Thank you all for being here today.
Thank you all for being here today We are about an hour away from the City Council meeting where I hope to pass a couple pieces of legislation and I want to give just a little bit of background to give you all a Few community members a chance to speak and then I'll wrap up with some closing points and we'll have time for a few questions In the last few years, we've heard from community members about a couple of crises that are facing the city.
One is about displacement and how low-income communities and communities of color that have historically lived in Seattle are being pushed out of the city.
And another is a public health crisis around overconsumption of sweetened beverages and the health impacts that it's having disproportionately on low-income communities and communities of color in the city of Seattle.
And in response to both of those, we created new dedicated streams of revenue.
One was a short-term rental tax that would go towards funding the equitable development initiative, and another was a sweetened beverage tax which would go towards funding both early education and public health outcomes, specifically increasing access to healthier foods for communities of color.
And last year's budget, the budget as presented by the mayor, played some games with how that money was spent and supplanted some other general fund money so that she could invest that money in other priorities, to be clear, and also to be clear on the games.
It was transparent.
We knew this was happening.
But it was against the will and the intent of community members who had asked us for these dedicated sources of revenue and against what the council wanted to do.
So in the budget process last year, we were explicit that we did not want this to be an ongoing battle.
We asked through a statement of legislative intent that the mayor's office come back to us with an alternate proposal this spring.
Through that process, we didn't see a proposal that we agreed with.
So, drafted up legislation to create dedicated fund sources for both of these fund revenues to go into and very explicit uses for how these funds could be used.
And that legislation passed out a committee, both those pieces of legislation, a couple weeks ago and will be before the full council today.
I want to turn it over to a couple folks.
I'm going to start with Tanika Thompson with Got Green.
She's a food access organizer to talk a little bit about her work.
Tanika.
Good afternoon.
My name is Tanika Thompson and I am food access organizer at Got Green.
I am here to support Councilmember Michael Bryan's legislation.
This legislation will create a separate fund for the sugary beverage tax revenue.
City Council is not seeking to cut funding with the sugary beverage tax legislation, but to protect it from being put into general fund by the mayor where we will not be able to track it.
In 2018, the mayor took $6.3 million and put it into the general fund from the sugary beverage tax revenue, where she can direct the funds to programs that she prioritizes.
To prevent the mayor from doing the same thing this year, council member Mike O'Brien has introduced legislation to place dollars from the sugar beverage tax in a separate fund that specifically earmarks the dollars for food security and early education programs.
And it is entirely in the mayor's power, and in fact, is her responsibility to find an appropriate, more stable funding source for the programs where the sugary beverage tax revenues were used to supplant general fund dollars.
To call community-based organizations and direct the acting HSD director and Dill director to send a letter to community-based organizations stating that their funding is in jeopardy is a scare tactic.
that the mayor is using to avoid her responsibility to find an appropriate, stable funding source.
As she is currently crafting her 2020 budget proposal, she can choose to prioritize funding for the HSD providers who are currently funded by SBT revenues that replace general fund resources and ensure that funds are allocated from the general fund for these contracts.
She is misinforming the public by portraying the situation as if there is no other option but to cut funds.
This is false.
Thank you, Tanika.
Your comments and support throughout this process, as someone who is out there talking to community members about why this fund was important and why this tax was going to help them, has been really powerful to myself and my colleagues.
So thank you for being there.
Next, we're gonna hear from Lindsay Hoven.
She's Government Relations Regional Lead at the American Heart Association.
Lindsay.
Good afternoon.
I'm Lindsay Hoven with the American Heart Association, and I am so proud to be here today and stand together with Councilmember O'Brien and the other community-based organizations.
The American Heart Association has been solidly in support of the sweetened beverage tax since its passage in 2017. While the American Heart Association doesn't receive funds from this tax, we are here because we believe in the science behind this policy to improve the health of our community.
And we believe in the potential of the SBT funds to expand critical healthy food access and early learning programs to serve more of our friends and neighbors.
This weekend, I was at the farmer's market with my daughter, and I asked if she wanted blueberries or strawberries.
And in typical three-year-old fashion, she said both.
It wasn't lost on me in that moment that I could say yes, but too many families in Seattle struggle to provide the healthy food that they want for their families.
Today is about making good on the commitment that this city made to improve health and help build thriving families.
Thank you, Lindsay.
We all should be able to have both strawberries and blueberries.
Next, we're going to hear from Jim Krieger.
He's on the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board and co-chair and executive director of Healthy Food America.
Good afternoon.
I'm co-chair of the Sweetened Beverage Community Tax Advisory Board, and the board's charged with making recommendations to the city, both the council and the mayor, about how to best allocate these revenues to improve the health of low-income people and people of color in our city of Seattle.
The tax is working.
It's raising substantial revenues.
The community advisory board is working.
It's making recommendations on how to best invest these revenues.
The tax is working.
It's decreasing purchases of a fundamentally unhealthy product that causes diabetes and obesity.
The CAB, the Community Advisory Board, is really committed to assuring that the revenues are invested in expanding access to healthy foods and to other programs in early childhood education.
New programs and expanded programs.
That's the intent of the legislation.
That was what was promised to community when this tax was adopted.
However, we are dismayed that the revenues have been swapped for general fund, as Tanika has said, for these programs.
And these are undermining the ability of these funds to expand these critical services to healthy food access in early childhood and address large unmet needs in our communities.
We're concerned that promises made to communities to use these funds are not being honored.
For the past year, the CAB has repeatedly asked and affirmed its support for the establishment of a separate city budget fund to collect, track, and distribute these revenues from the tax to assure they're being spent as promised.
The CAB is opposed to any swapping of SBT revenues for general fund for these programs.
So we're very glad the council would be considering today legislation proposed by Council Member O'Brien and his colleagues to make this happen and make this fund a reality.
And we want to see this happen now for the 2020 budget.
The city's had ample time to develop remedies to restore the swap and use the revenues as promised.
Ample time to honor the commitments made to communities to use the funds as promised.
Ample time to honor the legislative intent of the ordinance that established a tax in the first place.
A promise delayed is a promise unkept.
It's now time to keep this promise and make good on it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jim.
Finally, we're going to hear from Julia Pesciuto, the equitable development policy analyst at Puget Sound SAGE, to talk about the short-term rental tax and how that funds equitable development initiative.
Julia.
Good afternoon, my name is Julia Pasciuto and I'm a policy analyst at Puget Sound SAGE.
I'm also a member of the Race and Social Equity Task Force, who alongside community groups fighting against displacement actually helped to create the Equitable Development Initiative.
Over the last few years, we have seen displacement pressures grow significantly in our city.
Families, workers, cultural and religious institutions, and businesses getting pushed out of our city.
The EDI is the only fund that addresses a comprehensive anti-displacement strategy with a racial justice framework, and we need to grow and protect this important fund.
For the last two years of the fund, which was created through the short-term rental tax, we have received over $30 million of eligible asks with community-driven development that roots people and institutions in place.
Based on the mayor's budget, both this year and next year, we will have 20% less money than was allocated in the short-term rental tax legislation.
We need to preserve the first five millions from the short-term rental tax for the Equitable Development Initiative grants for 2020 and beyond, which is why we support Councilmember O'Brien's policy before Council today.
Thank you.
Thank you, Julia, and thank you, everyone, for your comments.
I'll make a few quick points before I open up to questions.
Again, I want to reiterate that the reason we're here today is because community members who have felt the pressures of displacement and felt the pressures of unhealthy communities because of the targeted efforts of the beverage industry on their communities, and they've come to the city council and said, we want your help.
We want to fix this.
We don't think this is the direction the city's going.
The public health crisis that we've seen around sweetened beverage tax, we heard from community members, both public health experts and community organizations that represent low-income communities and communities of color, that they needed a multi-pronged strategy, including raising the cost on these beverages.
But if that was all we did through a tax and simply left those communities to continue to consume pop but simply be poor, that would fail them.
Instead, we needed to reinvest that dollars raised right back into those communities to provide access to healthy alternatives.
When communities are given healthy alternatives, a choice to buy berries at the farmer's market over buying Coke and Pepsi, they will then make the right choice for them.
They will no longer have to pay the tax and their communities will be healthy.
But it only happens if we both have the tax and the reinvestment back in those communities.
Similarly, with the short-term rental, equitable development initiative, we have seen dozens of worthy projects come forward competing for funds, trying to figure out how to stabilize their communities and not be priced out of the neighborhoods that they have historically been in.
We need to have more funds, not less.
What happened last year in the budget was a little over seven million dollars was diverted from these two sources to fund other general fund needs.
The legislation we're proposing today would create dedicated funds for both of those and be really clear on exactly where those funds can and cannot be spent.
Now, the Mayor's attempt last week to threaten and divide organizations that represent communities of color and low-income communities has failed.
What we've seen is the very organizations that were threatened with their funding come forward with letters to the City Council and the Mayor stating that they support this action, that we should dedicate these funds to these worthy causes.
I also want to be clear that the mayor has lots of options before her.
We are taking two small options off the table if this legislation passes, but we're talking about $7 million in a general fund budget of over a billion dollars.
It's a fraction of 1% of what will be discussed in the budget.
The mayor has said that if we proceed with these pieces of legislation, that it will result in cuts to human service programs.
I don't believe that to be true.
I don't believe that to be true because when I look at the priorities that we have as a city right now, and you're looking at over a billion dollars of general fund money to be invested in those priorities, I find it hard to believe that anyone in City Hall believes that the lowest priority that would need to be cut in a budget that we will see at the end of September would be human services.
And if the mayor chooses to make cuts to human services in her budget, when we see that at the end of September, I can tell you that I will do everything in my power to fix the budget, to restore funding to human service organizations, just like the city council has done for my 10 years on this council.
And I believe, based on public comments I've seen from colleagues on the council, that we will fix that.
I appreciate organizations that are here today, organizations that have written in in support of this, to having the courage to stand up.
Because when someone threatens your funding, that's not an easy thing to do.
But I know that we will work through this and continue to prioritize what our communities need most and be responsive to community members like those standing behind me.
With that, if you all have questions, we will take a few questions.
Council Member O'Brien, the Mayor's criticism also says that the Council has not pointed out where the other money could come from for the General Fund.
Why not point out exactly where the additional money would come from in the General Fund?
The way the city budget process works is the mayor is spending time right now creating her proposed budget.
If the mayor would prefer the council to do the proposed budget, I guess we could talk about a different budget process.
But the mayor will propose her budget to us.
There's a bunch of revenue sources that she could come up with.
Perhaps we'll see new revenue sources coming forward in the next few months.
She could choose how to allocate that.
She can make cuts to other programs.
Again, the amount of dollars we're talking about here is a fraction of 1% of the overall general fund budget, and even a smaller fraction of the entire 6-plus billion dollar budget.
And so the mayor will send her budget, which is her statement of her priorities.
And once we see that, the council will take that draft budget proposal and we will do our six, seven weeks of public process at the council and we will adopt our budget.
We will undoubtedly change a few things as we do every year, but largely it'll be left intact as it usually is.
So it's not our point in time to say that.
I mean, we can talk about different options.
We always talk about different options, but it's really up to the mayor to figure out, given some of these constraints that we're putting in place, hopefully, how she wants to prioritize revenue and where she wants to invest that.
I can get back to you in about an hour.
I have actually not counted votes.
I saw what came out of committee where this passed unanimously.
I've, you know, co-signed a letter with a couple of my colleagues.
I've seen other statements.
I believe this will have strong support and we'll see what happens in council today.
The mayor obviously has the right to veto.
It would be the second veto in the 10 years I've been on the council that I've seen.
And assuming it's a strong majority on the council that votes on this today, we'll go through the theatrics of reaffirming it in a few weeks and then move on to the budget.
How's the sugary soda tax not considered a punitive tax?
What do you say to those groups that are standing here in limbo now?
They have this letter, they don't know what's happening in their funding, they can't make future plans.
What would you say to them?
Well, for organizations that rely on funding from the City of Seattle, every year is a new budget process, and they are always in limbo.
And they are active right now, meeting with City Council members, and I assume the Mayor's office, talking about what their priorities are.
Once the budget process gets full-blown into September and October and November, we will hear from them again.
So that's the reality when you do business and get funding from government, is that you always have to face that.
What I saw from the organization that represents all the food banks in town was a letter saying, we support dedicating this funding to this dedicated fund in the sweetened beverage tax.
The Human Service Coalition similarly sent a letter that we support this legislation that makes clear where this funding should go.
So the very organizations that have been threatened with this are still standing with us saying, this is the appropriate thing to do.
And we trust that you will prioritize the needs of the community, which they're trying to serve.
Sugary soda tax, how is it not considered a punitive tax?
So the sweetened beverage tax, as we said, it does disproportionately fall on people who consume more sugared beverages.
And what we also heard from public health experts and community leaders from those very communities is that right now those communities are dying.
The various epidemics- How can food be sugared?
We started with sugared beverage tax.
That's one area.
There's lots of other things we could do.
Question for Mr. Krieger.
that the student beverage tax is reducing purchases.
On what basis do you make that claim?
There are ongoing research studies, not yet public or published, that are by colleagues at various academic centers, not at the University of Washington, but at other institutions that are studying this, and they're using actual transaction data from supermarket sales.
They expect to publish their findings sometime in the next few months, but the bottom line is that purchases are going down within Seattle.
So you're saying it's based on unpublished data?
Unpublished data at this point, yeah.
But it will be published in the next couple.
We do have data, however, from Philadelphia, which has rigorous data using the same methodology and approach, which showed a substantial 24 percent decline, even taking into account cross-border shopping in purchases within the city of Philadelphia.
We see similar data from Mexico and similar data from Berkeley.
So the data is strong and accumulating that the taxes actually are effective in reducing purchases.
A question for Ms. Thompson, if you would.
Would you expand on what you see as the social and racial equity component of this issue?
this tax when we first heard that the city council was going to pass a sugary beverage tax we saw it as a regressive tax because it was going to impact low income and people of color communities even working family communities which is why we went in and we talked with city council members and we decided to have a health equity lens on it since it was about health Let's put a health equity lens on it and give it back to the same community that it was coming from, but by way of healthy food.
Ms. Thompson.
In your experience, where has the money, what programs have essentially been hurt because they haven't gotten these funds?
Well, I would say the FreshBucks voucher expansion program.
There are currently 3,500 plus families on the waiting list, waiting to receive these vouchers.
And these are vouchers that help working families.
families who are in the food security gap where they make what is considered a living wage but they're not eligible for food stamp benefits so they don't get to use the Fresh Bucks program.
So they created an expansion program which is the Fresh Bucks vouchers.
Ms. Thompson, can you tell us how many families or people are using the Fresh Bucks program now?
There are 2,000 families enrolled in the program now.
How is that working out?
It's working out really well.
People are buying the healthy food, and they are learning how to make healthier dishes, and I've heard that people are having healthier health outcomes.
Could any of the advocates up there speak to whether the mayor has put any additional pressure up beyond the letter that went out last week to oppose the legislation?
If anyone would like to speak to that.
I don't see anyone stepping forward.
Council Member O'Brien, have you heard of any further lobbying that's gone on over the weekend?
I am not directly aware of exactly what lobbying efforts have been made.
I've seen the letters that were written.
Community members have shared those letters that they received from them.
And so beyond that, I can't really speak firsthand.
Time for one more question.
The money in question here, the roughly $7 million, if I understand correctly, is beyond what was projected to be collected by the tax.
So, right?
Correct.
So why not take money that's beyond what was projected, beyond what was in effect promised to certain organizations, and use some of the additional money for other also very important social service organizations?
Great question.
So one of the things to be clear about is that when we make projections on a new tax, we don't collect information prior to this on how much soda is being consumed in the city of Seattle.
And so we make a very conservative projection.
We don't want to create a budget that says we're going to spend X million dollars and have to come up short and cut programs.
So it was intentionally conservative.
Most of us expected that we would exceed the revenue when we started to understand it, but it was really a bit of a guessing game.
So one is, yes, we collected more revenue, but what that also means is that people were consuming more pop than we had projected to.
So the damage that's being done to these communities, the health impacts to these communities, is actually also greater than this, than what we had anticipated.
It's important to remember that we didn't start this saying, we need some new revenue for some programs, who should we go tax?
This was driven by a public health crisis saying community members, disproportionately communities of color and low income communities are over consuming soda pop and having negative health impacts on that.
And so this was part of a policy suite to address that public health concern.
The ultimate goal would be that we don't collect any of the tax because all of our community members are now choosing healthier alternatives and their personal health and family health will increase.
But simply because we're collecting more tax, that should not mean we should take that revenue and use it for other good things.
We have a lot of needs in this city, and if we want to raise additional revenues to meet those needs, we should do a tax that's much more equitable, that maybe disproportionately falls on wealthy or well-off communities, as opposed to lower-income communities.
Community members and myself will be around for a few minutes if you have one-on-one questions, or even off-the-record questions, Erica.
Thank you all so much for being here, and thank you all for your work.
You guys are awesome.