And I bring it up because the natural piece, as you see with ESPN, or even now locally with One Roof, it's sports and entertainment.

and entertainment oftentimes is arts and culture.

So how can we take this momentum as a city and continue it and leverage our entertainment side of things, leverage the arts and culture?

And this goes down to all the stakeholders in the city, particularly in the greater downtown area, It's like, how can we take the lessons learned from what's happened over the last month, basically two years, but particularly over the last month plus with the FIFA World Cup, and how do we take those lessons learned and then apply it to another area where we can keep the momentum going, which would be good for the hotels, good for the restaurants, and in turn, good for the convention center and the overall ecosystem.

Oftentimes I talk about public safety.

I'll skip it this time and instead say, hey, how can we, you know, do this?

And this is something I brought up with Inspire Washington, and I think the arts and culture, aka the entertainment, sports entertainment, would be a great way to do that.

And so this is more of a near term, and I'm kind of saying this out loud.

because I recognize the Convention Center is a little bit tangent, but it really goes to how do we keep the momentum going?

And this is, again, part of my conversations yesterday with Inspire Washington, but also the mayor.

Any thoughts?

Any reaction?

Or from Ms. Lemaster, too.

I think Jen can probably speak on that, but my perspective on that would be I think we did get a tremendous amount of exposure to millions if not close to billions of people with this World Cup, especially the last game.

And I think we need to keep that momentum going.

We need to make sure that we are issuing or just reissuing all those write-ups that we have had from different New sources and Visit Seattle has spent a lot of money, by the way, just in this World Cup marketing effort.

So they added double their funding.

They had $300,000 and they asked for 300 more.

So they've spent close to $600,000 in spending and marketing.

I think we got exposure worth hundreds of millions of dollars for that.

So that was a good thing.

And they need to keep that going.

And they need to get people coming to Seattle.

I just think that Seattle shone like a star throughout the whole event and people saw what it's like.

And it's not only Seattle, I think the whole United States, the perception that people are going home where they're saying that America is a great country to come and visit.

So I think that was a very, very positive thing for the United States.

I don't know, Jen, you may want to add a couple of more things to it, but I think it's a great momentum for Seattle.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and thank you Commissioner Kittle for the question and the opportunity to make a few comments about how well the city performed in terms of cleanliness and public safety over the last three weeks.

As I was out in the community, I heard many comments from locals talking about how great downtown looked.

And we have to, number one, keep up the momentum on clean and safe and the way that our streets look, because we didn't just invite the world to our downtown, but we invited many of our locals and our regional citizens back to downtown, some of them for the first time.

So our immediate term work, to answer your question directly, you're gonna see continued investments in the public realm from the convention center.

We have what we believe is the best convention center in North America, probably the world, but we need our streets to be as exciting and dynamic and vibrant as our convention center is.

So from us, you'll continue to see us investing in public spaces so that we can deliver on the vision that Commissioner Strauss mentioned, which is being a civic asset as well as an economic asset to our community and our neighbors.

Okay.

Well, thank you both Mr. Armand and Ms. Lemaster and let's keep the momentum going.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

I don't see any other questions.

I just really appreciate your service.

I'm looking forward.

I have to double down on what Council Member Strauss said is that connectivity from downtown to Capitol Hill is incredibly important because since the Reserve left Starbucks, that area, we've lost bush traffic up into the hill about 50%.

in that area off Melrose.

So we're always looking at ways to bring more people into the district and the community, and I know that the Convention Center will be a part of that too as well, and with your help as well.

So looking forward to it.

Okay, so we're gonna, are there any closing words?

Okay, how much you like the reserve and would like it back?

No, okay.

I move that committee recommends confirmation of appointment 3542. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved in second to confirm the appointment.

Are there any other final comments on the appointee?

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of the appointment?

Council member Kettle?

Aye.

Council member Rivera?

Aye.

Council member Strauss?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Motion carries.

The committee recommendation confirmation.

Appointment will be sent to the July 14th City Council meeting.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate your time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

All right, we have item number two.

I will read it to the record while our clerk gets the next presenter set up.

So agenda item number two, it's item number 2919, audit recommendation updates for briefing and discussion.

and I wanna thank the city auditor's office for coming, team, and giving us updates and always appreciate the data and looking forward to hearing the presentation.

Thank you.

Council President, shall we do just quick introductions before we begin?

Yeah, just do introductions and we can jump in.

Thank you.

Arushi Thakkalal, Acting City Auditor.

Sarah Land, Interim Audit Manager.

Melissa Allman, Assistant City Auditor.

Claudia Gross-Shader, Director of Research and Evaluation.

Awesome, welcome.

And for the record, we have Councilmember Rivera in person now, so thank you.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you so much.

Just want to make sure.

Good morning, council president, council members.

Thank you so much for having us this morning to give our annual update on audit recommendations.

We have some prepared remarks, and then we are happy to take your questions both during or after the presentation.

So as you are probably aware, every year we release a report that summarizes the status of all open recommendations.

This year we released our report back in May that looked at work on those recommendations through December 31st, 2025. We've been issuing this follow-up report annually since 2009, and this is really part of our value added to the city.

Not only are we conducting audits to identify how things can be improved, but we're also continuing to follow up with departments year after year to see those improvements actually be implemented or if they may not get implemented, why, since circumstances may change.

In fact, I recently learned of an audit recommendation that was implemented I think 12 or 13 years after we had initially recommended it.

It was still valid, still relevant.

It just took the department some time to get it done, but it made improvements.

So today at a high level, my team will share updates on recommendations that were implemented in 2025. Thank you, Sarah.

As well as recommendations that remain pending, but either we saw some key progress on them or they are very timely issues important to the public.

And we will also share some information about our public recommendation dashboard.

So our office has made nearly 1,000 audit recommendations since 2007. We are a small but mighty team.

Some of our peers from the City of San Diego Audit Office actually recently did a benchmark of how audit functions in major cities across the U.S. are resourced and they came up with an average investment of across 15 cities of about $1.13 per $1,000 of city budget.

Now for Seattle, our funding is at about 56 cents per $1,000 and that includes both our office and the Seattle Office of Inspector General for Public Safety as they audit SPD.

So we're getting a lot done with the resources that we have and we're really proud to have an implementation rate of 72 percent.

I think this number reflects the thought that we put into our recommendations, that they are targeted solutions, they are actionable, and that departments trust our expertise.

Now, in 2025, here was our progress.

We tracked 94 open recommendations, including 20 that were made during the calendar year 2025, and we found that 10 had been implemented with 84 remaining pending.

At the end of the year, we will again follow up on these 84 recommendations.

I'll hand it off to Sarah to discuss those implemented recommendations.

Great.

Thanks so much, Arushi.

So yeah, we want to start with some good news, some of the highlights here of the 10 recommendations that were implemented in 2025. And so we want to take a moment and recognize those successes.

The first one here is the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance Audit, and that was published in December 2023. in order to address a reduction that was noticed in rental registrations.

In some of the highlights this year, the Department of Construction and Inspections was able to have short-term rental licensing and the rental registration data to be able to be shared across departments to help with compliance.

And the City Council also adopted ordinance number 127376, which made regulatory changes to neighborhood residential zones and also passed the RIO program fees, new fees in the 2026 budget.

And three recommendations remain pending from that audit.

And then we have the Seattle Public Utilities Residential Solid Waste Billing Controls Audit.

This was a pretty technical audit, but in short, it was to ensure that the city's residential solid waste billings are accurate, timely, complete, and authorized.

SPU has been plugging away at these recommendations steadily and implemented two in 2025, including aligning job aids, and they are currently conducting the risk assessment that was requested in the audit.

And then finally, I have a couple more.

The Surveillance Technology Annual Review, although it was published late in 2025, SDOT was able to complete two of the recommendations with six remaining.

And then the Seattle Department of Human Resources also implemented one additional recommendation.

And I just wanted to note one correction, that for the Workforce Equity Audit, two have been implemented.

One was closed and one remains pending.

and now I'll turn it over to my colleague Melissa to talk about updates on the remaining recommendations.

Thank you, Sarah.

So I'm going to share progress on two audits.

First is our audit on park restrooms, which was requested by the Park District Board.

You'll see on the slide that none of the six recommendations are implemented, but this is not surprising because the audit was just about a year old at the time of our follow-up.

In this audit, we found that parks needed to do a better job of keeping to a realistic cleaning schedule and having more consistency across the city.

We know having clean restrooms is something that the public cares a lot about.

So last year, Parks piloted new cleaning standards, a monitoring program, and hired more temporary and regular staff.

Parks said they are going to take lessons that they learned from that pilot and then refine their approach this year for restroom cleaning.

We will be interested to see how 2026 goes and if these improvements are successful.

So overall, progress is being made, but to close out these recommendations, we really want to see a longer period of consistent outcomes where the public can better rely on park restrooms meeting their expectations.

For the next audit that I'm going to talk about is on construction permitting, which was requested by Councilmember Strauss.

None of these recommendations have been implemented either.

Since this audit is almost three years old, ideally we would have liked to have seen some of these recommendations implemented by now.

However, I will say some of these recommendations are big, multi-part, multi-department recommendations that do take time to fully implement.

and we don't close out recommendations until they are fully done.

As the title of this audit suggests, having more of a customer focus was a big theme for this audit, and some of our recommendations were around sharing permit processing times, getting customer feedback, and improving department coordination.

I also want to take this opportunity to mention that we completed an audit of SDCI inspection process late last year, also requested by Councilmember Strauss, and found that the permitting recommendations are also going to help improve the inspections process, particularly around department coordination.

So even more incentive to get these permitting recommendations implemented.

So you'll see on the slide here some of the progress from 2025, but one update that I want to highlight, which actually just happened a couple months ago, is that SDCI created a construction permit timeline visual for the public to see how their permit application is moving through the process, and who with the city is working on it.

So it looks like a neat tool.

We expect to see even more progress this year in 2026 so we can start marking some of these recommendations as implemented during our next follow-up.

I'll turn it over to Claudia.

Thank you.

I have just a few minutes to describe the status of recommendations for three audits related to public health and public safety issues in Seattle.

These are complex issues, so I would like to begin by sharing with you that Mayor Wilson's office has offered that they would be willing to join our office for a separate presentation on these three audits for the Council sometime later this summer if that is of interest to you.

Today, I'll report that there were no recommendations from these three audits that were fully implemented during this reporting period.

However, work is being done and there are updates to share, For example, council members Rivera and Kettle and Mayor Wilson's office convened a symposium by the National Network for Safe Communities to explore the evidence-based practice of focused deterrence for addressing gun violence.

They convened a host of institutional partners and community partner agencies for this conversation.

Also, the Council Public Safety Committee has been working on clarifying the role and the legislation for the care department, which is related to another recommendation for our 2025 gun violence audit.

And in addition, Mayor Wilson's office reported that they are working to develop a comprehensive strategy to address gun violence in Seattle.

And just last week, related to our audit on overdoses and crime concentration, last week the Seattle Police Department submitted a grant application in collaboration with our office, Mayor Wilson's office, and community partner agencies, including Plymouth Housing, the YWCA, and Recovery Cafe.

If selected, this grant would bring $3 million over five years to implement evidence-based strategies to address overdose and crime concentrations in the two-block area of Belltown that was featured in our 2024 audit on overdose and crime concentrations.

Next slide.

and the police department reported that they have rebooted their retail theft program, so they have updates on this audit to share as well.

Now, our office has been auditing complex public safety and public health topics for over a dozen years, and we've observed that one of the barriers to implementing our recommendations has been the significant turnover in city leadership.

This slide illustrates the turnover in city leadership since 2013. As a city government, we may not be able to control organizational turnover, but we can put in place systems and structures that can help keep the city focused on delivering programs that are proven effective, even when there is organizational change.

In our audit on organized retail crime and our audit on places where overdoses and crime are concentrated, we recommended that the city should systematically address those places using an evidence-based problem-solving framework.

In the case of those two audits, we recommended the strategic prevention framework, which is an evidence-based framework developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

In our gun violence audit, we recommended that the city should use an evidence-based framework for problem solving and communication regarding gun violence.

The framework pictured here, it's called the Violence Reduction Councils, and it is supported by evidence that is proven effective in other jurisdictions.

Johns Hopkins University offered the city free technical assistance funded by Bloomberg to help us learn about and implement that framework in 2025. That offer runs out in September of 2026. As we continue to follow up on our audit recommendations, we'll be looking to see how the city implements systems and structures that prioritize and sustain programs that are proven effective for improving public safety and health.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Arushi.

Thank you Claudia.

So while this presentation and our report covered only a portion of these recommendations, the status of all recommendations that we followed up on, it's available at our public dashboard.

The link is here at the QR code as well as through our website.

For more detailed progress updates on individual recommendations, including barriers to implementation, resources, we would recommend asking the departments directly as they are the ones doing the work.

But for today, we are happy to try to do our best to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you for that presentation and those recommendations.

I know we have some council members that have some questions, so I'll turn to them first before I have some comments.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you all for being here today.

You are one of our greatest assets and I really appreciate you.

and your website is great.

I've been on it, was just on it again yesterday to look at past audits and it's very helpful.

And I will say thank you for bringing up the gun violence symposium that I put together.

I looked at your audit when I was putting that together and you talked about the national network in your audit.

which led me to conversations with David Kennedy who's the leading expert as you pointed out in the audit and as I have come to find out.

And it was his organization, the National Network for Safe Communities that actually put on the symposium and I worked with them because something you noted in here was in your four recommendations to better understand gun violence audit from March of last, of 2025, is that the city of Baltimore had made, and Indianapolis had made great strides dealing with gun violence.

and I have lived in Washington DC for many years and visited Baltimore for many years.

I know how bad the situation there was.

so I was very compelled with the strategy which you delineated in the audit that is David Kennedy's strategy when I was thinking about, as you know...

As you know, Bob, you're off mute, Council Member Kettle.

Go ahead.

That's okay.

and when I was, you know, you all know as I've been saying that I ran for office because of gun safety issues and particularly a kid getting shot in my kid's school.

And since then I've been thinking about ways to help this city in the gun violence, with the gun violence efforts.

I'm being a little long-winded, apologies, but I just want to say how impactful and meaningful this audit was to the subsequent work that I've been engaged in with the national network to bring that effort it is my hope here to Seattle.

And when we did this symposium, it was really important to me that we heard from folks from Baltimore.

So I specifically requested the network, can you please bring folks from Baltimore and also Philly?

Because Philly's seen some great strides in their gun violence situation.

and when I say great strides, it's 40 to 60 percent reduction in gun violence in those cities.

Boston, Baltimore, Philly, South Bend, Indiana, all working with the national network to implement their effort and you know you started it by putting together and leading me to this audit so I really want to thank you for that and I want to say with the work that you do doesn't go unheard or unnoticed or unappreciated we're doing work in response to your audits and that is really important and colleagues in terms of the symposium I'm working on a resolution because I really do want to bring that effort here and I hope that we can all work together.

The one thing about that effort and gun violence as is delineated in the audit and what we know is we all have to work together and be on the same page.

that is how those efforts worked in those other cities and that's what we have to do here.

So more to come about my, and thank you for joining the symposium and being there Claudia, and more to come on the resolution to try to make that effort a reality here in Seattle.

Also should say, I've been working with the mayor's office as well, They were at the symposium.

They partnered.

I'm just very appreciative for Councilmember Kettle's support as chair of the Public Safety Committee that now I sit on.

I'm grateful to sit on.

And also I'm grateful for the mayor for their support in the symposium and all the folks that came from the King County Prosecutor to the City Attorney to SPD to the Human Services Department to Deal.

all the folks and community members that came to participate and hear about this effort.

And it was really great to hear from these other cities.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Appreciate you letting me give a little background on how important this particular audit was to me and to the work that I'm trying to do and help us all do together to deal with gun safety in this city so we can help.

save lives and reduce, I'd love to reduce our gun violence by the numbers that these other cities have.

So thank you, Council President, appreciate you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera, well said.

I don't know who's next, but Council Member Strauss, and then we'll go to Council Member Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

If we could tick back to slide 10, I don't think it's anyone's surprise.

I'm coming back to the permitting audit in similar forms and functions as this slide about the changes in public safety leadership have occurred.

The same changes have occurred in just the last few years with SDCI and many of the other partners.

So just as we start talking about this permit audit, As our auditors mentioned, there are many different organizations and departments that have to sign off on permitting from FHIR to SPU to SDOT and SDCI does hold most of them.

But then one of the reasons why I asked for the certificate of occupations audit as well is because King County Public Health is also involved, technically Seattle King County Public Health, but they seem to not be as responsive to our audits and our asks as some of our city departments who do work under our city's umbrella.

So I just, number one, want to appreciate the auditors, Melissa, for your continued work on this.

But this is unacceptable, and not for the auditors, for these recommendations not being implemented.

I know that Brooke Bellman was taking this very seriously in a way that goes back to, I don't know if anyone was watching Seattle Channel in 2021, but it was at the point where I was drawing the PowerPoint slides because some folks hadn't gotten permission to present in the committee.

And as we were digging in to find out more information about why permits were taking so long to be able to be pulled, So this has been a long time coming, but with Brooke and now with Sam, I'm seeing some seriousness being taken with meeting the recommendations of the audit.

I talked to Director Steele yesterday sharing some of my frustrations about the situation in which we are in and the fact that this slide is here before us today.

and so with that chair, one of the other aspects that's also occurred is we've had the land use chair turn over a number of times since I was the land use chair just a few years ago and as well as the land use committee has been full of comprehensive plan and many other meaty topics.

And so, Chair, I would ask that we have the auditor return to your committee with the appropriate departments and present.

In the past, when the recommendations have been presented, it has only been SDCI at the table, but I think that it is important that we call everyone from Seattle-King County Public Health to every other permitting entity within our city of Seattle.

One of the There are a number of really important recommendations from ensuring that our permit reviewers are trained and held to ethical standards to attending to timeliness.

I know that one of the audit I think one of the most striking things was that there were copy and paste.

These are not the full corrections that we're going to provide you, and so you should expect more.

For me, that's not customer service.

I know that there are businesses on the waterfront adjacent to the ferry terminal that were not able to open by World Cup right now.

that left a hole in the waterfront when we just had a conversation about this was our chance to remake our city's vision in the international, national, and regional levels.

These have real implications.

And so I think it would be important if we are able to bring all of these entities back because this needs to be taken seriously.

As Melissa mentioned, three years ago, and I've been following up but we need a little bit more juice because folks aren't standing to attention at the moment and I would love to see what progress has been made because in my conversation with Director Steele yesterday it sounds like there is work being done I know that under Brooke Bellman Dan Nelson was assigned to do this work and that was the first time that there was a person strictly assigned to complete this work so I think that while they might not have implemented I think that they are close on a number of them and it would be important to share that story but at the same time holding everyone to account because we literally have a hole in the waterfront and we missed an opportunity to show Seattle who we really are because our permitting isn't set up correctly That's a self-created harm here.

And so I was pretty distraught when Brooke had to leave suddenly.

But I am reassured through my conversation with Sam yesterday.

But I think this deserves a lot more attention.

I'll save my other comments for slide.

14 about the public safety audit themes after Councilmember Kettle shares his remarks, but it's a similar thing that I would probably say is we may want the, on the slides it says the Mayor's Office is willing to present to Council jointly.

I think that might be a good idea.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you.

May I ask, did I miss anything or did I get anything incorrect or is there anything that you would like to add?

You nailed it.

All right.

Thank you.

Sorry, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Kettle.

Good morning, the auditor team.

I really appreciate you being here and giving this presentation.

And, you know, there's some themes here.

As you know, we have our strategic framework plan for SAFER Seattle and we've been working the ordinances and so forth.

And recently with Little Saigon and North Aurora and so forth, I've noted that, you know, I don't really have a lot of confidence in, you know, making positive change long term, and we can always do short term but long term, because we're a city of two minds.

We never take the action.

And in that press conference on North Roar, I noted that, you know, and part of the things is we needed to increase SPD staffing.

We need to have the technology program up and running, which is now in the stadium area, been turned off.

But one of the points that I also made was the implementation of ordinances, the implementation of laws.

And so there's a parallel here in terms of the implementation of the audit.

recommendations and part of it goes to that great slide 11 but it also goes to the point that we are a city of two minds and for every action there's a reaction and they tend to cancel each other out and it's frustrating because here we are in a chronic situation that doesn't have to be chronic and so you know to Councilmember Strauss's point maybe a Governance and Public Safety Joint Committee meeting or maybe working with Chair to have you come to the Public Safety Committee at some point just to raise these pieces because, for example, the gun violence is very important and I thank Councilmember Rivera for all her great work on a symposium working with David Kennedy's group and all those pieces and it's super important.

I went through the the audit report myself and review in part of that and some of the other work we're doing to include adding a pillar to that strategic framework plan regarding gun violence, intervention, prevention and community safety.

And the other point, too, about addressing the scene between public safety and human services, for example.

And the bottom line is we have to do better.

And what you're experiencing is not unlike what I'm experiencing as chair of public safety and it's unfortunate and the in slide 11 is just it's almost an indictment on the city and it's unfortunate and you know leadership management 101 dictates that that kind of turnover is not good and so I just wanted to thank you for coming forward and making the presentation.

And by the way, I also support the other areas too.

I don't want to, you know, in terms of SDCI and so forth, the points that were made, but the public safety piece just illustrates so clearly some of these endemic issues that we have as a city.

And the sad thing is it doesn't have to be, but here we are.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the auditor team.

And thank you to Councilmember Rivera for also, as I noted, because as my father used to say, many hands make light work.

We have to have a comprehensive approach and have my colleagues work in these different areas, and the work that she did for that symposium really elevated the discussion, and it's going to be folded in as what we do as a committee and as a council, so thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle.

Councilmember Rivera, is that a new hand?

Yes.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Kettle, for your remarks plus one.

You know, I also want to say, you know, the audits are helpful as we're doing our work.

I noted a lot of it is mayor's office because they operationalize and implement the laws and the recommendations, but we care so much about these things that we too get involved in trying to help implement some of this work.

And so I appreciate you bringing up the symposium because I noted no recommendations, I mean, nothing was implemented from the great recommendations that you made.

And my attempt is to get us together to start working on these recommendations.

So, you know, it is to say that you've made recommendations in these reports, isn't just a report to tell us how we're doing or how, you know.

And we really need to take those recommendations seriously.

and that is what I'm trying to do as we are grappling with this issue.

So really want to underscore that this is not just me wanting to do something about gun violence in this way.

these ideas are coming from your actual recommendations that you're getting from the experts.

And that is really important because I think sometimes we try to tackle an issue and we don't look at the recommendations from your office that you're doing the research and the background and these audits take a really long time.

So it is not something that you're just putting on paper lightly.

you are really working across the country to look at best practices, the best way to implement change for the better for our city.

And so when you issue these recommendations, I take them really seriously because I know you've done the homework, you've done your work, you've done your due diligence.

Dare I say it, Council President, they've done Rivera due diligence.

I'm kidding, but you know how I get in the weeds with things and I appreciate that you do too.

I know I was trying to bring a little levity, but I'm not as good as jokes as council president is with jokes.

So anyway, really wanted to underscore that, you know, the recommendations that you're making in all of these audits and very importantly in the public safety ones and not just the gun safety ones, the other two are really important and we need to take action to implement these recommendations and that was my attempt in doing the symposium was to help operationalize the gun safety audit with your great recommendations and I just didn't want to leave it unsaid these are your recommendations.

It wasn't just that I read your report and thought of something, is that you actually recommended these things.

So wanna give credit where credit is due.

Thank you, Council President.

Awesome, thank you, Council Member Rivera.

No, your jokes are just fine, so thank you.

Are there any other comments?

Council Member Strauss, did you wanna go back to a slide?

Nope, okay, awesome.

Thank you.

Well, thank you all, obviously, for your presentation.

you know, the recommendations and auditing those, analyzing those, if they have been implemented or not, it really helps us understand where we are and then where we can kind of push on things for growth edges for different departments or getting things done.

So really appreciate it.

Anytime the auditor's office might be small, but you're mighty and you have a really big impact on the city.

So thank you so much.

Any closing words?

No, we appreciate your time.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, and we're gonna transition and jump right in to, let's see, item number three.

And I will read item number three into the record while our clerk is helping get set up.

So it's CB121222, an ordinance relating to the utility discount program amending the income threshold.

And I believe we have Brian and Eric.

Oh, we just have Brian.

I don't see Eric, okay.

That's okay, Brian.

You're the best.

So we have Brian.

Thank you for coming, and after your presentation, I will pass it over to Councilmember Strauss, the sponsor of this bill.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

For the record, Brian Goodnight, Council Central staff.

Yeah, this is the second discussion of this bill, so I just have a few slides to walk through, but it can be brief.

So first off, the utility discount program known as the UDP provides eligible households with a discount on their Seattle City Lights and Seattle Public Utilities bills.

The UDP is a joint program between the utilities and it is administered in terms of enrollment and income verification by the Human Services Department.

As it currently stands to be eligible for the program, household incomes must be equal to or less than 70% of state median income.

For those customers that don't directly receive a bill from SPU, which are typically customers in apartment buildings, they receive the usual 60% discount on their Seattle City Light bill, and then in addition will receive a credit on those bills from SPU as well.

As of the end of last year, there were approximately 39,000 customers enrolled in the UDP.

During last fall's budget process, Councilmember Strauss sponsored a statement of legislative intent, or a SLI as we call them, that requested SPU, City Light, and HSD to evaluate the impacts of expanding UDP eligibility.

The departments provided a written response to the SLI in May and then came to this committee's previous meeting on June 11th to present the results of their work.

On to the bill itself, which is relatively simple.

The bill would modify the eligibility threshold for the UDP from 70% of state median income to 60% of area median income, with an effective date of April 1st of 2027. The departments estimate that this change would increase the number of customers that are eligible for the program by about 31,000 folks, and that's almost a 30% increase in eligible customers.

and then if current participation rates held for that newly eligible group, the city would see about a little under 11,000 new customers enrolled in the program.

The bill also states the council's intent to consider legislation in 2027 to extend UDP benefits to additional households and specifically it calls out extending benefits to those with incomes up to 70% of area median income in 2028 and up to 80% of area median income in 2029. And then lastly, Councilmember Strauss has prepared an amendment for this bill, which is listed as amendment number one in your packets.

The amendment would change the effective date for the eligibility change from April 1st of 2027 to January 1st of 2027. It would also revise the council's intended dates for future eligibility changes from April to January.

in 2028 and 2029. And then finally, the amendment would add a new section to the bill requesting the departments to publish an annual report on UDP participation rates and departmental efforts to increase participation.

The new section states that the reports should be published by April 1st of each year, and then with them beginning in 2027 and ending in 2031. And that includes my remarks.

Thank you, Brian.

Councilmember Strauss sponsored the bill.

You are recognized.

Thank you, and thank you to the chair for co-sponsoring this legislation.

Utility costs are housing costs.

By passing this legislation, we will be reducing the amount of the amount many working families are paying for their housing by more than $1,000 per year, depending on their usage.

This legislation before us is absolutely about making life more affordable for working families and doing so quickly.

Right now, those making just above the minimum wage are paying the same home utility rates as the multi-millionaire hedge fund manager.

Even the families who just lost their jobs so that C-suite executives can receive bonuses are paying the same utility rates.

Another round of layoffs was just announced last week.

So the changes before us that we're making ensure that our working families, our seniors on fixed incomes, the parents of the kids I grew up with who are paying more in property tax than their original mortgage, and the people and families who just need a little help making sure that they can make ends meet this month.

This is who this legislation is for.

And for too long, our thresholds have been too low using the state median income rather than the area median income.

And we haven't had the prorated step-down benefits for the families who make just $1 above that low threshold.

This has left families in the cold or not feeling medication to keep their heat on, as one public commenter mentioned.

This legislation makes real the work that so many city employees have been working on for, on my clock, nine years and for longer on many other clocks.

I know Sir Roger Reddy has been working on this longer than I've worked for the city.

And so this legislation makes real the work that so many have been working on for nearly a decade.

This legislation will put money back into the pockets of working people who are struggling with the affordability of our city today, and we're able to do so quickly.

That's part of the reason that we are having an amendment.

Originally, we had talked about when I believe it was the HUD announcement comes out April 1st.

And so we tied it to the implementation to that HUD announcement of the area median income and different rates.

And with our need to engage in some new rates for City Light and others at a higher clip than we've had in the past, but lower than our pure utilities, we made the decision that we needed to bring this date up to January 1st to be consistent with those rate increases.

We've also through this amendment number one, we are requesting additional reporting and I think we may in the future discuss ways that we, if we are not necessarily meeting our eligibility If we are not getting as many people who are eligible into the program, we may request in the future annual reporting and what is the pathway to ensuring that everyone who is eligible is able to claim these benefits because that has been really the quick win that should that we are working on today and that I think many have hoped that we could work on a little bit faster in the past is just ensuring everyone who's eligible is able to benefit.

One of the biggest challenges to making enrollment simple is that because we have used the state median income, it has not been tied to the same benefits that many others in our affordable housing that apply for different SNAP and other benefits here in the city.

because we were using a different threshold, it made it harder to just auto enroll and make and give a one packet of here are the benefits that you can apply for.

And so changing from state to area median income also will help that eligibility increase.

at our last meeting where the first conversation about this bill came out.

We had a whole presentation where we were going to talk about the statement of legislative intent before we talked about the bill.

And I just shared all of my talking points for the entire bill because I was so pent up with excitement to finally get this in public view.

And so I don't need to say much more about the bill today.

I just gratitude for everyone who's worked on this, but I do know that we need to move the amendment.

So chair, your discretion, I'll move the amendment.

Yes, plea A, please do.

Thank you, I'll move amendment one version one to council bill 121222, three twos.

Second.

It's been moved and second to recommend a passage of the bill, or excuse me, for amendment.

Wait, you just moved the bill.

You just moved the amendment.

I moved the amendment.

Thank you.

All right.

Councilmember Strauss, you were recognized.

Thank you.

As I said, this just changes the implementation date from April 1st to January 1st and puts reporting requirements into the bill.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

I apologize.

I had a script and I read the wrong line, my friend.

Are there any other comments about amendment number one to Council Bill 121222?

All right.

Will the chair, will the clerk please call the roll on amendment number one?

Councilmember Kettle.

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Four in favor.

Awesome.

Amendment number one is adopted.

The motion carries.

Are there any further comments on the bill as amended?

There are, and I'll save mine for last.

I see Councilmember Kettle and then Councilmember Rivera.

I recognize people want to make comments, but my ability to vote is dwindling down.

So I was just going to ask if we can move to a vote for the bill.

Awesome.

Thank you, council member Kettle.

Yes, we will.

Council member Rivera.

You just want to move.

Okay.

Awesome.

All right.

We, we will, if, if the committee is okay, we'll vote on the bill and then we'll go to closing comments.

Is that okay?

Sounds good.

Awesome.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the bill as amended?

Councilmember Kettle?

Aye.

Councilmember Rivera?

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss?

Aye.

Chair Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Four in favor, none opposed.

Awesome.

Bill passes and it will be sent.

The bill passes as amended.

Congratulations, Councilmember Strauss, on all your work on that.

And I believe, I know we're gonna lose Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you so much.

I will say, that I know that, and we partnered with Council Member Strauss, I know he left, but on June 1st, having an affordability meeting to talk about taxes and all of the costs in Seattle.

And so really appreciate his partnership on that.

And this was one of the things people talk about was their utility bill.

so thank you central staff, Brian Goodnight and the rest of your team for all your help on this and then also Seattle Public Utilities for all your help.

You all worked hard too as well on this and I know Council Member Strauss had been working with you all for a couple years so thank you so much.

Did anyone else have any final comments about this bill, Council Member Rivera?

I just wanted to quickly thank our colleague, Councilmember Strauss, for bringing this forward.

I am a huge proponent of the UDP.

I really want to thank General Manager Lee for all the conversations around UDP and the rates and anything that we can do to help families who are really struggling.

we should be doing.

And really, especially right now when we're all talking about affordability because people are really feeling crunched and it's really sad.

And this runs the gamut.

Many folks are feeling it across the board.

So thank you.

He's back.

Council Member Strauss for bringing this and really appreciate the department's partnership in making these expansions to the UDP so we can try to help more people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Do you have any closing comments?

Yeah, this is just about making life more affordable for working families and doing so as quickly as possible.

It's really important.

I've heard so many stories from people and it really like their livelihoods depend on whether they can make their bills, whether they can pay their bills for the month.

And this is a really effective way for us to be able to provide them direct relief and quickly.

So just gratitude to everyone who's worked on this.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Mr. Goodnight, Brian Goodnight.

We're gonna jump into item number four.

It's a big deal.

So this will be on our July 14th City Council meeting.

Agenda item number four, CB121245, an ordinance relating to the rates and changes, charges, excuse me, for water services of Seattle Public Utilities.

This is for briefing and discussion, and we have SPU at the table.

Go ahead, Director Lee, introduce yourself, even though we know you, but for the record, and then we'll jump right in.

Hi, I'm Andrew Lee, General Manager, CEO for Seattle Public Utilities.

All right, Maria Koh, Rates and Financial Planning Manager at Seattle Public Utilities.

Brian, good night.

Council central staff.

Awesome.

Looking forward to talking about water rates.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth and members of the committee.

So each year at about this time, SPU brings forward to the council a rate proposal for one of our three lines of business, drinking water, solid waste and drainage and wastewater.

And this year we're here to talk about water rates.

A little over two years ago, the Council approved Seattle Public Utility's 2025-2030 Strategic Business Plan, or SBP.

As part of the SBP, SPU estimated the rate path for each of the lines of business, and we're now here to follow up with legislation to adopt rates.

I'm pleased to report that the water rate proposal before you today is lower than the water rate that we approved in the 2027-29 rate forecast for the Strategic Business Plan, and it's also lower than the six-year average that was estimated for that Wraith path.

Maria Koh is SPU's rates manager and she will lead you through our water rates proposal now.

All right.

Thank you and good morning.

So today I'm going to walk you through the rate schedule and overview of our water system and consumption trends.

And this will be followed by the goals and new investments incorporated into the recommended rates.

We'll finish up with a review of customer bill impacts, including those enrolled in the utility discount program, including the amendment that was just passed.

So as Andrew Lee just mentioned, to spare you the suspense, The rate path we're bringing you today is consistent and below the strategic business plan that was approved two years ago by Council.

So rates are typically set for a three-year period.

So the rates we're bringing you today for water cover the years 2027, 28, and 29. Next year you'll see me again for drainage and wastewater and following that in 28 for solid waste.

This slide is a map of our water system.

which is more than just Seattle.

The map shows the Seattle retail service area in yellow, our wholesale customers in orange, and our two watersheds, the Cedar and Tolte, in green.

The system essentially functions as a loop, as you can see, with the over 1,800 miles of pipe, and throughout the region, we serve 1.6 million people.

So while population has been steadily and significantly increasing over the decades, you'll notice consumption has decreased and been relatively stable for the past decade.

Much of this is due to our conservation ethos and denser housing stock, which has led to a decline in consumption per capita.

This slide outlines our rate setting goals and principles.

which is to keep rates as low as possible, collect only the amount needed to maintain our system and deliver services, maintain a smooth, predictable rate path, support and expand utility assistance to as many customers as possible, and manage our assets so the system is healthy and stable for future generations.

These new investments included in the proposed rates support the goals that I just discussed in the previous slide.

This includes the cost of moving Tolt water treatment in-house and transferring annual hydrant inspection work from the Seattle Fire Department to SPU.

We're also investing in the longevity of our system through our capital program, including investigating the purchase of land in the Tolt watershed and moving to advanced metering infrastructure.

The proposal also includes the utility discount program change envisioned by Councilmember Strauss and approved by committee.

So you'll notice, as discussed, the eligible population is expanded by almost one-third, and it adds 1% to the 2027 water rate increase, I'll show you on the next slide, which is equivalent to 50 cents per month for residential customers.

So without further ado, here's the proposed rate path.

The top line shows what was presented and approved in the 2024 Strategic Business Plan.

where we had an average estimated rate of 4% per year over the six-year period and a high rate of 6.5% in 2029. The proposal we bring you today has an average six-year growth of 3.4% per year, and the rates we're proposing are 4.3% each in 27, 28, and 29. We like to say customers pay bills, not rates.

So this slide shows the average bill increase anticipated under this proposal.

Single families will see a monthly increase of $2.82 in 2027 and utility discount program qualified families would see half of that or $1.41 per month.

This is the end of my presentation.

We do appreciate your time and consideration.

Can we answer any questions?

Thank you so much for that presentation.

I'll jump to the central staff to see if they have any comments.

Thank you.

No comments today, so I'm working.

I have some questions into SPU right now, and I'll be writing a memo before the committee's next meeting.

Awesome.

Thank you, Brian.

We love your memos.

Colleagues, are there any questions before us?

Councilmember Rivera?

Chair, thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation and then thank you, General Manager Lee and Bob, your staffer, for the meeting last week to talk about these rate increases.

So I got a full briefing and I want to just state that for the record.

So folks, especially my constituents know I've been tracking, I've been getting informed and doing my due diligence in reviewing the rate increases.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

Are there any other comments?

Council Member Strauss?

Happy to jump in.

Thank you, Chair.

Can we go back to slide number eight?

I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but would love to know more about what was done to achieve some of these savings.

We had a proposed strategic plan for 6.3% this year and we are seeing a 4.3% proposal.

This is good news, but what either are we not doing or where were we able to save money?

I know that there are many different SPU programs that are working, for instance, stabilizing the hillside rather than drilling through a mountain so that we could get our water supply here to the city safely.

That's one way that we saved probably billions of dollars.

We've also got the Ship Canal Water Quality Project that is one of the biggest capital projects going on right now.

So these are not small things that you are doing.

and how were we able to save that nearly 2% in rate increase this year?

Do you want to take a crack at that or do you want me to just change?

You know, from year to year and through each of these cycles, we're constantly managing our monies.

And there are some true savings that are inherent in this.

I'm happy to report that the bidding market has actually gotten more favorable for us.

So we've had certain large projects, one of which the Bitter Lake Reservoir Project, you're familiar with that.

That bid came in about 30% less than our engineers estimate, and we've had another couple of projects that have also kind of coincided with that sort of trend in the market.

So the competitiveness in the contracting market has gotten better for us, which has yielded lower prices.

In addition to that, I will say, frankly, that there's- almost every year we have some amount of underspending, and that underspending typically has to do with either we were able to identify cost savings or there might have been things that were deferred.

The result of those is we end up accumulating a certain amount of cash, and that cash gets used to obviously lower some of these rate increases.

And then we're able to levelize.

You'll see that the rate that was projected in the original SPP had a little bit of a bump up and then a bump down, and so we're able to levelize that as well.

I say, I'll add other things, you know, we got favorable bond ratings, and favorable bonds are rates in terms of the bond market, and so that's also contributed.

We tend to make conservative assumptions on our cost of borrowing, and then if those assumptions are beaten in terms of the bonds that we sell, then we get to incorporate that into our rate projections.

And so it's a multitude of factors that's led to the lower than projected rate increases.

That's very helpful.

I know at the next meeting it would be helpful to see what Tacoma water is, what their rate increases are doing.

I know that, I don't know if it was Tukwila, Algona, or SeaTac, but one of our, in slide, for in one of our wholesale customer areas.

I know that they recently moved over to Tacoma Water.

I don't mind.

They can have their own water.

We've got the best in the Northwest and in America here with SPU, so I don't mind if other folks are going other places.

But it would be interesting to see what our pure agencies are doing as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'll just state, you know, having clean...

We had one of the...

At the Association of Washington Cities, we had a speaker come to talk about how 13 ways to kill your city quickly.

It's more built for rural environments, but the number one, the first thing that he says is you don't invest in your water.

If you don't have clean, good water to drink, you are going to undercut your success in every single way.

And so it's just really, I'm really proud of the clean water that we're able to provide and that we get to drink.

Our tap water is more than drinkable.

It's better than some of the bottled water that we have on the store shelves here in the city.

and this is a little bit of a digression chair but our Salmon Bay FC, our soccer team, women's USL2 team is in the semi-finals this weekend and they've been playing teams from across the country and so we've been coming up with friendly jeers for these other teams because you can't be too nice but you don't want to be too mean.

So one team we said, well, you know, you're landlocked.

So that's what we kept cheering, you're landlocked, you're landlocked.

Another team we said, your tap water is undrinkable.

and after the game it hit a little too close to home.

I explained it to another person who's attending the game, and their face went so flat and scared because they thought I was saying that our tap water was undrinkable.

And I share this because it's something that we don't think about.

We just turn on the tap, and there it is.

It becomes unconscious in our habits and something that we depend on.

But especially as climate change continues to occur, especially as Other cities and other municipalities throughout the nation don't invest properly in their water systems.

That jeer of your tap water is undrinkable.

It cuts at the very humanity of, it cuts at the very basics of our society because you can't be a living, thriving human without clean water.

It's a long way of saying thank you for all of your work.

It's something that we have even, you know, as I tested it out with the public this last week, I can tell you the Seattleites who thought I was talking about their tap water were the most upset I've seen.

So thank you for providing us clean tap water and thank you for being able to keep these rates low.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Well said.

And if you could go back to the proposed rates, I'll be super quick.

I do really appreciate the intentionality behind this every time.

I know that the city, we do a little bit stuff different.

There's a little slight at the county.

We do a little different for our rates.

I know I can say this and others probably can't, but I know that the wastewater is directly connected to King County.

and so that's why a lot of people see a very high jump there.

And I know that oftentimes it probably puts pressure on the other places in which we're trying to figure out how we're more efficient with water drainage, solid waste.

And so anyways, I know that we've been working hard and you all too as well, and we wanna work hard with the county.

so we can be in alignment with their wastewater rates and affordability as well, because that is very important.

And I believe it's 25% of someone's bill are wastewater around that.

So just saying, if you see your bill, it's 25% is the county.

So 25% of the anger should go to King County when we're talking about wastewater.

or your whole bill.

But that's really important to us and just really appreciate the intentionality behind it and you all just staying very consistent.

If you look at 2025 and just that slight increase, you could argue a lot of that increase is because of the wastewater piece with some of the percentages.

So really appreciate that.

So thank you, Director.

I don't know if you all have any other comments, but I know we'll discuss this again in our next meeting.

Awesome.

All right.

Thank you all for being here.

Really appreciate it.

And looking forward to that memo as well from Mr. Goodnight and central staff.

All right, colleagues, we have two more items on the agenda.

They're going to be read in together.

I will read them in.

Thank you, clerk.

So we have Council Bill 121246, an ordinance relating to emergency assistance for Seattle Public Utilities customers.

And then we have Council Bill 12147, an ordinance relating to the Seattle City Lights Department Emergency Bill Assistance.

This is for briefing and discussion only.

We will also discuss this further on our July 29th meeting.

So we do have a special meeting at the end of the month as well.

All right.

Let's rock and roll.

Thank you.

Andrew Lee, General Manager, CEO for Seattle Public Utilities.

Leslie Brinson, Senior Policy Advisor, Seattle Public Utilities.

Marcus Jackson, Director of Custom Operations, Seattle City Light.

Rob Santoffman, General Manager and CEO for Seattle City Light.

And still Brian Goodnight, Council Central Staff.

He has not changed his name in 25 minutes.

Director Lee.

Council President Hollingsworth, members of the committee.

The next two proposed ordinances are companion bills.

They would expand SPU's Emergency Assistance Program, known as EAP, and Seattle City Lights Emergency Bill Assistance Program, which serve as a safety net to prevent water and electricity shutoffs.

The proposed ordinances would increase eligibility in the two programs from 80% of state median income to 80% of area median income.

The effect of the legislation would be to increase the population that is eligible for City Lights Program by 37%, to 188,000, and SPUs programmed by 50% to 39,000.

And before handing off the presentation to Leslie Brinson, I'd like to offer Rob Santoff, General Manager and CEO for Seattle City Light, the opportunity to make some opening remarks.

Yeah, thank you.

Good morning, President Hollingsworth and committee members.

I'm Rob Santoff, the Intern General Manager and CEO at Seattle City Light.

I'm joined here from City Light today with Marcus Jackson, our Customer Operations Director.

We're pleased to be here today to present on this ordinance which expands the eligibility for Seattle City Lights emergency bill assistance so more customers facing sudden financial hardships from job loss, medical emergencies and other crises can access immediate help.

The Washington Clean Energy Transformation Act requires electric utilities to have at least one assistance program that includes eligibility for customers at or below 80% of our area median income.

This proposed emergency bill assistance expansion allows City Light to meet the Clean Energy Transformation Act requirements.

Like our proposed utility discount program changes, these improvements streamline income verification and make the program easier to access, aligning with our broader affordability and equity goals.

We request that the committee move the ordinance forward.

And with that, I'll turn it over to our presenters.

Thank you.

All right.

Marcus and I will work through this, but since we've had some conversation about the utility discount program today, we will skip ahead.

But very excited that the expansion of our ongoing affordability program with UDP will be happening on January 1, per the amendment, and that the emergency bill assistance programs are really an excellent complement to those programs.

These provide sort of annual assistance to address episodic financial hardships that families face.

And currently, as Andrew mentioned, they are at 80% of state median income, and we are proposing that that go to 80% of area median income.

The other significant change that we're looking at here is that right now, households with children get twice the amount of assistance as households without.

and that leaves a lot of folks, seniors included, without access to the full assistance amount.

So we'll be proposing to that to change.

Okay.

Really, these emergency assistance programs are built to prevent electricity and water shutoffs.

We want to make sure that folks have access to their essential services and that they are getting the financial assistance they need.

This expansion also allows us to offer utility assistance to a broader spectrum of households, all the way up to 80 percent of very immediate income.

It helps City Light comply with the requirements of the Washington State Clean Energy Transformation Act.

and we are really working together, SPU and City Light, with the Human Services Department as well to make sure that our programs are working together really well and that we're using this moment in time to really inform how we move forward if and when we expand the programs more in the future.

This is...

I have previously talked to you about the three departments together.

This is specific to the Seattle Public Utilities Program.

So we are proposing to increase to 80% AMI, which increases our eligible population by 50%.

and that really equates to, our emergency assistance really equates to assistance for about four months worth of bills, so about $1,000 a year, which is essentially a 30% annual discount.

That can be combined with our utility discount program, which means that if someone is on the utility discount program and still needs more help and accesses the emergency assistance program, they're only paying 33% of the annual cost of those utilities.

As I mentioned, doubling the amount of assistance available for households without children.

When SPU looked into this and we were looking just at our directly billed customers, so those customers who have their own individual water meters, which are often folks who live in a single-family home or a townhome or an addu-daddu condo sometimes, Only about 20% of people within our income eligibility have children in the homes.

So doubling our assistance for all customers accessing the emergency assistance program brings a lot more people into the ability to get that maximum $1,000 amount.

This slide shows lots of details and lots of words running through the specific changes that you will see outlined in the legislation.

Again, increasing to 80% area median income.

We are changing and modernizing the language in the code.

It currently refers to single family residences as being the only eligible type of home.

We are moving that to talk about individually metered residences.

We are changing so that all households have access to the maximum amount of assistance, which for SPU is about $1,000 a month.

We are moving to, and then we're moving some of the programmatic sort of administrative detail out of the code into director's rules.

So those will be published later this year for implementation next year.

And one of the things that we have realized in that process is that currently we require folks to apply to us for assistance.

And if they only have, say, a $400 balance on their bill, we give them $400.

and then they come back to us later in the year when they need more assistance and they have a bigger balance.

So we are now saying, okay, apply to us once, streamline it.

They will get the full amount of assistance when they apply and then we will do the sort of accounting and tick that down every time without them having to ask.

Turning it over to Marcus.

All right.

So on the City Light side, we have our emergency assistance program and changes there, similar to SPU.

We're going to increase the income eligibility to 80% of area median income, and that's going to increase access for about 50,000 more customers for City Light and the surrounding cities.

Customers will receive assistance for up to four months of bills, which is essentially about a 33% annual discount.

It helps our most energy burden customers based on their usage.

And it complies with the Washington State Clean Energy Transformation Act that Rob spoke about in having a program up to 80% of area median income.

And as we always try to do, it aligns SPU and SEL program policies so we can reduce customer confusion as they're applying for different benefits.

The summary on our end is similar.

We're obviously moving to 80% of area median income, and that's going to make our total eligible customer population about 188,000 households.

They will receive a benefit equal to the last two bi-monthly bills if they're a bi-monthly customer, or the last four bills if they happen to be a monthly residential customer.

And that adapts for energy burden.

that's out of the customer's control.

The other thing is they'll get a maximum benefit.

Previously, customers would, you know, if they didn't need the whole amount, they would apply, get a portion of the benefit, come back later and ask for the remaining portion.

We're gonna kinda give the maximum benefit when a customer applies and have a completed application so they don't have to come back to us three or four times during the year.

So that'll eliminate a lot of the paperwork and headaches that folks earlier today had complained about.

The other thing we're changing on our side to align with SPU is the past due balance requirement.

We used to require that customers had to have a past due balance to be able to access the program.

But now as long as you owe us money, you'll be able to apply for these programs.

So if you get a bill and you know automatically you can't pay, you don't need to wait until the bill becomes delinquent to decide to reach out to get help.

Um, and lastly, um, this moves our, you know, program policies, uh, and procedures to allow, um, change that, uh, allows program change to adapt more quickly as customers' needs arise.

So, um, we'll keep making changes as we need to.

And then this slide just covers a summary of the changes collectively between Councilmember Strauss's bill and the two bills before you that we are expanding our ongoing affordability through the utility discount program to 60% of area median income.

And then the two utility program, the two emergency assistance programs will be going up to 80% of area median income.

Happy to take questions.

Thank you all for this.

It's really super helpful to understand the intentionality behind all of the utility discount programs in Seattle City Light, who would be eligible, the increases and all the good stuff.

So I will pause here to see if my colleagues have any comments.

Last two agenda items.

I see you grabbing your microphone.

Council Member Strauss.

Just gratitude.

These programs make the difference in so many people's lives.

With the emergency assistance for both, and then there's also...

Remind me the name of the program where people can donate.

Project Share.

Project Share.

These programs make a real difference in people's lives.

I recently had a resident reach out for assistance because their power had been turned off.

They hadn't been auto-enrolled and they forgot I offered them these programs.

They didn't need them, but it was that moment of there were some pretty big health things going on in that person's life.

And if they had needed help, I was reassured because help was there because of programs like these.

So really appreciate all your work.

Awesome.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair and Council President.

Echoing my colleague, Councilmember Strauss' gratitude for the work that both departments have done to really address folks' needs across the city as we're experiencing this affordability crunch.

And just want to say that I know that both our utilities over the years I've had the privilege of working with both utilities over the years, some of our colleagues at the table too, over the years.

And I know the commitment to wanting to help folks as we have to do things like rate increases across the city.

We wish we didn't have to do them.

And I know the folks at both departments and Maura, I see you back there too.

You know, over the years have tried really hard to make sure that as we have to do these increases, looking for opportunities to provide relief to some folks that are gonna get impacted the most by these increases.

So I really wanna uplift that because this is not something that either department's leaderships and staff take lightly.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I'll echo the words of my two colleagues from Council Member Rivera and Council Member Strauss.

Just gratitude and very thankful for putting this together and then also just making the city a lot more affordable than what it is right now.

And we heard the impact from folks speaking today or we get emails from people or and find people in the grocery stores that talk about how important these programs are for them just to continue to live and sustain and be able to live in our city.

So this is very, very grateful.

I don't know if there's any closing comments at all.

Brian, good night.

I forgot I didn't ask you anything.

Yes.

No comment, sir.

Thanks.

Absolutely.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to say thanks for your comments you know, go on the record to say thanks to all the employees that worked on this at SPU and SEL and then the conversations we had with you all.

So just wanted to get that out there and say thank you to everybody involved.

Awesome.

Thank you as well.

So if there's no more comments, well, thank you.

I know that we will have further discussion on July 29th about this, so about these two bills, right, and a possible vote, I'm assuming.

Awesome.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you all for being here.

Really appreciate your time as always.

And this brings us to the end.

of our July 9th governance and utilities meeting.

I also want to give a special shout out, because he's never at the table, but Bob Hennessy, our favorite council liaison, I'm just playing, but he's one of our faves.

He didn't hear me, but that's fine.

He's acting like he doesn't hear me, and that's fine, but Bob Hennessy, thank you for being a really great council liaison, my friend.

and Maura, yes, and Maura, thank you too as well.

We really appreciate you as well.

You're one of our favorites as well, our favorite.

Maura and Bob, I'm just fine.

Y'all are up there both.

All right, thank you all for all your work.

Thank you to everyone.

Thank you, I didn't see Maura.

My apologies.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

This brings us to the end of our July 9th governance and utilities meeting.

Thank you everyone and committee colleagues.

With that, we have no further agenda items today.

Our next scheduled meeting is July 29th, 2026, 930. Here knowing further business, it's 1120 AM sharp.

Thank you.