Seattle City Council Briefing 5321

Welcome back.

I hope you had a restful weekend.

The May 3, 2021 Council briefing meeting will now come to order.

The time is 9.30 a.m.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Peterson.

Here.

Sawant.

Present.

Strauss.

Present.

Herbold.

Juarez.

And Council President Gonzalez.

Here.

Five present.

Thank you so much.

Approval of the minutes, if there is no objection, the minutes of April 26, 2021 will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are adopted.

I am going to dispense with the President's report this morning so we can get right into items of business on today's agenda.

So next up is the preview of today's City Council Actions, Council, and Regional Committees.

As a reminder, Today's order will be as follows.

We will hear from Councilmember Morales, Mosqueda, Peterson, Sawant, Strauss.

Councilmember Herbold is not going to be able to be with us this morning, so I'll give a quick report for her and then Councilmember Juarez, and then I will conclude this agenda item.

So I'm going to hand it over to Councilmember Morales.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone.

I will be brief today.

There are several items from the Community Economic Development Committee on today's agenda.

We had planned to hear several commission appointments and reappointments in our meeting, but we canceled that meeting because of the Chauvin verdict.

So I asked the Council President if we could move those appointments and reappointments to full Council so we can get those seats filled.

So thank you for that.

Additionally, we will be hearing Council Bill 120037, authorizing the Office of Arts and Culture to accept a license agreement with the central Puget Sound regional transit authority.

Again, this is establishing an agreement for the installation of the AIDS memorial path art project.

So we will hear that this afternoon.

I had hoped to schedule an additional meeting of the community economic development committee so that we could address participatory budgeting, but Council is very full this month between homelessness and finance and additional committee meetings.

So we are going to stick to our May 18th committee meeting where we will hold discussion of the participatory budget implementation as well as Council Bill 12000. So I look forward to that conversation.

Last week I attended a listening session with representatives of Black and Brown community members in the South End who have been advocating for permanent closure to cars of Lake Washington Boulevard.

They are eager to work with SDOT and with the Parks Department to find a good option for increasing recreational space for folks in the community.

I'm sure everybody knows this summer and on the periodic times when Lake Washington Boulevard is open to pedestrians.

There are lots of families, babies in strollers, kids skating and biking.

And so people are really eager to have more opportunity for more recreational space down there.

So I look forward to working with them and with the departments to see what we can do for them.

Just a reminder, the application deadline for the Street Sinks and Creative Food Access funding through SPU is May 7th, and more information about that can be found on the website.

the SPU Wastewater and Innovation website.

And then starting next week, I will be holding office hours at the Columbia City Farmers Market.

My original intention was to do that from three to five, but as I mentioned, I know we have several more committee meetings coming right in time for summer.

And so I think rather than three to five, we might be moving that to four to six.

In addition, Council Member Sawant has agreed to have an additional we are going to have a meeting next Wednesday, the 12th, and so just to say we will be at the Columbia city farmers market, but the exact hours are yet to be determined, and we will let folks know as soon as possible.

And that is all I have, council colleagues.

All right.

I am getting a message from Councilmember Mosqueda that she is...

Good morning, Councilmember Juarez.

Thanks for joining us.

That she is...

Councilmember Mosqueda says she is reporting that she is not being allowed into the meeting.

Oh, there she is.

Looks like we've got her in now.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Welcome.

in.

Sorry, there were some technical difficulties.

That's okay.

Good morning.

Morning.

Do you need a minute to settle in?

Otherwise, if you don't, you're next.

I'll take a minute.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Council Member Peterson, you are up next if you are able to do so.

Thank you, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

The Transportation and Utilities Committee has no items on this afternoon's full City Council agenda.

Our Transportation and Utilities Committee meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 930 in the morning, and so our next committee meeting is this Wednesday, May 5. We have another full agenda with nine items.

I'll highlight a few of those below or highlight a few of those now.

SBU rates.

At our previous two council committee meetings, we discussed the strategic business plan and rate path for Seattle Public Utilities.

So we will now be able to vote on the corresponding council resolution at committee this Wednesday.

It's important to note that SPU's strategic plan has been endorsed by the rigorous customer review panel.

At the previous committee meeting, we heard from both the customer review panel and our central staff analyst.

Fortunately, the average SPU rate increases are expected to be lower than what was promised back in 2017. Keeping rates low is important because rates are regressive with lower income households paying a larger percentage of their household income for utility bills.

There is a thorough article in today's Seattle Times about the strategic plan and rate path, which explores all of the various cost drivers, including inflation, pass-through rates imposed by King County for wastewater, environmental protection projects required by the state and federal governments, labor costs, and the utility taxes charged by our general fund.

It also points out that we do not currently maximize the use of system development charges.

The council examines and votes on this strategic plan every three years.

Speaking of SPU, we will also discuss in committee a required update to the city's stormwater code.

It has to be updated to reflect changes required by the State Department of Ecology.

That's our stormwater code.

Our committee will also vote on the $7 million proposal from the Seattle Department of Transportation, which is Council Bill 12042, that suggests how to spend the new $20 vehicle license fee.

Our committee already heard and discussed this item, as well as the amendment sponsored by several council members at that meeting two weeks ago.

Those informational materials have been online since that time.

You can still confer with our central staff analyst, Calvin Chow, to get any questions answered before our vote this Wednesday morning.

As a reminder, this is new money that we authorized as soon as we could a few months ago for our city's transportation needs.

SDOT proposes to divide the $7 million each year into six different categories.

The amendment that we discussed two weeks ago would actually implement SDOT's plan for at least the first year and simply asks SDOT to provide a list of infrastructure projects that could benefit from $100 million in bond financing if we choose to bond against the vehicle license fees to generate more money faster.

I want to thank everybody who called in during the public comment periods.

There appear to be some confusion and misinformation about the three-page amendment, which does not actually issue bonds, but rather asks SDOT to come back with a list of infrastructure projects, a list they should, frankly, already have.

Special shout out to Nicole Grant, the head of MLK Labor Council, for calling into our committee to speak in support of the proposal on the $100 million in bonds for multimodal transportation infrastructure.

We could have voted that proposal out of committee last week, but I held it to give certain interest groups more time to read the amendment and consider it.

While the funds would benefit all modes of transportation, the amendment does emphasize bridge infrastructure that has long been neglected, as we have seen with the sudden and costly shutdown on the West Seattle Bridge negatively impacting marginalized communities, as well as the audit of bridges showing the deteriorating condition of our city's aging bridges.

Nevertheless, SDOT's original plan from various stakeholders will still be the guide, not only for SDOT to craft their $700 million budget, but also for how to invest tens of millions of dollars that can be generated by the bonds if we choose to do that in the fall budget process.

Our state legislature accomplished a lot during the past four months, but they did not pass a transportation package.

We were hoping to get $25 million for the West Seattle Bridge.

I believe this is further evidence that Seattle must consider something bigger and bolder, more creative, such as leveraging these new VLF dollars.

Our committee also includes three technology items.

Colleagues, as you may recall, we are working our way through several groups of surveillance impact reports as required by our city's thorough surveillance ordinance.

We recently amended and adopted the so-called Group 2 surveillance impact reports for some of the existing technologies already in use by Seattle City Light, the Fire Department, Police Department.

Our committee this week will discuss the group three surveillance impact reports, which are three more existing technologies from SPD.

Our central staff analyst posted her memos on the committee agenda.

Committee members may also want to review the executive overviews provided by our Seattle Information Technology Department.

These technologies are forward-looking infrared real-time video used by King County helicopters, the non-recording situational awareness cameras used during crisis events such as hostage situations, and the video recording systems used at SPD facilities.

Our committee should need only two meetings to consider and approve these three surveillance impact reports.

So after hearing the item this Wednesday, May 5, we will consider amendments.

on May 19 and vote them out of committee.

On the introduction referral calendar today, our committee, Transportation Utilities, has two items related to the Madison Street Bus Rapid Transit, which is RapidRide G Line.

Council Bill 12062 will accept two small easements.

And Council Bill 12063 will accept two grants totaling $65 million, which we had been expecting from the US Department of Transportation.

The capital improvements to that bus corridor for City Council Districts 3 and 7 include over $26 million of city government dollars that have already been approved, including $5 million we approved last fall.

The revised construction start date is this fall of 2021, and our Seattle Department of Transportation hopes to complete the changes to the streets and sidewalks in 2024. Because those items cover an existing project we have already approved and funded, these items will go straight to the committee this week, and we'll vote them out this week as well, of committee.

briefly from District 4. I'd like to thank the professionals from SDOT for meeting with me in the district to consider ways to calm traffic to improve pedestrian safety.

It was very pleasant to be out in the district on a sunny day with SDOT and seeing several constituents who came out to greet us and thank their city government.

doing stuff that they could see, which was nice.

I also held my Friday afternoon virtual office hours by phone.

Constituents convey the need for adequate street parking for small business customers as neighborhood businesses struggle to stay open or reopen.

I'll continue to have these office hours by phone, but I look forward to restarting office hours in the district in person this fall.

subject to allowable health guidelines.

In the meantime, constituents can continue to sign up for office hours Friday afternoons.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Peterson.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right.

Hearing none, we will go next to Councilmember Salant.

Thank you, and good morning, everybody.

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

Our meeting last week had a discussion and presentation on sustainability and the path forward to meet Seattle's goals to address the climate crisis, and also a second discussion on closing the Just Cause loophole with a review of the bill from my office.

The next meeting of the committee will be at a specially scheduled time Wednesday, May 12th at 2 p.m.

That meeting will continue the discussion from our previous two committee meetings on closing the fixed term lease loophole in that just cause ordinance of the city of Seattle.

And at that meeting, we will review council member Morales's version of the legislation, which was not ready last week.

So we will continue that discussion.

And we will have upcoming discussions on sustainability issues in the upcoming committee meetings.

But a lot of these discussions are long.

And so we have to schedule a special time.

So I'm really glad that Wednesday, May 12th is working for, I believe, almost all committee members.

I'm really looking forward to that.

And then I also wanted to add that Friday evening, our movement organized a protest following the resolution from my office and city council approved last Monday to allow generic vaccine production throughout the world.

The protest action was organized jointly by various organizations such as the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, the Community Alliance for Global Justice, the Citizens Trade Coalition, the Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans, Real Change, UAW 4121, Socialist Alternative and my council office.

It was fitting that our protest was outside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation building.

Bill Gates has been one of the billionaires fiercely and vocally opposed to allowing generic versions of the vaccines to be produced in various countries like India.

Speakers from the various organizations highlighted how stunning it was for billionaires to put profits over human lives, even in the face of what can only be described as an apocalyptic tragedy unfolding in India and some other nations are organizing in Seattle is part of a nationwide.

and international movement demanding that the WTO waive the intellectual property rights restrictions on the COVID vaccine so that it can be produced around the world to end the pandemic.

The resolution that was passed by the city council last week is just one part of this much wider movement.

Nationwide, over 2 million people have sent petitions to the Biden administration, urging him to stop opposing the waiver.

And it's a staggering number of people who are organizing around this.

And this organizing is starting to have an impact.

But still, outrageously, the Biden regime has not yet agreed.

On Friday, the Office of U.S.

Trade Representative Katherine Tai told the media that they are continuing to examine the WTO proposal.

Representative Tai reported that she has met with the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna along with Bill Gates to discuss the issue.

we should keep in mind that Bill Gates' medical credentials begin and end with him being one of the richest people on the planet.

As I explained last Monday, this past Friday was the start of a new round of WTO negotiations with the meeting of the WTO's Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS.

As in the past months, a coalition of over 100 countries, mostly from the global south, have proposed issuing the COVID vaccine waiver to allow genetic vaccine production, But we know the United States, some prominent countries in the EU and the UK are opposing this.

And we've heard that Friday's WTO meeting has ended in deadlock, but we will be continuing to follow up on this.

But the overall summary of the situation is that on the one hand, we have 2 million regular working class people in the United States, along with their unions, including the National Nurses United, and countless community organizations supporting the waiver.

And on the other hand, you have rapacious pandemic profiteers.

And we have seen that Biden's trade representative has prioritized meetings with the billionaires, not with the unions and the community organizations.

The fact that the Biden administration claims to be undecided about the waiver this time around clearly shows the power of the grassroots organizing that gathered 2 million signatures.

Because previous to that, the Biden administration had outright continued the Trump era policy of opposing the waiver.

So this is really showing the pressure.

But it also shows that we will need to continue organizing, without which we will see the status quo of the Biden administration continuing to represent billionaires if they can get away with it.

And that's why We have to do everything in our power in the grassroots to make it clear that there will be political consequences if they continue to defend the profits of big pharma over literally what public health experts are saying, what's at stake is the lives of millions of people.

Last week, a group of 17 Central District constituents wrote to my office deeply concerned about reports that the Seattle Fire Department plans to set controlled fires at a soon to be demolished church building at 2001 South Norman Street in the heart of the Central District.

According to the Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map, the neighborhood already ranks among the highest in the region for environmental health disparities, air pollution, and exposure to diesel emissions and other toxins.

Controlled burns at any level will only increase area pollution and worsen health disparities.

As the Norman Street neighbors wrote, quote, we as a collective neighborhood did not ask to be exposed to these toxins, end quote.

Over the weekend, my office wrote to the fire department and to Mayor Durkin to ask if these reports were true and to share the concerns of these neighbors.

The stated purpose of this control burn is for the fire department training which is obviously training is extremely important given how dangerous it is to fight fires and we know that the fire department workers do this dangerous work every day of their lives and they do so courageously.

However, We also don't understand why it is necessary to hold this training in the middle of a dense working class residential neighborhood already facing disproportionate environmental toxins.

And the question we have asked the fire department and the mayor's office is what fire department officials consider such an intentional environmental threat to the residents of an upper class, predominantly white neighborhoods such as Medina.

I urge Mayor Durkin and the fire department to find a location for training that has a much more mitigated risk of air pollution than in this densely populated, predominantly people of color central district neighborhood.

Over the weekend, all council members were sent a video of a small Black Lives Matter protest.

In this shocking video, a car drives into several protesters, knocking one onto the hood of the car and then proceeds to accelerate away extremely quickly with the protester dangling from the hood.

According to the constituent who sent this video to the council, the Seattle Police Department chose to arrest the protester who suffered the vehicular assault and not the driver of the vehicle, which is outrageous.

If true, this is another example of the Seattle Police Department targeting Black Lives Matter and other progressive movement protesters for arrest.

without even attempting to appear to uphold the so-called equal protection under the law.

In the past, when the Proud Boys, reactionary far-right Proud Boys, would attack progressive protests with the stated goal of physically starting a fight, the Seattle Police Department would again and again arrest the progressive protesters who had been assaulted, not the Proud Boy thugs.

And we know why, because SPD officers joined the Proud Boys in the violent assault on the Capitol in January.

This continued bias in arresting progressive protesters is totally unacceptable and shows why we need to defund the police and why we need elected community oversight with full powers over the police and a real focus on ending inequality in society, which is statistically the main source of crime and problems in public safety.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, we're gonna go down the line here to Council Member Strauss.

Good morning.

Good morning, Council President.

Good morning, colleagues.

There are 24 items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the introduction and referral calendar, two appointments to the Community Involvement Commission, and 22 appointments to the Design Review Board.

There are no items from the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee on the full City Council agenda today.

And our next meeting of the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee is on Wednesday, May 12th, starting at 9.30 a.m.

Just a review of what I did last week.

I met with the Green Lake Chamber of Commerce, attended the North Seattle Industrial Association meeting, and met with the Finney Ridge Neighborhood Association.

I was also able to meet with Chief Diaz to discuss public safety specifically in the Freelard Industrial Area.

And I had the opportunity to speak with our budget director, Ben Noble, to speak about the ARPA dollars and so much more.

Additionally, I worked with Estat last week in a pathway forward for extending the cafe street and sidewalk cafe permit program that has been very successful.

And personally, I was able to enjoy several restaurants that are operating with sidewalk cafe and cafe street programs.

Also highlighting the Ballard locks reopened last week for pedestrian access across the locks.

I also took a stroll there to enjoy the good weather and crossing over to only briefly to District 7 coming back to the best district in the city.

rather quickly.

I also had the opportunity last week to tour Lumen Field's vaccination site with Director Calvin Goings and was joined by CEO Deborah Smith of Seattle City Light, highlighting that FAS, Finance and Administrative Services, is the backbone of our city.

They're the ones that make sure we have buildings, make sure that we have equipment, and they do everything behind the scenes to keep our city running while City Light keeps our power on so that we have electricity to get the job done.

I wanna just, it was a great honor to get to spend some time with both of those directors.

And I wanna thank all of the city employees who are working down at Lumenfield, the accountants, the purchasers, the people who have other jobs that have stopped what they're doing for the moment to take part in this extremely large effort.

So just thank you to all the city employees, everyone from Swedish and all of the volunteers.

Last week, I also worked with a space specifically on 48th and 8th, which needed multiple departments to come to find solutions.

I was able to speak with SDOT, Seattle Public Utilities, Waste Management, and SDCI about some ongoing issues.

And I was very thankful for everyone, some folks even being able to meet on site to identify what the solutions are for moving forward.

This coming week, my personal meetings are light because we get to spend so much time together in committee.

I believe we have committees almost every day for almost the entire day.

Colleagues, looking forward to seeing your faces.

Outside of committee, I'll be attending the Maritime and Industrial Strategy meeting on Thursday, which I believe that they have more information coming out that we'll be able to chew on.

There's a live fire event.

The Seattle Fire Department is doing a live fire drill in District 6, so I'll be joining the chief for that.

And while office hours are typically on Thursday from 2 to 7 p.m.

because of committee, we'll be putting them throughout the week so that we can still meet with District 6 residents.

And also staff will be attending the North Precinct Advisory Council meeting on Wednesday and the Finney Ridge Community Council meeting on Tuesday.

here in District 6, holding District 6 resident meetings every week.

Last week, we had a few cancellations because of the good weather, so hope to catch those folks later on.

We had people, spoke with people from Sunset Hill, East Ballard, Ballard, and Crown Hill, had a heavy west side focus this week.

And we're able to speak about community involvement in park districts, boards, and volunteering to support friends of their parks, including Golden Gardens.

spoke about this sidewalk safety on 85th Avenue, 85th Street, my apologies.

And we also discussed building zoning and the need to create affordable housing in our district, as well as discuss the plan and future progress for the Green Lake Boathouse.

Council Member Juarez, Council Member Peterson, I might follow up with you on that.

So I look forward to meeting with District 6 residents throughout this week.

And Council President, that is my report.

Thank you, Council President and colleagues.

Thank you so much, Council Member Strauss.

I appreciate that.

Any comments or questions on that report?

All right.

Hearing none, I'm going to just quickly address a couple of proclamations on behalf of Council Member Herbold.

She would normally go right here, right after Council Member Strauss.

So I'm going to go ahead and to present these two proclamations.

Colleagues, there will be two proclamations that are being brought to us by Councilmember Herbold.

These are just for signature today at council briefing.

There will not be presentations during full council on either of these two proclamations.

So the first proclamation is to acknowledge Older Americans Month.

Older Americans Month dates back to 1963 and the Kennedy administration.

Each administration since then, Since then, the White House has proclaimed May as Older Americans Month, recognizing a lifetime of contributions to our communities and our country.

This year's Older Americans Month theme is communities of strength.

And of course, that resonates for several reasons.

Older people were hit the hardest in the early days of the COVID pandemic and have been among those most vulnerable to COVID complications throughout its course.

Seattle Fire Department, Human Services and Seattle King County Public Health have really stepped up to help keep our older residents safe and ensure that their basic needs were met.

Families have also contributed significantly to the fabric of keeping our older Americans safe.

Communities of Strength recognizes those who care for older loved ones as well as caregiving professionals for the vital services they provide to our families and to their own families.

Older people themselves have shown strength in weathering the pandemic, including for some considerable social isolation.

Many older people want, most of all, the ability to safely see and give and get hugs from friends and family.

Thanks to better health care and, on average, better socioeconomic conditions than previous generations, longevity is increasing for older Americans, and communities of strength support this increasing populations so that those extra years are healthy years for our older residents.

Finally ageism and ableism continues to run rampant in our communities and throughout the country.

These barriers to these are barriers to receiving consistent high quality professional services and supports in nearly every single sector.

by supporting Older Americans Month and building strong communities that support older people more effectively, which we do through our age-friendly Seattle initiative, as well as longstanding programs and services for older people.

We help them and their families thrive, and of course, in doing so, our entire community is better for it.

So that's the first proclamation that I am presenting on behalf of Councilmember Herbold.

The second one is Better Hearing Month.

This proclamation would recognize that a large number of people of all ages have experienced hearing loss that affects their ability to communicate effectively in school, at work, among family and friends, and in the community.

One of the biggest concerns is the number of people who have experienced hearing loss, but due to stigma, do not get their hearing tested.

And some get tested in hearing aids, pay for hearing aids, but don't wear them.

We need to normalize hearing loss.

It's likely that we will all experience at some point in our lives some form of hearing loss.

And I want to encourage everyone to make hearing healthy a priority, excuse me, hearing health a priority, and a reminder that should hearing loss occur, the sooner it is addressed, the better off you and everyone you live, work, socialize, or otherwise encounter will be.

And of course, we have this proclamation in front of us that will acknowledge that hearing health We want to encourage everyone to take note of that.

Again, colleagues, these signatures are going to be needed for both of these proclamations.

If there is no objection, I will ask the clerk to call the roll to confirm which councilmembers' signatures may be affixed to both proclamations as described.

Will the clerk please call the roll to determine which councilmembers would like their signature affixed to both of the proclamations, one recognizing National Older Americans Month and the second recognizing National Better Hearing Month.

Morales?

Yes.

Mosqueda?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Sawant?

Yes.

Strauss?

Yes.

Juarez?

Aye.

And Council President Gonzalez?

seven council members.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much, colleagues, and I'm sure Council Member Herbold is very appreciative of your indulgence on those two proclamations.

Again, as a reminder, they will not be presented at full council.

They'll be presented in other venues.

Okay, next up is Council Member Juarez.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Sorry about weighing in late.

I thought I was in, but thank you.

Okay, so there are no items of the Public Asset and Native Communities Committee on this afternoon's council agenda.

Our next committee meeting is tomorrow at two o'clock, and there are six items on the agenda.

There are three appointments and three pieces of legislation led by the Parks Department.

I have a brief summary of the legislation.

The first piece of parks legislation eliminates a recreational covenant so Seattle Public Parks can discuss the potential transfer of the property of the Red Barn Ranch located in Auburn, Washington.

This will require a public hearing, followed by a briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

I received emails from a handful of folks interested in how this property should be used or can be used by parks.

This bill is the first step of the process to have the property or have the recreational covenant transferred, so we will not be making any other decisions regarding the actual use of the property at tomorrow's meeting.

The second piece of legislation authorizes the superintendent of Parks and Recreation to execute and accept from Seattle School District No. 1, on behalf of the City of Seattle, a reciprocal right of entry license agreement concerning the Helen Madison Pool, that's by Ingram High School, and Southwest Teen Life Center and Pool at Chief Sealth High School.

The last piece of legislation will provide family support programs for the Southwest Youth and Family Services.

An update again on the Clean Cities Initiative from April 19th to April 25th, parks picked up 81,000 pounds of trash from 26 encampment locations and also removed 2,500 needles.

Two parks received extra maintenance during this period, Mapes Creek and Miller Playfield.

cumulatively as of today's date the parks arm of the clean city initiative has cleaned up 1.7 million pounds of trash and 51,000 almost 59,000 needles throughout the city.

Our shower program continues to serve folks in our great city from April 21st through the 27th.

Parks serve 309 users.

Food distribution at Rainier Beach Community Center April 28th was the last day of food distribution.

Food Lifeline provided a critical supply of vegetables and meat boxes to over 1,500 families and individuals.

Want a big shout out to Ryan Scott and his team at Food Lifeline for their partnership with Parks over the past several months.

This is some exciting news for us.

There's now the May 5th Missing Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day.

Three years ago, the Urban Indian Health Institute published a series of reports titled Our Bodies, Our Stories, which details the scope of violence against Native women and girls.

Their research and advocacy has helped put missing, murdered Indigenous people, or missing, murdered Indigenous people, women, on the radar of elected officials nationwide.

Missing, murdered Indigenous people, MMIP, is a public health crisis, an epidemic where Native people are disproportionately impacted.

Cases remain unsolved, and the crime data are inconsistent at every level of government.

In September of 2019, if you remember, this council and I sponsored the nation's first piece of legislation to combat the epidemic with culturally attuned services and with native leadership at the forefront.

Together, we funded the city's first position to address the outstanding missing murdered indigenous people casework.

So our city has been first, our state has also been first, and recently, Secretary Interior Deb Haaland created a Missing Murdered Indigenous Women division at the BIA with career.

So I'm very proud of the Seattle for the work that they have done, again, in the form of addressing this epidemic.

So please join me on Wednesday, May 4th in honoring Missing Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day.

So with that, let's go to the Equitable Communities Initiative Task Force.

This is some exciting news.

As you know, this task force was created.

They've been meeting for six months.

They've had 20 meetings.

It's a 24-member board.

I had an opportunity to meet with them for well over an hour to go over their report that will soon be out.

They focused for the $30 million on how they would invest it in BIPOC communities in four areas.

Business development, that is investments targeted at providing working capital and technical assistance to businesses.

Housing and land acquisition, that is investments targeted at reducing gentrification and displacement by lowering barriers to home ownership, providing education on how to build generational wealth.

Number three, addressing additional, I'm sorry, addressing educational disparities.

These would be investments targeted at youth, cultural education, and teacher development.

And four, which is, of course, addressing health disparities, investments targeted at supporting current efforts in food access and environmental justice in the short term, investing in innovative community health models in the near term, and expand the healthcare workforce pipeline in the long term.

And just briefly, I understand that the board will be meeting with the individual city council members to go over what they plan to spend the $30 million on, when they will put together the spending plan and hopefully lift the proviso.

So in the four areas, business, education, housing, and health, here's a brief breakdown of some of the, or most of, well, all of the money adds up to about 30 million.

Again, the business development and technical assistance, cultural education for BIPOC youth, programs for formerly incarcerated, the equity innovation fund, lease to purchase home buyer program, generational wealth building, and investment in health centers, food access, environmental justice, and funding, again, the healthcare and workforce pipeline.

It's a wonderful report that they put together.

We had Dean, our district director from our office, who's attended every meeting in the last six months.

And they put together the priority areas, the recommendations.

There'll be more information to follow.

and again, my understanding is that they will be meeting with individual council members.

The people that were presenting were amazing.

We had Beto Yarte, Dr. Sheila Edwards-Lang, Donna Moody, Sharon Williams, Pastor Lawrence Willis, and Stephen Sawyer.

And so I think we have more good work to come.

I had an opportunity to go through their report and the breakdown of how much money they want to apportion to the four areas.

And I think more importantly, how they want to put together the spending plan so we can lift this proviso by July.

And again, it's a 24-member board.

I won't read off everybody's name, but my understanding is they broke up into four subgroups, and each group came back, put together the recommendations.

They hired a group called For-Profit Non-Profit, I believe, with Pamela Oaks, and they did a really good job.

I'm really, I can't say enough about, I've looked at a lot of business plans and a lot of financing plans in rural areas and also within Indian country.

And I can honestly say this is a real beginning, a really first step in self-determination and economic sovereignty.

It really is a claim to dignity about if you pour money into a community, they can tell you how it needs to be spent.

So with that, let's see, the last thing I did which was very exciting again.

We, our whole office did a tour of the Northgate Light Rail Station, which you know is going to open October 2nd.

And it was just, it's amazing.

It's huge, it's beautiful, it's going to look great.

And of course, we're still working on the 130th stop, as you know, and I've shared this before, the D5, not just D5, the North End, in particular, the NHL OVG Center that will be opening for the NHL Training Center we're anticipating about 800,000 people that will cycle through the whole Northgate area with North Seattle College, the Northgate Commons area where we're going to be building housing, and of course, the training center, the two hotels, and everything else that's going on.

So again, this is all just one piece of how we're moving forward.

So that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Juarez.

Any comments or I'm not hearing any questions on that report.

All right, I'm not hearing any.

Customer Juarez, I just wanted to congratulate you and acknowledge your work that was written about in the Seattle Times I think just yesterday related to the Lake City Way Living Memorial, where we, of course, as a full council, we supported the funding request and the opportunity to move forward that really important project to create a bright spot in an area where there was a lot of darkness experienced in District 5 as a result of a really tragic shooting a few years ago.

in 2019 and so just want to acknowledge your work as the district representative and really want to continue to thank all of the neighbors who have come together in District 5 in this really important effort to commemorate with some level of positivity how we can move our communities forward after such a tragic, tragic experience with we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we have a safe and preventable gun violence in our city.

thank you for your leadership in that space.

and thanks to all of the residents who played a role in getting this over the finish line.

you know, planting the flowers and the people that wrote the poem and the money that we raised.

But we just had another shooting up here in D5 at the Albert Davis Park.

And in one of the RVs, somebody knocked on the door and shot somebody.

And of course, it wasn't a good scene at all.

Again, gun violence, people have guns, people come out, they do things.

And so that's our third shooting, I believe.

So we're busy and I actually do a shout out to the chief.

Chief Adrian Diaz contacted me immediately and has been in contact with our office about the suspect and the victim and who's doing okay, who's doing fine.

I shouldn't say fine, I don't know that, but they're okay for now.

So I think sometimes just in this time where things have gotten so divisive, and sometimes so destructive, and sometimes people forget that words have consequences.

And at the end of the day, we are a great city, and I will continue to believe that.

I don't believe Seattle is dying.

I think we're going to come back stronger and we're going to do great things.

So thank you, Council President, for that.

Absolutely.

And Council Member Morales just wrote a piece about gun violence as well.

So this is an issue that is of great importance to this city council, prior city councils, and to all of us.

And of course, we're going to continue to invest in our communities in a way that is going to actually help to build their resilience and to prevent these kinds of incidents from happening in the future.

So, couldn't agree with you more, Council Member Juarez.

Okay, colleagues, if there are no other comments or questions on this one, I'm going to go ahead and circle back to Council Member Mosqueda.

Good morning.

Welcome back.

Good morning.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Sorry for the delay.

Reporting out, we do not have any items from the Finance and Housing Committee on today's full council agenda.

There are some items on the Introduction and Referral Calendar.

This includes Council Bill 120058, which is the Sound Transit Property Transfer Ordinance.

Council Bill 120059, which is the Annual Action Plan.

There are five Labor Standards Advisory Commission appointments and two Domestic Worker Standards Board appointments.

Our next meeting for the Finance and Housing Committee will be tomorrow, May 4th, at 9.30 a.m.

And on the agenda, we will include the Labor Standards Advisory Commission appointments.

We'll have the Domestic Worker Standards Board appointments that I just mentioned as well.

All of those are on today's introduction and referral calendar.

We will have central staff go over the draft legislation for the transparency requirement for contract workers.

This is a continuation of our ongoing discussion that Councilmember Herbold has asked to include in the Finance and Housing Committee and happy to accommodate.

And lastly, we will also have a briefing discussion and possible vote on the Sound Transit Property Transfer Ordinance that I mentioned is also on today's introduction and referral calendar.

As a reminder, and this is probably what Council Member Strauss was referring to, we do have a number of committee meetings.

So that is the Finance and Housing Committee.

Again, all council members are welcome to join if you'd like to.

But we will not include the ARPA discussion during our Tuesday, May 4th meeting.

In the afternoon, though, starting at 5.30 p.m.

in the evening, we will have a public hearing related to the Federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

This public hearing will be available for anyone in the public to begin signing up starting tomorrow at 3 30 p.m.

We will start the public hearing at 5 30 and we will try to make sure that we hear from everyone on the agenda so depending on how many people sign up we'll have between one to two minutes and would like to make sure that everybody gets the full time to speak so we'll make sure to go through the entire list there.

If you have any problems signing up or need assistance, please contact Farideh Cuevas in my office.

That's farideh.cuevas at Seattle.gov.

And again, colleagues, if you are able to join us tomorrow for the public hearing, I would love to see you.

530 again, and we'll go into the evening.

We will then have a special Finance and Housing Committee meeting on Wednesday, May 5th.

That one begins at 2 p.m.

We will have the Annual Action Plan and the Carry Forward Ordinance, Council Bill 120039. And we will have the 2020 Budget Exceptions Bill, which is Council Bill 120040. the city's response to the ARPA.

Again, these are items that are adjacent to our discussion related to ARPA, but we want to make sure that we're sort of considering everything in the same time frame, so folks know what the universe of dollars available to various programs are, including assistance for responding to the ARPA, but also making sure that our city is ready to open back up, and that city programs and services are able to get the funding that they need.

Non-members of the Finance and Housing Committee are welcome to attend, and please do let our office know.

Freddy de Cuevas can give you the materials in advance so that you have time to get oriented and make sure that you have all the information for joining our meeting.

And other updates, as folks know, this last weekend, we celebrated International Workers Day on May 1st.

Saturday, our team wants to send a huge note of appreciation to all workers.

All work has dignity.

All workers deserve respect.

And in this day and age, all workplaces are in different locations, including for drivers and for folks working at home and for essential workers who are going in.

Wanted to make sure that we're lifting up and respecting and honoring the work of every worker.

Last week, our team was invited to present in the Minneapolis City Council Budget Committee meeting.

They held a budget and discussion process similar to what the City of Seattle did for discussing how their ARPA funds will be distributed.

chief of staff from my office represented the city and we were able to participate along with councilmember from Austin City Council, councilmember from Denver City Council and we had the opportunity to learn from other cities who are thinking about how the use of their ARPA funds would be allocated as well.

I want to thank again Councilmember, I'm sorry, Council President Lisa Bender from Minneapolis and Councilmember Ellison from Minneapolis for having such a huge opportunity to provide our office and the city of Seattle a chance to really highlight what we have been doing here in the city.

I want to thank our intern, Lori, for her work in getting the presentation ready, along with Ali Panucci from Central Staff, and again, Sejal Parikh, Chief of Staff for my office.

This Wednesday I'll be attending the Mary's Place virtual luncheon, and for those of you who are joining, I hope that we all have a chance to celebrate Mary's Place, who has been providing safe, inclusive shelter and services for women, children and families on their journey out of homelessness.

Excited to join that virtual luncheon.

And on Thursday, I have the opportunity to give blood through Bloodworks.

I'll be joining my longtime friend Mary, I'm sorry, I'll be joining my longtime friend Molly Beloser-Firth, who has been giving blood to Bloodworks since she had the birth of her child.

She survived maternal hemorrhaging, which nearly cost her her life.

And she was saved because of the generous donation of blood from others.

And I really look forward to being able to join her and honor the work that Bloodworks does.

She is a board member.

And in this time, especially, we'll be highlighting the disparities in terms of who needs access to blood right now in the wake of COVID and all of the It is folks of color who are predominantly in need of giving blood donations and receiving blood.

We'll be highlighting some of those statistics on Thursday this week.

I look forward to joining Bloodworks and Molly to talk more about her personal story, about why she continues to give, what receiving blood meant to her.

and why it's so important to do this right now as we continue to see COVID cases grow and still know that we have a long way to go to get the vaccine to everyone who needs it.

And finally, I'll be speaking at the Habitat for Humanity virtual panel called Women Build.

And I'm excited to be part of that ongoing conversation about how Women Build Week serves as an opportunity to empower women to take a proactive step in addressing the critical need for inclusive and affordable housing in our community through volunteering.

Just a few updates for you from two of the departments within our committee.

First, from Finance and Administrative Services.

The community vaccination site is still hiring.

FAS continues to recruit, hire, and train individuals for the community vaccination site at Lumen Field.

This is an opportunity not only to do something that's really important right now, which a lot of folks are doing through volunteering, but to get paid for it.

FAS has really underscored that in my tour with them.

They want people to make sure that this is an opportunity to honor their work and we'll be paying them.

So please do apply.

They have now completed nearly 70,000 vaccinations since the site first opened on March 17th and has over 200 employees on site.

53% of them are BIPOC and they continue to ask for anybody who does have medical experience as well to let them know they will put you to work in various areas at the Lumen Center.

Priority hire, there are, FAS joined SDOT, OIR, and the mayor's office to meet with the U.S.

Department of Transportation to encourage them to allow local hire programs on federally funded projects.

FAS sent additional information on our local hire program and how it works to benefit the city.

And again, that's making sure that folks who live in our area get opportunities to have access to good living wage jobs on publicly funded sites.

And finally, from OLS, just a few updates.

OLS is excited to announce App-Based Workers Appreciation Month, which is in May.

May Day's celebration this week really focused on app-based workers, and they encouraged us to continue to use app-based workers rights and Seattle OLS hashtags as we continue to celebrate app-based workers throughout the month.

And they say happy May Day from everyone at Office of Labor Standards.

OLS also recently released an updated educational resource related to the paid sick and safe time flyers, reminding workers that they are eligible to use their paid sick and safe time to get their vaccines and any recovery time.

This information and model paid sick and safe time policy is now on their website that includes a chart on the differences for how individual workers can be able to access their paid and sick leave time.

Hopefully, employers are offering this as time that they don't have to dip into their paid and sick time.

But unless if you're in a situation where your employer is not doing that, you can access paid sick and safe time.

In terms of additional updates just very briefly the TNC resolution center request for proposal application period is closed this was over five million dollars to fund an organization to provide transportation network company drivers with the first ever driver resolution center this is something I'm really proud of that our council passed I think was last year two years ago now I think 2019 Nope, 2020. I don't know.

I'm not able to tell time in a post-COVID world.

But this is something that we continue to get calls about across the country.

People are very excited, not only about the protections that we're offering for app-based drivers, but the Resolution Center, which is really groundbreaking.

Thanks to everyone for their interest.

The deadline for the Resolution Center RFPs was last Monday.

and in terms of the TMC driver deactivation rights ordinance, the proposed rules are still open.

The public has until May 7th at 5 p.m.

to offer comments to those rules.

OLS will consider any comments that aim to provide clarity and finalize the chapter in the upcoming months, and it will make this information available through its OLS newsletter and on the OLS website.

That is it for me, Council President.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Council Member Mosqueda.

Are there any comments or questions on that report?

All right, hearing none, I will go ahead and give my report before we move into executive session.

Okay, colleagues, on this afternoon's agenda, I actually have two resolutions.

The first one is resolution 32003. This is legislation that will retire introduced and referred council bills, resolutions, clerk files, and appointments that have received no further action.

Again, as I mentioned last week, this is a routine parliamentary action which occurs in accordance with our general rules and procedures of the Seattle City Council.

And this is being done in order to effectively retire legislation, again, that has not seen any additional action.

Each committee chair was consulted on this process in order to ensure only legislation appropriate for retirement is included in this resolution.

So the contents of the resolution should accurately reflect your guidance as chairs of your respective committees on on this component.

I also have Resolution 3205. It's both on the introduction and referral calendar and listed for action at today's full council.

This resolution comes to us today in partnership with community leaders like One America and the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network.

And the resolution supports Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal's Roadmap to Freedom Resolution.

to demand that Congress finally reform our broken immigration system.

So through this resolution, the Seattle City Council asked Congress to use every tool at their disposal to accomplish these goals, including budget reconciliation to finally make Mike comprehensive immigration reform real for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working and attending school in our country.

including right here in Seattle.

So I'll speak more to this resolution at full council later today, but in the meantime, if you have any questions about the resolution, you are welcome to reach out to me directly or to my senior policy advisor, V. Nguyen, in my office.

Let's see, the next governance and education committee meeting is Tuesday, May 8th at 2 o'clock p.m., and that is next week.

Really quickly, colleagues wanted to give you an update on the Districting Commission work that is being led by my office.

We did receive a number of applications for the 2021 Districting Commission and continue to consider those candidates.

But I have decided to reopen the application process and accept additional applicants for the next 10 days.

Again, if you know of any individuals who are trusted messengers within their communities, particularly within BIPOC communities, I would ask that you encourage them to submit their names or you can identify them to my office as individuals who may be worth proactively reaching out to.

The new deadline for individuals to apply to the commission is Thursday, May 13th.

And I do hope that we will be able to have nominees come before the Governance and Education Committee on Tuesday, June 8th.

And final consideration of appointments could occur as soon as Monday, June 14th at our full council meeting.

Next up, last week, the Puget Sound Regional Council held its General Assembly meeting to convene hundreds of elected officials from about 80 jurisdictions that are members of the PSRC.

At this meeting, the General Assembly elected the PSRC officers and adopted Fiscal Year's 2022-2023 Budget and Work Program.

I want to congratulate Chairwoman Claudia Balducci from the King County Council, who was elected to be the President of the Puget Sound Region regional council, and I also want to congratulate Mayor Becky Erickson from Colesville for being elected vice president.

I'm looking forward to working with them for the rest of the year.

Lastly, just want to, consistent with what Council Member Mosqueda just did, acknowledge the wonderful opportunity to come together in community this last weekend.

It was International Workers Day on Saturday, May 1st.

was really pleased to be able to join Senator Joe Nguyen from the 34th Legislative District, members of the Washington Dream Coalition, and Congresswoman Jayapal and other One America youth leaders and El Comité for May Day on Saturday.

And I was so proud to be able to stand with those individuals at a press conference to really amplify the need to support Representative Jayapal's Roadmap to Freedom resolution for comprehensive immigration reform.

And I'm really excited that this afternoon we'll have an opportunity to add the City of Seattle as one of the many supporters for comprehensive immigration reform so that Representative Jayapal can do her hard work in Congress to make this happen for us quickly.

So much appreciation to the organizers at El Comite and One America for the opportunity to be with them in community over the weekend.

That is all I have.

Happy to answer any questions.

But if there are none, I will move us into exec session.

I'm not seeing any questions.

So as presiding officer, I am announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.

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

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

a legal monitor from the city attorney's office is always present to ensure that council reserves questions of policy for open sessions.

I expect the time of the executive session to end by 12 o'clock p.m.

if the executive session is to be extended beyond that time.

I will return to open session and announce the extension and the expected duration.

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