Finance & Housing Committee Special Meeting 81122

and can we get the option to turn the TVs on in the room?

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the Thursday, August 11th, 2022 Finance and Housing Committee.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Finance and Housing Committee.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Nielsen.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Madam Chair, that is five present.

Thank you very much.

We have a agenda today that includes two sections.

We have two items on the agenda.

Items number one and two relate to the Seattle Aquarium That's Council Bill 120396 and Council Bill 120397. And then the last three items on our agenda today include items related to cannabis equity.

We're excited to be joined by folks from the mayor's office, including Dan Peter and Brianna Thomas, along with a series of folks from Central South to walk us through these initial pieces of legislation.

These include item number three, Council Bill 120391, And our last agenda item number five is Council Bill 120393. Those are the five items on today's agenda.

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

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

And we'll go ahead and turn it right over to public comment, because we do have some folks signed up for public comment in person and also online.

I'm gonna ask that you tee up the video so public comment, so that we have the introduction for folks to your public comment.

And for anybody who's on the line, we will get to you soon.

Oh, now you can hear me.

Okay.

I talk loud usually, but I was like, I don't think this is coming through.

Let me ask the folks from Seattle Channel on IT if you could hear me the whole time, or do we need to repeat anything for the record?

We can slightly hear you.

It's up to you if you want to redo it or not.

You could hear me or it was hard to hear?

Yeah, we can slightly hear you, but.

Okay, I'm going to just redo that for the good of the order.

We do have a full committee here today.

Thank you to my colleagues for all of their participation in today's agenda.

Today is August 11th, 2021. The time is 9.33 a.m.

The committee meeting has already been called to order with the roll call has already been done.

And the agenda includes two items today from the for our consideration from the aquarium, for the aquarium expansion items that were referred to us from the DEMPAC committee.

Those are agenda items number one and two.

The last three items on our agenda include items three, four, and five, which is related to cannabis equity legislation.

Again, thanks to Brianna Thomas and Dan Eater from the, mayor's office for sending folks to provide presentation here today to us.

And we will wrap up with a briefing and discussion on those items.

We do anticipate a vote on items one and two related to the aquarium and items three, four and five related to cannabis equity.

Today is just a briefing and discussion, identification of possible amendments and amendments will be due tomorrow, August 12th.

So with that, I had already asked if there's no objection to today's agenda, and there was no objection.

So we are going to go ahead and move on to public comment.

Madam Clerk, are we ready for the video?

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for your patience, folks.

Hello, Seattle.

We are the Emerald City, the city of flowers and the city of goodwill built on indigenous land, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Seattle City Council welcomes remote public comment and is eager to hear from residents of our city.

If you would like to be a speaker and provide a verbal public comment, you may register two hours prior to the meeting via the Seattle City Council website.

Here's some information about the public comment proceedings.

Speakers are called upon in the order in which they registered on the Council's website.

Each speaker must call in from the phone number provided when they registered online and used the meeting ID and passcode that was emailed upon confirmation.

If you did not receive an email confirmation, please check your spam or junk mail folders.

A reminder, the speaker meeting ID is different from the general listen line meeting ID provided on the agenda.

Once a speaker's name is called, the speaker's microphone will be unmuted and an automatic prompt will say, the host would like you to unmute your microphone.

That is your cue that it's your turn to speak.

At that time, you must press star six.

You will then hear a prompt of, you are unmuted.

Be sure your phone is unmuted on your end so that you will be heard.

As a speaker, you should begin by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

A chime will sound when 10 seconds are left in your allotted time as a gentle reminder to wrap up your public comments.

At the end of the allotted time, your microphone will be muted.

and the next speaker registered will be called.

Once speakers have completed providing public comment, please disconnect from the public comment line and join us by following the meeting via Seattle Channel Broadcast or through the listening line option listed on the agenda.

The council reserves the right to eliminate public comment if the system is being abused or if the process impedes the council's ability to conduct its business on behalf of residents of the city.

Any offensive language that is disruptive to these proceedings or that is not focused on an appropriate topic as specified in Council rules may lead to the speaker being muted by the presiding officer.

Our hope is to provide an opportunity for productive discussions that will assist our orderly consideration of issues before the Council.

The public comment period is now open.

and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of, you have been unmuted.

Thank you, Seattle.

on online.

We're gonna start with the first four folks listed online, and then I'll go to the next four folks in the room here.

The first four folks listed online are Arianna Davis, Brooke Davis, Gabrielle Prawe, and Adan Espinoza Jr.

Good morning, Arianna.

You will have a minute and a half, one minute and 30 seconds, Madam Clerk, on the clock, please.

And we will go ahead and get started.

Go ahead, Arianna, star six to unmute.

Hello, could folks hear me?

Yes, we can.

Hello, good morning, Chair Mosqueda and members of the committee.

My name is Ariana Davis.

I'm the Engagement Director of WeTrain Washington, a joint labor management training and education organization serving grocery, cannabis, and other essential workers.

I'm here today to speak in favor of Council Member Mosqueda's important amendment to the Cannabis Training Needs Assessment legislation.

A rigorous objective needs assessment will ensure that future cannabis training and education programs support the needs of business, provide safety and opportunity for workers, and prioritize equity for communities most harmed by the war on drugs, particularly low-income, formerly incarcerated, and communities of color.

This work is particularly important to me as a former retail grocery worker and cannabis organizer.

I've spent more than half my life in the industry, and I know firsthand that workplace safety and adequate training is a major concern for workers, especially workers in underrepresented communities.

I believe an organization like WeTrend Washington is uniquely suited to the task.

Over the past two years, we have conducted successful retail industry needs assessments for pre-apprenticeship, registered apprenticeships, and leadership development programs.

We are conducting five additional retail grocery needs assessments this winter, including an assessment of worker and employer safety needs in partnership with the University of Washington that will be particularly relevant.

All of Ouija and Washington's programs have strong employer engagement from small locally owned stores to national Fortune 500 companies.

I'm excited to continue to learn from cannabis employers about their greatest workforce needs, whether those are recruitment, retention, morale, safety, call-outs, or other issues.

I'm also excited to- Thank you so much, Ariana.

Sorry about that, the time expired.

Appreciate you dialing in today.

Brooke Davies, you're next, followed by Gabrielle, then Adan.

Good morning, Brooke.

Brooke, just star six to unmute your line.

Okay, I see you Brooke on the line, just star six one more time.

Okay, Brooke, we're gonna keep you up there.

The next person is Gabrielle.

And Brooke, if you hit star six and I see you come off mute, no problem, we'll come back to you.

Gabrielle, if you can hit star six to unmute yourself, you're welcome to speak.

There you go.

Okay, good morning.

Morning.

My name is Gabriel Prost.

I'm the president of the Seattle chapter of the A.

Philip Randolph Institute, constituency group of the AFL-CIO.

And we are a bridge between the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and the community.

Some of our fight is centered around racial equity and economic justice, which is why equity in the cannabis industry is important to us.

And I just want to make sure I state what I'm speaking.

I'm supporting the cannabis training and legislation.

The cannabis industry is very important to us.

APRI has been involved for the last year and a half in community stakeholder meetings and play a role as a voice for workers and community impacted on the cannabis.

We focus on discussion on how to make the cannabis industry more equitable for black and brown workers as a community stakeholder who continues to be in constant danger because of more needed to be done to protect those from the war on drugs and the lack of opportunity in the current industry.

It is a multi-billion dollar industry.

So I would like to first applaud Mayor Harrell and the members of the city council for your continual fight to bring equity to black and brown workers and community stakeholders.

You are the agents of change for better.

Thank you so much.

We'll go on to the next person that I called, who is Adan.

And then Brooke, if you were off mute, star six, you can go ahead and speak.

Okay, Adan, I see you.

Yeah, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda, members of the committee.

My name is Adan or Aiden Espino Jr.

And I'm the executive director of the Kraft Cannabis Coalition, an association of over 70 cannabis small retail businesses and Allied Producers.

which also encompasses half the small cannabis business owners in the city of Seattle.

I want to comment a potential amendment to cannabis equity ordinance 120391 that we've heard would have a needs assessment commissioned under this ordinance be conducted by an organization named Retrain Washington, which we understand is affiliated with UFCW, a stakeholder in the process.

This is very concerning to cannabis retailers who worked in good faith with the mayor's office and the city council to produce legislation that would provide a critical first step to address social equity issues in the cannabis industry.

Cannabis retailers are very happy to work to advance equity in the industry and want to see an honest tackling of the issue that will benefit the communities damaged by the horrific war on drugs.

Left alone, we understand the proposed legislation will have an equity needs assessment that is conducted by an organization with no bias or agenda in the industry, such as a local college, and that the broad amount of stakeholders in the advisory committee creating the ordinance would help the city shape the scope of future efforts.

Allowing one of the stakeholders of these ongoing efforts to control the needs assessment that will inform the cannabis equity advisory committee will very clearly call into question the neutrality and partiality and accuracy of the assessment effectively poisoning the candidate's social equity efforts from the start.

This is not good governance.

We strongly urge the committee to reject any such amendment that would affect

Oh, thank you so much.

I appreciate your comments.

And if you had the rest that you'd like to say, please send those in.

And one more time, I'm going to go to Brooke, Brooke, star six.

Okay, Brooke, we'll keep you up there.

Let's go to the first four people in the room.

We have Zion, Peter Manning, Mike Asai, and Ahmed King.

Good morning, Zion.

And thanks for, yeah, thank you for using that microphone.

Perfect.

This one?

Yes, please.

Okay.

Good morning, Chairman Mosqueda and committee members.

My name is Zion Grayo.

I've spoken at these meetings a couple of times to talk about the needs of cannabis workers personally as a bartender from a well-established Seattle dispensary.

I'm here to support the legislation that increases job protection for cannabis workers.

I also support the city committee to collaborate on expungement of felony convictions beyond the city of Seattle limits.

I appreciate the ordinances that are being pushed forward.

I'm glad that we can count on the city to pursue funds from the state and federal government for cannabis equity work.

Cause that's very important that we get funds to get the work done.

I'm glad that we can count on the city to fund a cannabis needs assessment.

That's very important, especially with the compilation of individuals referenced in the ordinance and the appointing of the advisory committee composed of workers, industry members and key committee members to support the cannabis needs assessment.

I'd really like to be on this advisory committee that will help inform and research and will do the work uh that's going to push uh more uh equity equitable policies in the future um this legislation is a good start uh you all have heard from me advocating for a lot of changes and i'm going to continue advocating for those changes uh so i want to thank you guys for the opportunity i appreciate it thank you so much peter um peter will be followed by mike and then i'm ready

Hi, my name is Peter Manning.

I'm with Black Excellence in Cannabis.

We oppose this form of unionization by UFCW.

We look at it like this.

If you're going to say equity and you're going to talk about equity for people here in the state of Washington, the black and brown community, you should come to us and talk to us about any type of policy like this.

This seems to be another attempt at a black face on a white agenda because no one has come to our community and talked to us about this.

This is something that they're trying to merge with the social equity.

Social equity is different than anything dealing with a union and putting money in rich white folks' pocket.

We're talking about social equity for inclusion of black and brown people in the cannabis industry in the state of Washington.

This is what we should stay focused on.

We shouldn't cloud it up with regulations and unions.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'll follow up with you.

I believe we spoke yesterday.

Mike Asai, followed by Ahmed King.

Good morning.

Yes, good morning.

My name is Mike Asai with Emerald City Collective.

We were the second black owned dispensary in Washington State and we were the first downtown Seattle dispensary in downtown Seattle and we wrongly got unjustly closed down.

We were not protected by the city of Seattle.

It's been six years.

It's been a painful six years.

I'm a third generation from the Central District.

I fought really hard to get a medical dispensary, just like a lot of black and brown.

I'm fighting hard to get back into the market.

This amendment, as far as unionization, it's just wrong.

We cannot expect a small business like Emerald City Collective and others that are going to get into this market or back into this market and expect that they're going to be extra taxized with unionization.

This is not a Starbucks situation.

I urge the city council, I urge mayor Bruce Harrell to take this out.

We cannot add this in here.

It's unfair to us cannabis retailers that had an eight year headstart without this.

Now that you're talking about social equity coming into Seattle, black and brown coming into King County, into Seattle, it's not fair, it's not fair.

And understand this, the social equity program currently, no social equity applicant has to come to the city of Seattle.

They can go anywhere within King County.

And so this is gonna be a situation where you wanna unionize bartenders, add extra taxation on,

Thank you so much.

Look forward to clarifying what the amendment does here soon.

Ahmed, you're up next.

Good morning.

My name is Ahmed King, representing Black Excellence in Cannabis.

I'm also a face of someone who has been negatively impacted by the war on drugs.

Also, my father has had his brick and mortar stores taken away unjustly, unfair.

And, you know, I'm also a voice for him, 83 year old black man.

And again, to reiterate some of the points, this is unfair, especially when it comes to retail.

There has been an eight year head start.

So now you want to unionize, and there's already an eight-year gap.

That's a lot of generational wealth that has already passed.

And like the brother Mike said, these stores don't even need to be inside the city of Seattle.

They can be anywhere in King County.

And why is it that no one came to people of our community?

and directly asked us or came out and asked us to be a part of an advisory board.

Sometimes it seems like the same song and dance like why does it when it comes to my people who a lot of us are indigenous to these lands that there's always a study or there has to be some board.

I really don't believe that that's fair and I actually like a lot of things the young brother over here said but I would like as far as black and brown people go, that we have more solidarity and really study these issues.

Thank you for your time today.

Appreciate you.

Thank you for testifying.

Okay.

We are going to go to the last four people on the line.

Danica Adams, Brooke Davies.

I see Triana Holiday, Claude Berthas, and Joshua Johnson signed up, but they are not present.

So if you want to dial in, you're welcome to.

Brooke, I think we had you teed up.

If you were able to hit star six, we'll go ahead and take your public comment.

Star six, Brooke.

Great.

Good morning.

Hi, can you hear me?

Oh, great.

Yes.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda and members of the committee.

My name is Brooke Davies.

I'm here today on behalf of the Washington Cannabis Association.

WACA is a statewide trade association representing cannabis businesses of all licensed types at the local, state and national level.

All cannabis businesses in Washington are, by definition, small businesses and are members vary in size, including even the smallest pure producers.

As one of the first states to legalize, Washington's industry had the first opportunities and also all the challenges.

It's very important to understand that while there are businesses that are thriving, there are more who fight to keep the lights on.

Today, this committee is discussing three proposals that affect the industry.

I'd like to thank Mayor Harrell and his office for their hard work on what's before you.

Our remaining concerns are technical in nature.

The ordinance concerning the needs assessment describes a special advisory committee composed of workers, community members, and industry members.

We would ask that the legislation be amended to codify the representation from the three groups be evenly distributed in thirds.

The ordinance concerning job retention is modeled after one passed for hotel workers, and there are considerations for cannabis not yet reflected here.

For example, if a processor who makes edibles sells their license to a processor focused on vape products, the staffing needs would look completely different.

Please consider that there are a wide spectrum of individuals with specific talents working in the industry, and businesses, even of the same license types, can be incredibly different.

Finally, we have concerns with the enforcement provision, specifically the private right of action included in section 230. These new regulations are very complex on top of all of our other regulations, LCB, Department of Ag, and Department of Health.

So we would ask that the agency retain sole enforcement authority under this.

Thank you so much.

And Danica Adams.

Danica, you saw six on mute.

Hello, my name is Danica.

I'm the advocacy director for the freedom project.

Um, I will talk briefly about the importance of using community-based organizations that have been directly impacted by the war on drugs in the Blake decision to assess with expungement of, of cannabis convictions.

Last time I testified, I spoke about the unconstitutional simple felony drug possession law and how black people were 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites in Washington state.

Last time I testified.

I spoke on how we have to ensure that those who have been directly impacted by the criminalization of cannabis and the war on drugs are at the forefront of conversation and that they are leading the initiative.

I see in this initiative, it's suggested that some are internally used to explain these records.

Yet I made it very clear previously, there are currently Black-led directly impacted organizations like the Freedom Project, who are expunging records to our legal aid services called Beyond the Blindfold of Justice.

We have law students, attorneys for illegals and community members.

who are all have been impacted by the war on drugs, currently assessing the expungement of these records and this initiative.

Um, this initiative should acknowledge and be willing to work with and allocate funding into the type of community organizations and not through outside sources.

Inclusion is not enough.

We were included in the process to share our expertise as impacted individuals, but we also have been excluded from the solution.

We as a community have the answers and we have the solutions.

And so I would like to ask the city council to vote on this particular initiative.

Thank you so much.

Okay, the last three people, Triana Holiday, Claude Burfess, and Joshua Johnson are not present.

I will come back to you if you join in.

And the last two people in the room are President Faye Gunther and Cecilia Guzmader.

I'm so sorry, I can't read your last name, but Cecilia.

Good morning, Faye.

Would you like to speak?

You're welcome to.

Thank you.

I'm very glad to be here this morning.

I was thinking about.

the work that we're doing in the cannabis industry and a story came to mind.

We were working with somebody who came forward who had not gotten the training they needed.

They were given a sheet of paper to talk about how to mix a compound together.

That's a patch that you put on your skin.

And he was given a list.

He was given a Mason jar and there was a microwave.

And he mixed the contents together, put them in the microwave, shook them, took them out, mixed, shook.

The third time he pulled it out of the microwave, the mason jar exploded and he caught on fire.

His face caught on fire.

His hair caught on fire.

His ears melted off almost.

He was taken to Harborview to the hospital.

And in the facilities, they were saying there was lots of burns that they were seeing in the cannabis industry.

So one of the things that I think is so important about this work is making sure that the industry is getting the kind of training and safety procedures that are necessary to make sure workers are safe.

We're very interested in also rectifying the history of racism that's happened in this industry.

And thank you a lot for the work that you're doing and the council's doing that everybody came today and talked and Zion did a wonderful job.

And I have nothing else to add.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And Cecilia, would you like to speak as well?

No, thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

Okay, our last speaker is present here.

And that is Triana Holliday.

Good morning, Triana, star six to unmute yourself.

Good morning, Triana.

Star six to unmute.

It looks like there we go.

Good morning.

Okay, there we go.

Sorry, you guys.

Thank you so much for listening to me.

So, I mean, a lot of people probably have echoed these sentiments, but basically what I saw kind of drafted up needs more detail.

I've been passing this around in community and I wanted to come here to really represent the voices of so many on the ground who are really doing this work and looking to provide equity in these inequitable systems that we have before us.

Cannabis is definitely one of them and I love that the city of Seattle is doing something for it, but we need more concrete understanding about numbers.

What does it mean when we say that we're going to create an advisory council to look at the data?

The data has been looked at.

The data has been over-exhausted.

I'm ready for some solution-oriented approaches to this, meaning How can the City of Seattle step up so that maybe the state can actually learn from what the city is doing?

There is a lack of pressing matters at the state level.

We keep on putting different initiatives and legislation on the ballot, trying to push it through.

we're not getting the vote so we need to do something because this industry has now become completely inequitable and unfortunately those who have been the most impacted by the war on drugs are the ones that are not connected to the solutions that are happening and to the money that is pouring in in terms of the resources and the revenue in the cannabis industry so I'm really looking to this right here, this measure, to really do something in addressing that, which I think it overall is trying to do.

But after reading the draft policy, I thought that it was too many generalizations.

And ultimately, I think for many people in community, they're like, well, what are the numbers look like?

How are we?

Thank you so much, Shannon.

Please send in the rest of your comments.

Appreciate you being on the line.

Claude Griffiths and Joshua Johnson are listed as not present.

So that does conclude everybody who signed up for public comment.

We will go ahead and move on to other items in our business.

Agenda item number one, please, Madam Clerk.

Your microphone, I don't think is on, Madam Clerk.

Agenda item number one, council bill 120396, an ordinance relating to the financing of the aquarium expansion project for a briefing discussion and possible vote.

Okay, great.

And because we are trying to limit the number of people in the room, all of the presenters today are with us online.

They should be projected on the screen and hopefully we can get the speakers on the smaller screen.

TVs once they start speaking on the screen as well.

I want to welcome to the Finance and Housing Committee, Marshall Foster, the Director of the Waterfront and Civic Projects, Kyle Butler from the Seattle Department of Transportation, Brad Rutherford and Rick Johnson from the Seattle Aquarium, Eric McConaughey from our own central staff.

And I just want to double check, Madam Clerk, did we read item number two into the record as well?

Let's do that as well.

Agenda item number two, council bill 120397, an ordinance relating to the financing of the aquarium expansion project for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Okay, wonderful.

So thanks again to everybody for being with us electronically here.

I see a number of your faces on the screen and we'll have you projected on the large screen too.

If there's a possibility to make the presentation a little bit smaller and have the tiles for the presenters shown on the screen, that would be great.

Thanks to the waterfront team, the mayor's office, city budget office, central staff, and the aquarium for the work you put into this legislation and a packet in front of us.

Also to the members of DEMPAC which we will talk a little bit about as well.

The new waterfront project as we all have seen is under development and if you have had a chance to do a tour with the aquarium like I have a few times over the last few years you can see this vision of how it will integrate not just an aquarium opportunity, but really an opportunity for those who are visiting who live here who live in the neighborhood, a chance to have a real public asset along our waterfront that will blend in nicely when the new waterfront walkway, bikeway, and roadway is completed.

I wanted to add from a budgetary perspective that the Debt Management Policy Advisory Committee, which I referenced as DEMPAC, I and Deputy Director Panucci from Central Staff sit on DEMPAC, and we have considered the possible legislation in front of us.

And at least from DEMPAC's perspective, our purpose is to look at the inner fund loan that is being suggested.

The DEMPAC committee did approve moving forward with the Interfund loan for council's consideration, but it is truly up to council to have this next step and dialogue.

So I wanna turn it over to our presenters in just a moment to make sure that they get the chance to walk through the package of legislation, what DEMPAC went through.

And before I do, Council Member Lewis, who's been a long time champion of the aquarium and within your district, would you like to add?

Thank you so much Council Chair or Committee Chair Mosqueda for queuing that up.

I'm really looking forward to this presentation today and appreciated the presentation to my committee that occurred toward the end of July on the aquarium project and how critical it is as a linchpin to our ongoing efforts on the development of the new waterfront neighborhood and the park that is going to be a centerpiece of it.

This is a really great opportunity to expand the footprint of a city-owned institution in the aquarium that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year to the city of Seattle, has a massive footprint as a cornerstone of our education and cultural impact that we have as a city.

and is also gonna be an integral part of the built environment.

We're not only building a new venue for the aquarium to enhance and expand their education and conservation mission, but also a critical component of the ingress and egress to the downtown neighborhood from the waterfront that will be made possible by the overwalk from Pike Place Market to the downtown.

of which the pavilion will be a vital component.

And I appreciate that what we're talking about today is how we make sure that this work as we continue to focus on downtown recovery, on post COVID recovery, how much this work that the aquarium is doing as an indispensable partner is linked and connected to keeping those projects on budget and on time.

and appreciate the opportunity to discuss that in this committee.

Very much appreciate Chair Mosqueda taking this off the docket of the Public Assets Committee so that we can discuss it here and also keep the workflow manageable in that venue.

And those will do for introductory remarks.

Chair, thank you.

Thank you so much, Council Member Lewis.

I will go ahead and turn it over to Director Foster to walk us through the presentation today.

Okay, good morning chairman skater and council members thank you so much for making space on your agenda this morning for this item.

What we'd like to do is give you a brief overview, just to set some context for the city's relationship with the Seattle Aquarium Society.

Thank you for those introductory comments.

The essentialness of this project to the larger waterfront vision I think is really clear and we're excited to continue our support for helping the Aquarium provide a really essential new component to the waterfront.

Next slide, Caleb.

Our agenda, we'll just briefly go through some history, project summary, and then the details of the proposed legislation.

We also have, in addition to the staff from SEES, we have Ben Franz-Knight with SOJ, who's their project manager for the project, who's going to provide some additional information about the specifics of the project budget and cash flow.

Next slide.

So the city and the aquarium partnership runs very deep.

The city's Parks and Recreation Department and the Seattle Aquarium Society have been working together since 2008, 2009 to manage the Seattle Aquarium.

As I believe you know, the Seattle Aquarium has been a city-owned asset for its entire life.

It's part of our park system.

And in 2009, the city entered into an agreement to have the Aquarium Society take over the day-to-day operation of that building and they have been able to really expand the public programming, expand the public benefit, expand the marine conservation mission of that organization as sort of a central piece of our new waterfront as we move forward.

We've had a series and kind of iterative process with them to design an expansion.

An important part of their mission as an organization, which they can speak more to, has been to expand their programming and exhibitry to really showcase the waters of the Pacific and to tell the larger stories of marine ecology, some of the challenges that we're facing with ocean acidification through their programming here at the Seattle Aquarium.

That has taken the form of an expansion called the Ocean Pavilion, which we've been able to incorporate into the waterfront design.

And it's actually going to provide a critical piece of the infrastructure of the project, connecting the core of our city, Pike Place Market, to the new waterfront.

So we really are very integrated with the Aquarium Society.

The aquarium's ocean pavilion links to the Overlook Walk, which we're going to talk about, and Council Member Lewis, you alluded to.

The third piece of what's provided value to the city here is bringing these two projects together and putting the aquarium at the heart of the waterfront has allowed us to really align and create some efficiencies in our construction schedules.

So we have these projects really happening hand in glove with each other, and we're able to deliver the aquarium's new ocean pavilion as part of an integrated whole with the city's projects.

Next slide.

I won't go through all of this, but this kind of gives you at a glance, just a sense of the depth of the working relationship, you can see, starting in 2009 with the cities.

Essentially authorizing a transition to the aquarium society and setting up an operations agreement with them for the day to day operations of the aquarium.

in 2012 through 2015 sort of establishing that partnership to include that expansion in the waterfront vision.

And then as we move into 2017 through 19 was really putting in place the details of how we would execute their pavilion project as part of the larger waterfront design and also provide some pretty significant city support to enable the aquarium to deliver on the vision.

Next slide.

So let's talk specifically about the Ocean Pavilion project.

Where we are today is we have $160 million total project cost.

Ben from the aquarium team will describe this in more detail.

You'll recall in 2019, we established a construction funding agreement.

That was the last item on that table I just showed you.

That finalized a $34 million contribution from the city to support the completion of that project.

And that investment is equivalent to another investment, which we made in the Pike Place market to complete the market front expansion, which I'm guessing most of you have probably seen.

It's been built.

It was finished in 2017, which provides an incredible new front porch for the market, connecting it to our new waterfront.

Some critical things that the Ocean Pavilion is doing, in addition to the aquarium's programming and exhibit tree and their public benefits, they are also providing some physical infrastructure that supports the public and the city's vision.

And I'll talk about those in more detail in just a minute.

Where we are right now and why we're back here talking to you about legislation is that the aquarium is facing a $20 million short term cash flow funding need.

They are in a position where they've seen some project cost increases, primarily associated with construction cost escalation material cost escalation.

We've seen private fundraising continuing to perform well.

Their project is that $160 million is about 50% private philanthropy, performing well, but taking a little longer than anticipated.

During COVID, and we saw this with other parts of the waterfront philanthropy, things slowed down a little bit in terms of private donations while people were, frankly, seeing where our economy was going to go and where Seattle was going to go.

Those, again, the aquarium team can speak more to this.

That campaign is continuing to perform well.

We are in careful due diligence with them on a regular basis.

But there is a bit of a lag that's created a cash flow challenge for the aquariums project.

And then lastly, as part of our discussions, we've looked carefully at what are the full range of different tools the aquarium could bring to the table to address that short term cash flow need, including private debt, commercial loan.

The aquarium is in a unique situation.

It's a non-profit organization.

It is operating and maintaining city assets.

It does not have the ability to use those as collateral in the way that a private business or private property owner could use them.

For all those reasons, we have been working with the aquarium and are now proposing that the city would provide a short term cash flow support to them that would be essentially repaid by the aquarium over a period of about eight years.

And Caleb is going to talk about that in more detail in just a few minutes.

Next slide.

Just a little bit more on the public benefit that is baked into the Ocean Pavilion project.

You see in this image an elevated rooftop public space that connects to, in the background, the city's Overlook Walk project, connecting Pike Place Market down to the waterfront.

That public rooftop essentially will be a city park.

It will be operated as part of the waterfront, and it will be a critical public benefit the aquarium is providing.

They are also providing the stair connections that you see on the left side of this of this image, providing a public connection between the the higher elevation of Pike Place market and this new connection and the lower elevation of our waterfront.

And critical to the project is you see an elevator and stair core on the right side of this diagram.

That elevator and stair provides a really important ADA accessible pathway between the elevation of Pike Place Market and the new waterfront.

And one of our key things on the new waterfront has been to provide several new elevator and stair connections to try to improve ADA access across the project.

Next slide.

Okay, so now I'm going to hand it over to you, Caleb, to kind of walk through the details of the legislation.

Thanks, Marshall.

I'm Caleb Wagoner in the city budget office.

So we've been working closely with SEAS and Ben Frans Knight on this, this deal.

As Marshall noted, this is a short term financing instrument that we're working on with them.

So it's actually two pieces of legislation.

The first, I'll go in kind of reverse order as a list.

The first is the Interfund Loan and the project appropriation.

So what this legislation will do, it will increase appropriations in the parks aquarium expansion project by $20 million.

And we will do that through an Interfund Loan.

So the Interfund Loan provides us the cash we need this year to provide aquarium the cash they need to continue construction.

The companion bill with this will amend the OMA, the operations and management agreement that SEAS has with the parks department, which runs through June of 2030. And in that OMA amendment, we will add what we're calling an enhanced facility fee.

So this is a monthly lease payment that the aquarium will then make to the city to reimburse them for that facility fee.

a $20 million additional contribution.

So it will both amend the funding agreement that offices of the waterfront had with the C's and then the OMA that C's has with the parks department.

So we've structured it so that this will be a monthly fee and it will recapture all our costs according to what the final issuance would be for a bond in 2023. So some of the some of the mechanics of the deal.

I've already talked about the interim loan that will bridge to a 2023 bond issuance the fee that will be payable to the city through the life of the OMA for the next seven years.

And then some risk management items.

So we work with these to negotiate some of these deals.

or some of these items, one of the keys that we wanted to emphasize on the city side is we wanted to establish some sort of reserve so that in the situation where C's missed a payment, we would have a backstop.

So what we're requiring is what we're calling an enhanced facility fee reserve that will be the equivalent of one year of the payments that C's needs to make to the city that will be held by the city or a third party.

And in the event that sees misses a payment, we will draw down that reserve.

And then we have, we've also established what we're calling a corrective action plan within the OMA that then outlines what the actions are, if they do miss a payment.

So, the other item that we have discussed of O&M payments to seize to maintain the existing facility.

And so in the situation that the Aquarium Society misses their payments for an entire year, can't replenish the reserve, we will divert those O&M payments to the payment of the fee and essentially the debt service.

That gives us roughly 18 months to two years to figure out a corrective action plan So that's another item we've added.

So that's, that's kind of the main structure of the deal.

So the proposed legislation.

Proposing today, kind of two pieces of legislation amending the funding agreement amended the old May, and then authorizing inter fund loan and increasing appropriations Councilmember herbal do have a question.

The chair is out of the room currently, Council Member Herbold, so I think you sort of become the chair temporarily.

I'm chairing, oh my goodness.

It's your prerogative.

Just a note, thank you so much.

Appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple.

and appreciate the explanation of aid in the city's interest in helping address the need and the efforts to really manage risk around what is anticipated to be a short-term loan.

On this particular slide, references establishing a corrective action plan for missed fee payments.

And then we also talked about the strategy of using annual funding by the Municipal Parks District for the fee payment.

Are you saying that there is yet to be developed a corrective action plan, and until that corrective action plan is developed, will be using the expectation that we would use NPD funds to to repay the debt service in the interim while we're developing a corrective plan.

And if that's accurate, can you just a little bit more detail about how the concept of a corrective action plan is memorialized in the legislation?

Yeah, so the corrective action plan will go into effect, as soon as the aquarium society misses any payment.

So if it doesn't exist though is right I'm asking first, does a corrective action plan already exist, yes the steps to exist within the amendment to the LMA.

to the OMA lists out the full corrective action plan.

And so the corrective action plan is something more than using MPD funding to pay debt payments.

So can you talk a little bit about what the corrective action plan is?

The corrective action plan will, one, be to work with CEES to look at their financial situation, both their budget and their forecast for the future.

One thing we've actually emphasized with SEAS is that they have two, what we, you know, like a capital budget and operating budget.

And we've told them that the entirety of the financial situation of the Aquarium Society is responsible for the payments.

They're kind of isolating it within the construction budget.

But if they miss those payments, then the operating budget and the reserves that they hold are responsible for making that payment as well.

So we will work with them to evaluate their finances.

and determine what we can do to hit those payment dates.

Thank you.

Before we move on, looking to see if Council Member Mosqueda is back.

Not seeing she's back.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you.

So I wanted to know if central staff had any comments about the $20 million loan request before I launch in any questions.

Hi, good morning.

This is Eric McConaghy of the Council of Central Staff.

I don't have a lot to add that would illuminate more than what has been presented by Marshall and Caleb.

I will say that the $20 million request appears before you as a proposal to solve a problem that was unexpected by the folks involved.

I don't think it's a problem that anyone wanted to solve.

Central Step has looked at it, has scoped out the risks that have been articulated here and recognizes that those risks exist.

And also recognizes that there's a history of legislation, decisions by the mayor and council in the past to integrate these projects.

And there is a real possibility that a delay for any reason on the Ocean Pavilion could delay the related projects that the city is pursuing.

So those are real things.

Another thing to note that I think is important is sort of a nuts and bolts item, but it's key to understanding these two pieces of legislation.

They're presented to you in, excuse me, in separate pieces of legislation, because there is a rule saying that a bill needs to.

So one subject.

Here has to do with the interim loan and the pieces that involve selling bonds and that piece that Caleb described.

Another subject has to do with amending the agreements that the city has with C's.

And so they appear as separate bills, and there have been some good questions related to that about, you know, should there be some connectivity or contingencies between the two.

I just wanted to point out that PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman.

answer your question, I hope, but also take the opportunity to just sort of squeeze in this technical detail that I think is important to your deliberation about the approval of these pieces of legislation.

To recap, they appear as two separate bills, but they go together.

And the only reason that they appear before you separately is because of the rules we have about each bill addressing a single subject.

Thank you.

I do have some follow-up questions, but it looks like Marshall Foster has his hand up in case he wants to

Oh, thank you, Council Member.

If it's okay, I wanted to ask if we could have, the aquarium team is gonna provide some additional context for the project budget and cashflow situation, if that would be helpful before Q&A.

Yeah, I think that might be good.

What do you think, Council Member?

Yeah, that sounds great.

And then we'll go to Council Member Peterson first.

All right, I think we'll turn it over to Ben Franz-Knight, who is the project manager for the project.

Thank you so much Marshall and I just want to acknowledge my appreciation to Marshall and Caleb.

I think we've been working through this for about a year.

So to be at this point is pretty exciting to be able to keep overall construction progress for the whole waterfront program moving.

I'm Ben Franz and I'm a partner with SOJ prior to joining SOJ, which is a project management firm.

I was the director of the Pike Place Market for seven years, helped deliver the levy funded major renovation, and also the Market Front Project.

My partner, Ken, was the project executive for Climate Pledge, and SOJ is also proud to have been the project manager on City Hall, where many of you are sitting today.

I want to touch on just three things, process and oversight for the project.

I want to emphasize some of the project complexity, and then I want to talk about some of the budget detail.

So process for oversight, given our extensive experience in public private projects, we bring a rigor to the overall budget management and oversight.

So the aquarium has a dedicated project oversight committee that we report to on a monthly basis.

We have industry experts in construction, development, and finance that sit on that committee and review all of the activity for the entirety of the project.

That also reports up to the executive committee and to the aquarium full board.

The overall project complexity is unrivaled in my firm's experience.

And I think for many of us, right?

This is a project that's integrated with the main corridor and overlook walk.

We're building a building in the right of way.

That's a building that houses over 400,000 gallons of warm water and has a public open space roof on the top, which is part of the waterfront related elements that we're delivering to the community and an incredible benefit.

compounding this, uh, you know, back in 20, uh, I think 19 Marshall, uh, last time we were in front of the council formally with the funding agreement.

I think we all have a much more innocent view of the world.

Uh, the world I think is safe to say has changed dramatically since that time.

And that has created, um, some costs impacts, uh, to the project and added complexity.

I don't think any of us anticipated a global pandemic.

Uh, we certainly didn't anticipate a five month concrete strike.

Uh, we have overcome all of those challenges, uh, but do need some help in this interim moment, uh, to solve the timing issue as Marshall said, uh, particularly for those private dollars as we're continuing to work on that.

Um, I want to share a memo here.

Um, I'll share my screen.

I believe this will work.

Hopefully you can all see this.

All right.

So just at the top here, a little background, incredibly proud of our overall project effort, collaboration with the local tribes, which those of you who have been down to the aquarium and on the site tour know that's resulted in some really amazing work, particularly with the rooftop open public space, where a brilliant food sovereignty expert Valerie Sechrest with the Muckleshoot tribe has helped us come up with a planting scheme that really tells the story from, you know, the shores of the Salish Sea up to Mount Dahoma, and there's been a whole team embedded with our overall project team for several years.

We're also reaching one of the highest levels of sustainable certification in the nation.

This will be the first aquarium that gets ILFI PEDAL certification, so leading on that front.

Um, and lots more details.

I know we had a great briefing with council member Lewis's committee a couple of weeks ago.

I want to talk about the market conditions, um, and what the primary drivers are for some of the cost increases in the project.

I think it's important for everyone to understand there have been cost increases and there's good reasons for that.

Um, early on in the project, we came out of 2019. Um, we looked at a couple of additional investments, one raising the bar for sustainability.

So investing in a far more efficient building.

We also, and I'm looking at my friend Marshall Foster here, we also assume the responsibility for delivering that rooftop public open space.

And I think in late 2019, early 2020, we got a much better sense of what that total cost was.

We also had a number of below the line items, owner related costs.

So overhead staffing, support for the philanthropic campaign, as well as an offsite animal care center that were brought into the fold for that total project amount.

So that was a first level.

of increase.

And then, of course, the pandemic hit, and that caused a number of challenges, both in project delivery and in cost.

So I think you're all familiar with international supply chain shortages, cost increases, economic uncertainty.

All of those impacted the overall project.

We were able to navigate through all of that fairly successfully.

We were actually able to navigate through the concrete strike, Uh, fairly successfully, but do have this timing challenge where the additional funds, the aquarium has committed to raising, uh, needs a little more time to get there.

And again, great success on that front today, but in a pandemic, it's tough.

Now that we're back in person, we're meeting with people, right?

All of that, um, is, uh, accelerating again, but we do need some help at this moment.

Um, just a quick note here, and I'm happy to send this memo out to the committee.

Uh, as background, uh, exhaustive effort on V E and cost controls.

So looking at every facet of the project, how can we best secure, uh, pricing?

Uh, how can we work with all of the subcontractors to ensure we're delivering the highest value.

Uh, of the project, both for the aquarium, uh, and for the public and then testing all key components of the program to ensure that everything that's in the building on top of the building is delivering to that core, uh, mission.

Down at the bottom here is a summary of the changes from 19 and 20. This is the number that includes all those below the line costs, about $140 million project at that time.

Construction was around 105. And then the increase that we saw in 2021 is we really got a good handle on the impacts immediately due to the pandemic and what we projected as the ongoing challenges through completion of the project.

That increased the overall construction budget by about 10%.

Just under 10% to about 115 that includes tax and contingency.

At the same time, we also saw about a point in the quarter increase in state tax.

So not an insignificant amount for $100 million in construction effort.

We saw an increase in A&E services, as well as some of those below the line overhead costs in the animal care center.

Again, there's duration now that is extended in the project.

So we need to make sure we have continuity and integrity for the entire team.

We also had a more significant investment.

You'll see there on your consultants, PM and legal on the sustainability front.

We brought in an expert with Jason McLennan to do an audit of the overall design.

and to really get us to that level where we can achieve that nation leading certification of ILFI pedal certification for the building.

I know in the interest of time, I will pause there.

If any of you are interested in going into the budget detail in greater length, please let me know.

It takes about an hour to go through the full comprehensive project budget and all of the backup, but happy to do that at any time.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Peterson, you're up first.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Thanks everybody for being here today.

I'll just go through all my comments and questions just to get them all out now.

So I know many people are excited about the expansion of the Seattle Aquarium, and I'm confident this ambitious project's going to get done.

I appreciate all the hard work that's gone into the project thus far.

I'd like to provide a little context for my fiscal management questions.

I strongly supported the removal of the viaduct to reconnect our city to its welcoming waterfront of Elliott Bay.

During the past two years, I've supported a local improvement district financing tool for the redevelopment of that central waterfront, the waterfront lid.

And during my first month as a council member back in December 2019, I supported the $34 million grant from the city of Seattle to the aquarium.

At that time, it was explicitly stated that the 34 million would be quote, the maximum end quote amount from the city government.

And so today the aquarium is asking for $20 million in addition.

And so I think it's reasonable to have some questions about this request and appreciate additional detail about construction costs.

First, I feel that this request is a bit rushed.

This request has been in front of some of the council members for just 72 hours, so I'm just wanted to find out, better understand what the rush is to approve this.

Second, in terms of the basic financial documents, normally when deciding whether to fund a project, we would see spreadsheets showing the detailed sources of funds and the uses of funds.

And for a request to increase the funding already provided, we would see a before and after.

And we just saw part of that in this memo.

So thanks for, showing that on the screen.

That is, well, back in December 2019, I think the total project cost for 113 million.

So I'm trying to understand how it went from 113 million total project costs to 140 million.

What you had showed on the screen was the difference between 140 million and 160 million, which is the, amount today for total project costs.

So that's a 41% increase in just 30 months from the $113 million that we were told in December 2019 to the $160 million today.

So that leads me to the line of questioning about other options.

I realize the project's integrated physically with other parts of the waterfront that are vital, but why not, for example, build out all the exterior parts that are integrated, the roof, the stairwells, et cetera, and delay 20 million of the interior improvements.

That would only be 12% of the new total project cost of $160 million if you just phase in the interior improvements and the various, the shark tank or whatever it is that's, you know, a big cost driver for your interior improvements.

And I really appreciate the Debt Policy Management Advisory Committee going through this.

That's helpful to know it complies with our rules for issuing debt.

I'm wondering if there are other options.

It sounds like the aquarium is pretty confident of getting sources of repayment for the debt.

couldn't we combine that confidence of repayment of the debt with perhaps the city government providing loan guarantees or something else where the aquarium could go to another funding source, whether that's a conventional bank or King County or somewhere else for the funding since we already gave the bulk of the government subsidy of $34 million.

So those are my questions and comments so far.

Thank you very much.

Thank you Council Member Peterson.

I would love to hear what folks have to say in response to that next step.

We have Council Member Lewis in the hopper as well.

I think in addition to Council Member Peterson's line of concerns or questions, if you could integrate into that, what assurances you have built into this or baked in to make sure that if there is any concern around the aquarium's inability to pay this off, given the uncertainty in our economy, what assurances does the city have or did we bake into this approach to make sure that there's an off-ramp, if you will?

My suggestion would be council members if it makes sense to have been start by addressing the specifically 113 to 140 140 to 160 get that out and then we could all we can step into some of the other questions about you know.

other options.

I think it would be helpful to hear from the Aquarium, you know, what you have thought about that.

I know we have discussed that and then we can talk about the city's different financial alternatives.

I see that Christy Beatty from the City Finance Division has joined us as well.

Great, take it away.

Yeah, thanks, Marshall.

Thank you, Council Member Um, real quick.

So one 13 was a number generated at the schematic design phase of the project and did not include all those below the line items that I discussed.

So, uh, legal costs, uh, staffing overhead, the support for the philanthropic campaign and the offsite animal care center.

In addition, and this is a credit to Mr. Foster's, uh, negotiating skill.

Through the process of finalizing that funding agreement, the aquarium assumed responsibility, including cost responsibility for delivering all that public realm on the rooftop of the aquarium.

So following completion of that, we updated our overall project costs to make sure we were fully capturing all the plantings, public walkways, public elevators, and stairs.

So that was that initial increase in overall project budget from 113 to 140 sort of capturing and give you a complete picture of all of those.

Again, it's important to note here, the city does not provide any reimbursement for those internal overhead costs, costs for running the campaign, legal costs, or the offsite animal care center, right?

Those are solely borne by the aquarium.

The second piece, so from 140 to 160, this is primarily pandemic driven.

And, you know, I think all of you are seeing this on many of your projects.

The cost increases, the complexity of project delivery has been impacted on so many levels.

You know, I really wasn't kidding.

It would take me an hour to walk through all of the various components of that.

And again, happy to do that at any time.

So that's really the primary driver in that jump to a total project cost of 160.

And if I could just add one point and then please correct me if I get this wrong or other from the aquarium.

At the time, you know, you brought forward the additional items that needed to be incorporated from 113 to 140. Part of what we understood as a city is things like the animal care facility, the exhibit tree and the fit out of the building.

Those were essential for the aquarium to have a functioning building and so we really agreed you know those were sort of below the line items before we knew they were required but we agreed it really made sense for us to incorporate them and to frankly have the oversight that we have under the construction funding agreement for them.

The last point on that I wanted to also just bring up is when you brought that to to us at that time it was with an understanding that you followed through on that those are all philanthropically funded.

Correct.

Those are coming from an increase in the size of the campaign that the aquarium was agreeing to advance.

And it may be helpful at some point to hear where you are with the campaigns.

I think we are what we have heard is you're in a very good position and are continuing to make good progress there.

Absolutely, Marshall, I think one other note, council member Peterson, you asked about an approach to phasing.

So there is this is a phased project.

We're now in phase three.

We're in the middle of phase three, and this is where that timing need emerges and the need for this interim funding.

Phase three actually delivers the full height of the building, gets us up to that rooftop level, right, and then gets us in position where we could easily finish all the exterior components and those public connections.

So that's the critical timing nature of the work we're doing right now.

It does affect the city as well, as Eric alluded to earlier from central staff.

Our overlook construction is underway, literally right next door to the aquarium's construction.

We do, you know, part of the timing urgency here, and I apologize, it is coming quickly to council, allows us to ensure we keep these two projects moving and sequenced hand in glove, because they really are literally day to day moving to what the other has completed so that we can take the next step as the city project.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Just the question I have is really, I think for perhaps central staff, it looks like the initial source of funding is from a real estate excise tax account.

We typically use those dollars for capital projects.

And so I'm just hoping that our city staff can explain how we're able to afford to give out $20 million from the REIT fund when we've got so many infrastructure needs in the city right now?

How are we able to put that out the door until we're reimbursed through the bonds in April of 2023?

Councilmember, thanks.

I'll begin, but then I think turn it over to the folks, Christy and other people who can speak to the structuring of this, of the proposal.

Some time ago, the city changed its policies to require that a particular fund be identified for an inter-fund loan.

Previously, the city could sort of identify, speaking generally, they could identify cash on hand to make loans.

And then the policy was tightened up to say, no, when you do an inter-fund loan, City of Seattle, you need to point to a fund.

REAP-1, as you said, is a fund for capital projects, for building things, you know, out there in the world.

It comes from an excise tax the city has.

and the role of DIMPAC is to look at the capability of a particular fund to back an inter-fund loan.

I'm gonna stop there and maybe turn to Caleb or Christy to address the sufficiency of that loan to meet the speed in the term of around 2023 before it'd be paid back by the expected bond sales.

If that's okay, if I framed that properly, if there's another way to frame that, please.

If you could brief in your response, we've spent 45 minutes on this topic so far.

We have two other council members and we do have this for consideration today.

So please go ahead and then we'll go to the other council members.

Yeah, quickly, we when we consider inter fund loans, we look at cash, cash balances, projected spending, annual spending in these funds.

The refund has about ninety eight million dollars cash on hand.

We've looked at the the appropriations and the spending to date in that fund.

We've looked at historic spending in the fund.

And we determined, along with FAS Treasury and Christy Beatty's team and the debt team, that this fund would be the right fund to lend to the bond fund to provide the cash.

We monitor this daily.

And so if that fund would ever run into a situation where it was drawing down the cash, we could move the funds temporarily.

So that's the short answer.

I think that we are gonna go ahead and move on.

And I think that if Council Member Peterson's questions and comments deserve additional information, it'd be great if you could share them with the whole committee, that'd be appreciated.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Chair Mosqueda, would this be the time to make our closing remarks on this legislation?

I don't have any additional questions, so I don't wanna crowd it out if Council Member Herbold has one.

Yeah, let me turn to Council Member Herbold and then I'll actually have you close this out.

So if that sounds good to you.

Thanks.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, did you have any questions you'd like to make?

So I think this falls into the area, not so much of questions, but expressing some interest in exploring an area and just wanting to give public notice of doing so.

First of all, I just want to highlight for the record that RIS language is really important in this legislation.

And I think it's incumbent on the council to, on the record, publicly acknowledge the legislation.

This is such a significant amount of funding the council's considering.

And so I just really want to call attention to the language in the recitals that says, this funding shall be the city's final contribution through the Ocean Pavilion, and though recitals don't have the force of law, should Aquarium request additional funding in the future, it will really be up to council to hold this intention stated in this bill and provide no additional funding.

So I just, I wanna highlight that.

And then secondly, there is some language in section one of the bill the city's best interest.

And I'm quoting in the agreement.

I think it's fair to say that it's listed in the agreement, but it doesn't necessarily require the aquarium agreed to the negotiation terms set out in the bill.

It's I think we all agree and everybody's best interest that we all agree negotiation set in the and I the actually executing the amendments as developed.

And so I'm phrasing this out of a sense of caution.

It's probably unnecessary in the case that the conditions should change in the future.

We've seen a lot of things change over the last two and a half years.

their delays in finalizing the agreement.

I'm not expressing any concern that there is any intent to not negotiate to the terms laid out in the agreement.

I am considering for Tuesday an amendment that would sort of take a bolt and suspenders approach to ensuring that the negotiation terms are honored.

So just wanting to flag that and basically trying the implementation of the bill to the successful negotiation.

I need to let my colleagues know that before we move towards a vote.

Thank you.

That is very helpful, Vice Chair.

And actually what I was trying to get at with my earlier comments to have that language lifted up, those are the two areas of concerns that myself and Deputy Mayor, excuse me, Deputy Director Panucci had in the DEMPAC meeting.

We wanted there to be clear contingencies for the city if it looked like the funding wasn't materializing at the aquarium and also that this was a very clear one-time last effort to support this very important public project that we all have.

But as our colleagues are noting here today, there's many important projects.

So really appreciate you lifting those two things up.

And I'd be very interested in working with you on a potential built and suspenders approach there.

Let's close this out.

And Council Member Lewis, did you have anything that's urgent, Director Foster?

Just very briefly, Council Members, I wanted to just confirm for you your point, Council Member Herbold, about the last and final funding is also incorporated into the body of the amendments.

So that is in addition to the whereas.

And we are at terms, we have reached full terms with the Aquarium on that agreement.

And if it would raise folks' comfort levels, I think we could absolutely clarify that these are the terms.

Excellent.

More work to come on that, it sounds like, before the final vote.

Okay, please go ahead and close this out, Council Member Lewis, and thanks again for your leadership on this effort.

Thank you, Council Chair, and I want to thank the panel for their remarks today on this important legislation.

And I'll try to be quick in my summary here, given that we do have a packed agenda of additional items.

So I'm proud today to support this creative solution to deliver this critical project on time and on budget without a dedication of new taxes.

This is a nimble answer to the intractable challenges that we have faced to build things as a city throughout the pandemic and the ensuing recovery.

This last year, we've experienced a concrete strike, extreme inflation, and a difficult labor recruitment environment.

All of these things compound to threaten our ability to efficiently and effectively complete large capital projects.

The recovery of the downtown core is essential to our post COVID vitality as a city.

52% of the business taxes that support our general fund come from the downtown neighborhood.

And a significant portion of those are attributable to activity on our waterfront and attributable to tourism and the recovery of tourism in the city of Seattle.

not just tourism from people traveling nationally, internationally, but people coming locally for some of the activations that we've had on the waterfront.

And I do want to lift out and give a shout out to the great work the Friends of the Waterfront, Office of the Waterfront, and other stakeholders have done on activating Pier 62 this summer.

activating Pier 62 in a way that is turning tens of thousands of people to the waterfront at a time when it is largely still a construction site.

So we can only imagine the potential, the possibility, the opportunity presented by completing our waterfront project and having a new front door centerpiece to our city that truly represents the vitality and creativity of the city of Seattle.

For the first time in its history, Pike Place Market is going to have a second front door that opens up onto the waterfront.

For the first time in its history, visitors to the Seattle waterfront will have the benefit of the sweeping views of Elliott Bay and the city skyline, not from the seat of a car on a double-decker concrete freeway, but from the top of a world-class sustainable aquarium, embossed with the art of the first people of our region.

And any delay to this project is not acceptable to me.

It's not acceptable to the people of downtown.

It's not acceptable to the stakeholders who have built and forged a new identity for the waterfront in the wake of removing the viaduct.

And any additional costs that can be avoided must be avoided.

This proposal allows us to keep this project on time and on budget with minimal risk and without new taxes.

And for those reasons, I will vote in favor of this proposal today.

Thank you, well said.

I wanna thank Council Member Lewis for your work on this and in this committee and in your committee to the office of the Waterfront, Mayor's office, CBO, central staff, my staff and to the aquarium for the work that you've done here.

Look forward to having further conversations with our colleagues about some of the built and suspended conversation and appreciate the questions and intrigue today on some of these other elements.

So today with that, we're gonna take two votes.

The first vote will be on Council Bill 120396. I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120396. Second.

Thank you very much.

It's been moved and seconded.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, although, excuse me, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Yes.

Council Member Peterson.

No.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is four in favor, one opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the August 16th Seattle City Council meeting.

For a final vote, the next bill in this suite for the Aquarium is Council Bill 120397. Are there any additional, excuse me, I move the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120397. Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Is there any additional comments?

Hearing and seeing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of the bill?

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Peterson?

No.

Councilmember Nielsen?

Aye.

Councilmember Lewis?

Yes.

Madam Chair Mosqueda?

Aye.

Madam Chair, that is four in favor, one opposed.

Thank you very much.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the bill pass will be sent to the August 16th Seattle City Council meeting for a final vote.

Colleagues, thanks so much on this.

I believe because it is before 11 on Thursday, the preceding week, we don't have to make any procedural motions and those indeed will go to the August 16th full council meeting for a final vote.

Excellent.

Okay, we're gonna move on to the second half of our agenda.

We have about an hour for this conversation here.

Madam Clerk, could you please read items three, four, and five into the record?

Agenda item number three, Council Bill 120391, an ordinance establishing the city's commitments and plans for supporting cannabis workers and supporting communities disproportionately harmed by the federal war on drugs.

Council Bill 120392, an ordinance relating to licensing cannabis businesses in Seattle, council bill one, agenda item number five, council bill 120393, an ordinance relating to employment in Seattle for briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you very much.

And I want to welcome to the screen here with us.

And if we could put the screen on together mode, that'd be fantastic.

Thank you so much.

I'd like to welcome to the screen here, Dan Eder and Brianna Thomas from the mayor's office, Lisa Kay and Amy Gore from Seattle Central staff, and excuse me, Jasmine Malaha as well, who is here with us as part of our central staff.

crew for the moment.

Thank you so much for all being with us.

Colleagues, this is a really exciting opportunity.

I know a lot of people are in the audience for this part of the agenda and have been tuning in to the Seattle Channel broadcast as well.

We've spent quite a bit of time in our committee over the last eight months talking about cannabis equity.

We started our first three committee meetings of the year, excuse me, the first three months of the year.

really learning more about what the city has done on cannabis equity.

As you see from the central staff memos that were provided for us, there's years of work that has been done on behalf of finance administrative services who began their racial equity toolkit analysis in 2018 to look into the issue of how the city should and could be doing a better job with applying an equity lens to the cannabis industry to support black owned businesses, to support black and brown owned businesses and workers, to make sure that more opportunity existed to share the wealth in this industry.

And especially to look at how the funds that were being recouped in the cannabis industry could be shared, not just with folks who are notably from the white community, but with the folks of color who were disproportionately impacted by the harms caused by the war on drugs.

And as we will discuss today, also by policy decisions that were made within the city as legalization took place.

So this is an opportunity for us to build on the three years, four years of work that the finance and administrative services department through their racial equity toolkit analysis and their racial equity work group have done over the years to provide recommendations to the city of Seattle.

I also want to thank the broad coalition of community organizations, union members, frontline workers, small business owners, folks who have been also in communities separately from finance administrative services, gathering to talk amongst workers and business owners about ways that the city should be stepping up to the plate.

To do a better job on cannabis equity, when we see jurisdiction after jurisdiction across this country applying a cannabis equity lens to how they allocate funding, training, worker support, small business assistance, and licensing and to know that these jurisdictions are much further ahead than Seattle, Washington, where we were the first to be able to bring legalization online.

It is embarrassing that we need to, it is an embarrassment that we are so far behind.

and we need to step up and that's what's been done here.

I wanna thank the mayor's office.

They've really taken the reins in working with community partners, both in business and worker representatives to identify three pieces of legislation for us here today.

And these three pieces of legislation were previewed by the mayor's team on July 20th.

Again, that's at least the fourth or fifth meeting we had on Canvas Equity.

And today we continue that discussion looking at the details of the legislation.

We will be welcoming back to the dais first, the mayor's office.

Thanks again to Brianna Thomas and to Dan Eder for their presentation here with us today to have a brief overview of the three pieces of legislation in front of us.

And then we will ask central staff to walk us through each piece of legislation to be briefed separately.

Again, folks know that there are many policy details in each of the three pieces of legislation.

So we'll take a pause after each presentation to ask some questions.

And just as a final reminder, some of the amendments, thank you, colleagues, are being daylighted here today.

And if you have any additional amendments that you'd like to work on, please do notify central staff tomorrow, August 12th, of any possible amendments so that they can work with you in anticipation of our next committee meeting.

With that, thank you for being with us, and thanks to the hard work of the mayor's team, the community organizations, the small businesses, and all within our city family, including FAS, Office of Labor Standards, and Office of Economic Development, who've been very interested in this, and I would be remiss to not thank Devin and Gerald, who had been working with us as well at the beginning of this year, who provided some information and committee to get us kicked off on this.

Really appreciate their work, the departments, and really the leadership of the Mayor, Mayor Harrell.

So with that, I will turn it over to Dan Eater and Brianna Toss to walk us through the three pieces of legislation that have been transmitted to us from Mayor Harrell.

Please go ahead.

Sorry, I was trying to find the unmute button.

Thank you for the opportunity to present again.

As you mentioned, we were here in late July to walk through an overview of the anticipated legislation, which is now before the committee.

Brianna Thomas is, I'm sorry, I should introduce myself, Dan Eder, Policy Director with the Mayor's Office.

Brianna Thomas is going to provide an overview, high-level overview, and some of the background of how we got here.

And then I understand that central staff is going to walk through their analysis of the three pieces of legislation.

We will, of course, be available for questions.

So I will turn it over to Brianna, please.

Thank you for that Dan Brianna Thomas labor liaison for Mayor Harold's administration, and I want to thank Councilmember mosquito for having us here in committee today it's always good to be with you.

Between Dan and Councilmember you took all my good talking points, so I'll just take this opportunity to reiterate the intention of the mayor's office in this body of work.

We recognize the disproportionality of the war on drugs on the Black community.

We recognize the negative impacts of a lack of a meaningful racial equity lens and the transition from medical cannabis to recreational cannabis and the loss of Black wealth and Black business and Black ingenuity in this space.

And this suite of legislation does not undo that harm, but it is a stepping stone in the right direction, and it puts the city on track to be ready to go the second the state implements equally important social equity policies.

There are three pieces of legislation still.

The first one from FAS addressing the social equity licensing, the current one that we are proposing today, and building a framework for the future.

Bill drafted in conjunction with OLS and Jasmine Mwaha, that protects workers in the case of a sale of a cannabis business and its transition, giving those workers stability during that time and transparency on who exactly the boss is to make sure that we have businesses in this city that are operating within all 18 of our labor standards and making sure workers are able to have their due.

Last but certainly not least, piece of legislation that puts up forward the city's intentions moving forward to advocate for cannabis equity on the state, federal, and county levels with community, with folks who are already doing this work because we know those folks have the answers.

They are the subject matter experts and they don't need us reinventing the wheel for them.

As it pertains to the advisory committee, which we heard quite a bit of comment on this morning, It has always been the mayor's intention to work collaboratively with the council to build that table.

No one's interested in putting their thumb on the scale or making sure someone's voice is outsized.

We want to work with our council members to make sure we're building a table that represents the needs of this entire industry and this community.

And we look forward to doing that work with you moving forward.

Thanks again for having us.

And we will be here to answer any background questions, although I'm sure that, as always, the very competent central staff has dug in and has a lot of those answers for us.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Brianna.

Dan?

Anything else you'd like to add?

No, thank you very much.

Look forward to the conversation.

Great.

Well, thank you very much.

And thanks again for your work.

Excited to dive into it.

Do we have all three bills already read in, Madam Clerk?

Okay, wonderful.

So let's go ahead and get started with the first bill that's up, which is Council Bill 120391. This is the equity ordinance, and we have with us Amy Gore, who will present on this piece of legislation.

Thanks to the three of you from Central South for your comprehensive memos, very informative, only six pages long each, folks, if you haven't had the chance to read them.

Let's dive in.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Good morning, Councilmembers, and thanks to Brianna and Dan for their introduction.

My name is Amy Gore with Council's central staff, and also thank you to Lisa Kay, who's going to be running the slides this morning.

As discussed, there are three pieces of cannabis equity legislation I will be presenting on Council Bill 120391. This bill would describe several actions that the city intends to take related to cannabis equity.

First I wanted to give a little bit more background of how we got here.

As you know, the voters of Washington State approved I 502 and 2012, the state remove prohibitions against producing processing and selling cannabis.

They allowed limited possession of cannabis by persons, age 21 and older.

And they also created a licensing and regulatory scheme and imposed excise taxes.

The city of Seattle followed suit by establishing zoning regulations, establishing business license requirements, and also related fees.

As Brianna mentioned, most changes to policy were not done with a racial equity lens.

We now see many jurisdictions revisiting their cannabis policies in order to recognize past harms and address existing racial disparities in the cannabis industry.

Next slide, please.

The city staff at the Facilities and Administration Department have completed an in-depth racial equity toolkit on cannabis policies.

In partnership with several city departments, they detailed the disproportionate harm to Black individuals, families, and communities, both before and after legalization.

This includes the disproportionate enforcement of the cannabis prohibition, disproportionate enforcement of public use laws, the loss of Black-owned medical marijuana businesses, and a lack of current Black ownership of cannabis industry businesses.

Through the RET, stakeholders and FAS developed several recommendations for cannabis equity, including increasing equity in business licensing, reducing buffering and dispersion requirements, those are land use requirements related to cannabis industry, providing grants or loans and technical assistance to black cannabis businesses to provide mentorship and invest in communities most impacted by cannabis prohibition.

Next slide, please.

So this slide details what Council Bill 120391 would do.

The bill expresses the city's intention to include cannabis equity in the city's 2023 state and federal legislative agendas.

It includes advocating with King County for the expungement of cannabis convictions.

It would express the council's intent to partner with organizations that represent those communities negatively impacted to help mitigate the damage of the federal war on drugs.

It would commit to pursuing funds from both state and federal governments for cannabis equity work.

In addition, it would fund a cannabis needs assessment and appoint an advisory committee comprised of workers, industry members, and community members to support the cannabis needs assessment.

Next slide, please, Lisa.

Thank you.

I just want to raise three small items for the council's consideration.

First, as I've discussed, the city's cannabis equity rat included several recommendations that are not included in the proposed council bill.

The council could amend the bill to include some or all of the racial equity toolkit recommendations, such as buffering and dispersion requirements, business supports, or funding investments in the cannabis equity actions.

Next slide, please.

The second one is, while the council bill describes the funding of a cannabis needs assessment, it does not appropriate these funds or identify a source for these funds.

The mayor's office estimates that the assessment could cost $250,000.

Council could consider amending the bill to identify a funding source, remove the needs assessment until further, sorry, until funding is identified or take no action.

And the final issue, next slide, please.

The final issue is that the proposed council bill describes the temporary advisory committee to support the needs assessment work, though it doesn't include significant guidance on prioritization of who should serve on the committee or the process by which the committee should be formed.

Council may want to consider amending the bill to provide additional guidance on the advisory committee.

Next slide, please, Lisa.

While we will be discussing amendments next week, there is one proposed amendment that has already been prepared and reviewed by law and is ready to share today.

It is sponsored by Councilmember Mosqueda and would add a new section 10 to provide additional guidance on the preferred characteristics for the organization selected to conduct the assessment, the cannabis needs assessment, excuse me.

It would specify that the needs assessment work should be done by an organization such as We Train Washington.

and the amendment can be found attached to the memo on Council Bill 120391. That is all I have for you today on Council Bill 120391. Does anyone have any questions?

Thank you so much, Amy.

And I will ask a few questions just to make sure that I fully understand the answers to them as well on some of the policy issues you identified.

But as I will ask our colleagues who have already shared some amendment concepts that they have, I'll walk through the concept that I have in amendment number one.

And for those who have suggested amendments so far, I would ask you to make a few comments about yours when we get to those two.

So I'll just start with that very briefly.

Amendment number one, thank you, Amy, for summarizing that.

Folks, I would say this is a pretty small common sense amendment, which ensures that we are really being responsive to making sure that the training for workers is being given by an entity who has experience doing training in this industry specifically.

The reason for this amendment and the reason for our focus on training, and I wanna thank the mayor's office for their inclusion of the training element as well in the legislation, is that this is specifically responding to the testimony that we received in this committee and the work that FAS had received as well over their, time and community doing the analysis, where we saw in the racial equity analysis and in public comment in our committee, that workers really need a better sense of safety.

They want training so that their training and time on the job is being adequately focused on how to ensure that they are doing their job safely.

This amendment ensures that the city has a fuller understanding and evaluates the kinds of long-term safety needs workers need who work in the industry.

According to Uncle Ike's 502 robbery tracker, in the year 2022 alone, there have been 87 incidences of armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, or smash and grab burglary at 87 stores in Washington state.

Workers have constantly told us that they are not adequately trained to deal with these kinds of situations and having them all have to operate unfortunately due to our federal rules in a all cash operation makes retail theft unique and especially dangerous for workers.

So my interest in this amendment is not to necessarily solve retail theft.

I know that this is a much bigger issue and there's a number of strategies that folks are interested in pursuing in terms of how to improve brick and mortar.

But it is important for us to ensure that workers who are in this industry have the training and educational programs that they need to support the safety protections for businesses and also provide an opportunity for workers to be part of that training opportunity and prioritize equity within the communities most harmed by the war on drugs.

As you heard in public comment, I am very interested in having us as a city look at an organization that already has experience with working with both management and labor on the exact type of needs assessments that are outlined in this legislation And you heard in public comment as well this morning that WeTrain has already conducted successful retail industry needs assessment for pre-apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships, and leadership development programs.

They are conducting five additional retail grocery needs assessments just this winter alone, including an assessment of worker and employer safety needs in participation with the University of Washington that will be particularly relevant for making sure that this legislation is meaningful.

I think it makes sense to contract with an organization that has the exact experience that we're calling for in this amendment, and I also respectfully recognize that the legislative branch can't tell the executive branch who to choose.

So that is why it says such as, as we usually do with legislation, suggesting an organization, but the final decision does rely with the mayor's office.

So that's just some background on that amendment.

And then we'd love to open it up to our colleagues for questions overall on this piece of legislation.

We have about five more minutes for this piece of legislation.

And I did have one question for Amy and I see Council Member Herbold's hand as well.

One question for me very briefly, is on policy issue identification number one.

In terms of additional actions, you noted some of the racial equity toolkit analyses that are still not included in this legislation.

The racial equity toolkit recommended reducing buffering and dispersion requirements for cannabis businesses as one of three components that you listed in this paragraph.

The other two, I can see how there would be a fiscal impact for providing loans and technical assistance and for investing in communities with additional enforcement of probation.

Is there any known fiscal impact if the city wanted to provide additional guidance for the racial equity team's recommendation on reducing buffering and dispersion?

Can you think of a fiscal impact on that one?

Offhand, I would just say that that would that would involve work at probably STCI or OPCD to really dig into that issue and come up with recommendations.

I can't offhand think of other costs that would be associated with that beyond staff work.

That is kind of the normal cost that we incur when we take on new land use regulations.

But I can reach out to the exec to find out kind of what that would entail and the scale of that cost if you're interested.

That'd be wonderful.

Thank you, Amy.

And I'm going to turn to my colleagues for questions just on this first bill, recognizing we have two more to go.

And this is not the time for debating amendments.

We're going to get a chance to do that next week.

But would love to hear any questions you have or reactions.

Please go ahead Council Member Hermel.

I think, yes, in the spirit of asking questions, not debating, looking at the thus far developed language in the packet attachment one, you, I think, very helpfully described the attributes of the, entity that we would be seeking to do the cannabis need assessment, a nonprofit, experiencing curriculum development, administering retail training, and apprenticeship programs in the state of Washington, expertise in the roles and functions of jobs within the cannabis industry, and that is not primarily funded by cannabis business or employer associations.

I'm wondering, this seems like a very thorough description of the attributes, whether or not you might consider um sort of being neutral about the name of the organization um that's one thing i just wanted to put out there and then um then uh madam chair your very accurate statement that um it will be um in the purview of the executive to select the entity to do this assessment.

I'm wondering if Ms. Thomas might be willing to talk a little bit about what we might expect as far as, I know there's been discussion around the development of the scope of the assessment and having a roundtable to help develop what the assessment is looking at, but I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about the likely intentions for how to select someone to do the assessment.

Thank you for that question, Council Member.

I would be guessing.

If I attempted to describe in any meaningful detail the exact nature of the RFP process for this.

And so I'm going to ask my colleague, Dan Eater, who's doing this a little bit longer than I have, if he's got some clarifying comments on how an RFP might go down after we've scoped the request.

Yeah, I think this is the kind of thing that our Fleet's administration department has a regular practice of doing, and we would go through the routine practice of a request for proposals and screen and select through the normal process to get a contract underway.

I think that's what you're asking about.

It is.

I guess I'm hoping to hear that the intent isn't a sole source contract.

And I don't know if it would even be eligible.

But one of the things I heard from public comment is I heard concern that it was a sort of a fait accompli of who would do the work.

Yeah, I think our intent is to have it be an open-ended invitation for people who meet the established criteria.

to tell us their credentials and how much it would cost to contract with them for a given scope of work.

Since we're on the subject, I would indicate that the executive's intent had been to leave this more open-ended about exactly what the attributes would be.

And if we have the discretion to do so, we would consider a competitive process from an entity that is not a nonprofit, such as an educational institution, who would have all of the other background expertise and attributes that are described in Council Member Mosqueda's proposed amendment.

I should say, even though I listed the attributes and said that I thought they were comprehensive and thorough, I am also interested in whether or not an academic institution might be able to help with this work.

I wanna remind folks, we are appreciative of the questions today, and I'm gonna try to not get into the debate on this amendment, because we have two other pieces of legislation to consider.

But Mr. Eder, I would want to follow up with you.

I'm 100% sure that the amendment as written still allows for a competitive process.

It doesn't take that away from the mayor's office.

And we often in the legislative branch write in such as, as a good way to give indication for the type of organization that we'd like to see funded.

Unfortunately, a number of times in the budget, for example, in the last few years, we've written in such as, and the organizations that we noted didn't actually receive the funding.

So it is an opportunity for us to further clarify, I think from the legislative end, an organization that meets those credentials that were outlined by Council Member Herbold and is currently in the legislation.

And I, I will leave it at that.

OK, Council Member Nelson, you are up next.

Oh, Council Member Nelson, you're still on mute, at least on my end.

Thank you very much.

So I have some questions and comments about the base legislation.

and particularly the needs assessment.

But so when the mayor's office briefed my office on this package of legislation, it was portrayed as mirroring the efforts of the LCB's effort and the Liquor Control Board's efforts on social equity in cannabis enabled by House Bill 2870. and the equity recommendations of the Social Equity Cannabis Task Force.

And the central staff memo references the racial equity toolkit conducted by FAS in collaboration with OED, SDI, SOCR, et cetera, and their cannabis equity survey and analysis.

Neither the LCB's task force recommendations nor FAS's RET call for a needs assessment.

Indeed, the very purpose and work product of those efforts was to surface social equity issues that must be addressed to improve equity in cannabis industry.

And then the next two council bills actually do that.

So my question centers on the rationale for the needs assessment in this ordinance.

As Trey on the holiday said in her public comment, she's exhausted with all the studies and just wants a measure that actually really does something.

So how did the needs assessment get into Council Bill one two zero three nine one that we're discussing now?

And I'm wondering if the mayor's office or where you chair Mosqueda have conferred with Ali Garrett or any other LCB board members or anybody on the Social Equity and Cannabis Task Force in Olympia about this component of the legislation, since we're aiming for alignment, and I'll take that answer offline.

But I do have some history that might be relevant.

In 2020, UFCW ran two cannabis bills, House Bill 2361 and Senate Bill 6393, and the latter contained a needs assessment The Washington Build Back Black Alliance and the Washington State Commission on African American Affairs, which speaks for 700,000 black Washingtonians, opposed both bills and they both died.

Later, late last year UFCW put forward a proposal for a cannabis tax that would generate five to $6 million a year and I've asked in pretty much every committee meeting where we've discussed cannabis.

If, if this is the end goal, and I publicly stated that that would harm.

Seattle small cannabis businesses because they're already taxed at a higher rate than any other state at 37% of an excise tax.

And that would be even more harmful to black cannabis business owners because generally they tend to have less access to capital to start businesses.

So this would be anti-equity.

Anyway, I presume that that tax would be used in part for training either for advancement for employees in the cannabis industry or maybe worker safety.

It's not really clear because the ball keeps moving.

But in an email that Dustin Ambrose of USCW 3000 sent on June 17th, he called for urgent action on worker safety.

And when I got back to him in an email that that I copied all council members on, I asked, well, can you describe this?

the worker safety training, is that self-defense or whatever, never got back to me.

I also asked if- Council Member Nelson, do you have a question for central staff, the mayor's office?

I heard one question earlier about why the needs assessment was incorporated, but there is no tax in this legislation.

This piece of legislation has any tax included.

So instead of regurgitating the email chains you have, I'd like you to focus on the questions in front of us for central staff for this briefing or for the mayor's office, please.

Well, we train Washington has been mentioned in comment and in your amendment.

And that is and that is a joint management initiative between UFCW and employers of the well, it says in the website worker grocery workers, but in any case.

It seems like the needs assessment to me is a priority for UFC W and its purposes to identify needs that it will then contract to meet.

Let's ask the mayor's office if they'd like to answer your first question.

Okay.

That sounds like a fair question about the legislation that's been transmitted to us.

Brianna or Dan, would you like to comment on the needs assessment language that is included in the draft bill?

I'd be happy to jump in.

The exact scope of the types of training that we have outlined in the bill that is before you are yet to be costed out.

We have been, as I mentioned, contemplating working with an educational institution.

And we have put some feelers out and requested feedback about what types of costs would be associated with what types of training.

And it's just taking a bit longer than we have had in time under our belt to get that sorted out.

And then the idea of getting input from folks from a task force about what the needs are and who we would actually be training for what purpose seemed like an attractive way to try to resolve the scope question.

And so the needs assessment idea was birthed.

Thank you so much.

What was that last point I didn't hear you.

The needs assessment was birthed, the needs assessment was birthed from that concept.

I am going to ask that we engage in additional discussion slash debate.

on the amendment as it is initially proposed here.

And when we talk about those amendments next, because I do wanna get us to go through the details of the two additional policy pieces in front of us and appreciate that there will be further discussion to have about the concepts that I've outlined in amendment number one.

Appreciate the questions that have been raised about the initial bill that we have in front of us here.

And let's go ahead and move on to the second bill.

I believe that is council bill One, whoops, I dropped my script here.

Please go ahead, Central Staff, for item number four.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm Lisa Kay, also on Central Staff, and I'll be speaking to the second of the three cannabis equity bills on today's agenda.

You can see this still on my screen, I'm hoping.

I'm assuming you would tell me if you could not.

We can, yes.

That's wonderful, thank you.

Council Bill 120392.

Yes, so this bill would create a social equity cannabis license and eligibility criteria for that license consistent with the draft rules from the State Liquor and Cannabis Board.

As with the existing city cannabis licenses, cannabis businesses located in Seattle or those located outside the city limits but doing business in the city would require a state social equity cannabis license as a prerequisite to obtaining a city social equity cannabis license.

Under this proposal, the social equity license from the city would not require an annual fee.

The proposed bill would also eliminate all city cannabis fees for reinspections and license reinstatement.

In addition, this bill would expand the type of activities that could be covered by the license should the state choose to enable in the future on-premises consumption of cannabis delivery or special event consumption.

Finally, the bill would change terminology in Seattle's Municipal Code from marijuana to cannabis, and this change is consistent with the bill adopted by the state legislature this year which found that in the United States, the term marijuana has discriminatory origins and should be replaced with the more scientifically accurate term of cannabis.

This slide shows you that the proposed bill would keep the current annual fees for regular cannabis business licenses at $3,500 for businesses in the city and at $2,000 for those located outside the city, but doing business in the city.

with the city, sorry, with a business in the city.

A map of the licensed cannabis businesses in the city and a list of those outside of the city are attachments one and two to my staff memo.

I think there's been a little bit of discussion of this already, but the proposed eligibility criteria in the bill for social equity applicants does align with the Liquor and Cannabis Board's draft rules.

That board's been working on the draft rules for most of this year and has scheduled a public hearing on its draft rules on September 14th, with adoption of final rules taking place as soon as September 28th.

As you see on this slide, under this bill applicants for a City of Seattle social equity license would need to meet at least one of the following sets of criteria.

The first set of criteria specifies that an applicant must have at least 51% ownership by individuals who resided in a disproportionately impacted area.

That area is defined in the bill as a census tract or a comparable geographic area that satisfies all of the following criteria that you see on the slide there.

A high poverty rate, a high rate of participation in income-based federal or state programs, a high rate of unemployment, and a high rate of cannabis-related arrest, conviction, or incarceration.

The second set of eligibility criteria would accept as an applicant an entity that has at least 51% ownership and control by at least one individual who's been convicted of a cannabis offense or a drug offense or is a family member of such an individual.

And then the bill also provides for a potential third set of eligibility criteria that would be defined by the director of the facilities and administrative services after the board adopts its final rules.

So I have two policy issues identified in the staff memo that you have in your packet.

First, the city's social equity license program, as you heard, must be consistent with the final rules that will be adopted by the Liquor and Cannabis Board.

And September 28th is the earliest date by which that board might finalize its rules.

As you saw, there is an option by which the FAS director can make changes to that criteria after the LCB adopts its criteria.

Alternatives to this approach could include postponing the City's action until the Board finalizes its rules or adding a requirement to this bill that the Council would be able to approve any changes to the criteria after the Liquor and Cannabis Board adopts its final rules.

Getting ahead of myself.

The second policy issue.

is that adding a no-fee license could impact FAS's cost recovery for its cannabis licensing program.

Depending upon how FAS calculates cost recovery, this calculation could be affected by the number of new licenses made available to the city and by the number of applicants for those licenses and the resources required to process those applications.

I would say that under current law, Seattle expects to receive only two social equity licenses from the state.

but Seattle could receive a larger share of the state's 39 unused retail licenses if the 2023 legislature passes a bill that was introduced last year that would have increased the number and changed the distribution of the social equity licenses.

An option policy option available to the committee would be to ask that the executive provide an annual report to council on the program's cost recovery so you would have an idea of the impact of the adding the new social equity license.

I've received two policy amendments.

I'm sorry, two amendments to this bill today.

The first is sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

It would reduce fees from $3,500 to $2,000 for small businesses producing or transporting cannabis in Seattle.

And I wasn't sure, Madam Chair, if you wanted to have the sponsor speak to her amendment, or if I should cover the second amendment before opening it.

Let's go ahead and do that since I spoke to the amendment right after you finished with the, or central staff finished with the last presentation.

So let's do that.

And then we'll go to Council Member Nelson, and after the central staff briefs that amendment, and then we'll go back to questions on the overall bill.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

You're muted, Council Member.

Sorry about that.

Okay.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to flag that I'm working with Council Central staff on an amendment that is potentially implementing a concept that FAS has had for a number of years, prompted by council request of FAS several years ago to do some analysis.

And basically, this amendment would establish cannabis business license fee, $2,000, but only for small cannabis production businesses that are classified by the state as Tier 1 businesses.

Tier 1 businesses and cannabis transporters are, in the case of businesses, they're 4,000 square feet or less.

This would be a reduction, this $2,000 fee would be a reduction of 1,500.

But again, it would only apply to tier one businesses and transporters.

And FAS has confirmed both when they originally made this proposal that the previous administration didn't move forward.

And now, there are only two licenses in the city that meet this.

we're going to be able to do that.

So that's one of the criteria.

As background, I've been in touch with FAS over several years.

After the council the business license fee to $3,500.

To really want to really but we have to recognize that not all businesses are created equal.

And so one thing that FAS looked at doing is they looked at the possibility of reducing some of the business licensing costs, such as elements of the work that might be overlapping with the State Liquor and Cannabis Board.

I'm delighted to see that the proposed includes removal of the $250 fee for premises re-inspection.

and the $250 license requirement fee.

And the amendment as proposed is based on a proposal that FAS developed in 2020 after an analysis.

and following the council 2018 statement of legislative intent that I sponsored.

So this very small amendment is a long time coming.

From FAS, they report that these tier one producers have lower margins than any other classification of marijuana business and must comply with the same state regulatory requirements as all other marijuana businesses, and they accept this practice FAS's legislative proposal was motivated by that perspective.

because the amount of time required to inspect marijuana transporter business is significantly less as necessary for any other type of licensed marijuana business.

FAS proposes to also apply the reduced fee through the transporter classification.

Again, there are only two of these kinds of businesses in the city of Seattle, two tier one licensees and no transporter businesses.

But again, there may be in the future and given the lighter regulatory load, I think a reduced fee makes sense.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

And before we get to the second amendment that's been already shared by council colleagues, I wanna lift up what you just said.

Not only is there no new tax apparently in the suite of legislation that we have, right?

There's no new tax here, but it also as central staff noted already in the existing legislation, there is zero cost for the new social equity licenses and they have eliminated the $250 fee for reinspection.

and licensing reinstatement.

And FAS, as it notes in the central staff memo, has noted that these fees are not needed to help meet the full cost of regulatory program enforcement.

So it is very much the interest of making sure that we are promoting equity by reducing the fees.

And I look forward to hearing more about the amendment that you're working on, and we'll save the discussion and debate on that for the next meeting.

Council, central staff, please go ahead and walk us through amendment number two first.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This amendment is sponsored by Council Member Nelson.

It would prioritize social equity license applications from previous owners of medical marijuana dispensaries who were put out of business basically with the original legalization legislation that followed initiative 502. And Council Member Nelson may wish to speak to her amendment.

Okay, Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Yeah, I don't have much to add.

I wasn't prepared to really just speak to this because I thought we were going to be considering amendments at the next meeting.

But basically, this would- But you weren't prepared to debate my amendment.

That's funny.

Okay, you can go ahead- No, I was talking about the base legislation.

Go ahead and walk us through the amendment in terms of what you would like to accomplish in it.

Chair Mosqueda, I was addressing the need for a needs assessment when it seems like the community had already brought forth its needs.

This amendment is simply, it prioritizes, as we said, people who had medical cannabis dispensaries prior to them being shut down and also who meet the social equity criteria set forth in this legislation, and this was This was brought forward by Peter Manning and Mike Asai who spoke at today's meeting and we met with separately as well.

So that's all I have to add right now about my amendment.

Thank you so much.

Before we get to additional comments or questions on the underlying bill in front of us, appreciate the discussion I also had with Mr. Asai and the team here would be interested in seeing if we can harmonize the time period that we're talking about here.

So it's not 2020, 2012 in perpetuity, that there's a cap on the end.

If we could bookend it along with what the state has considered, I believe it goes to 2016. That might be something I'd be interested in discussing with you.

Council Member Herbold, comments, questions, please go ahead.

Question, and really, there is no hidden intent to debate this amendment.

It sounds like something I would support, but it's making me think that I don't understand the legislation before us.

How do we create a priority for social equity licenses when it's the state that is making the decision about who gets the social equity licenses.

I don't understand how this would work.

If I could speak to that.

So the applicants would need to have both a state license and a city license.

And so to prioritize the city license, I mean, I think your question is legitimate and might need a little bit further explanation or exploration.

I have, there was no legal issue flagged previously in their review of this amendment.

Basically, it's saying that of the social equity licenses that are received, the amendment would direct the FAS director to develop rules that would prioritize those owners that basically lost their businesses previously.

So the city's

But the state would have to have given them a license.

So these businesses lost their license.

Before this action could happen, the state would have to, one, reissue their license, and two, identify them as a social equity license eligible.

That's true.

And there's only two, so what does creating a priority mean?

It means that if the city got, if there were two applicants that, or if there were multiple applications for the two new licenses that the city would get, if the applicants, if some of the applicants for those licenses could demonstrate the harm from the medical marijuana businesses going out of business based on whatever rules FAS develops, the city would prioritize granting the city license.

Because you could have multiple applicants for city licenses.

And I assume that the city is going to be issuing the social equity designation to.

I mean, assuming that these 2 actually even happen in the city, because, again, they could happen anywhere in King County, but assuming that the 2 equity license, social equity licenses are.

issued for businesses within Seattle, I just assumed that the city was going to be designating those two as social equity businesses.

I'll get back to you on that.

Yeah, thanks, Lisa.

And Council Member Herbold, I appreciate that you're asking these questions in the spirit of how would this be operationalized and not debating the merits of the amendment.

I would like to invite the team from the mayor's office, if Breanna Thomas or Dan Eder have thoughts about application here or concept, you're welcome to chime in as well, in terms of operationalizing something like

Thank you for that Councilmember I think one of the underlying issues that we should bear in mind is that the state will take up the issue of portability, and the next legislative session and so it's my understanding that for King County, if portability comes into play we are looking at up to eight licenses.

We feel firm on two without portability.

If portability comes into play, we are looking at up to eight.

But Dana Eder, please correct me if I'm wrong.

It is my understanding that is the city's intention to affirm any licensure given by the state for social equity through the city's process.

And therefore, because the legislation does not place a cap on the number of social equity licenses that the city will provide, given the state's action.

I appreciate the question of effectuating a prioritization list in the space where we have not put limitations on ourselves on our ability to issue set licenses.

I also think it's very important that the message we're giving to community is that we are beholden to the behavior of the state before the city is able to act.

I don't want to accidentally get a narrative out there that the city is able to act as an individual actor in this space.

Did that answer your question, Council Member?

Yes, please.

Please go ahead, Council Member Nelson.

Yeah.

Like I said, this isn't fully cooked.

I didn't know we were talking about him, but licenses could be sold from one existing owner to a future.

So it doesn't necessarily have to apply just to new applicants.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you, Councilmember I think in that instance the city would need to be clear, and I think the legislation in front of us is clear that the social equity licenses from the city are predicated on social equity licensure from the state so in the case of a sale between private entities.

This legislation would not be triggered.

Okay, thank you so much.

And we'll look forward to additional information based on those questions with central staff.

I have one more question.

And colleagues, I know we put a time hold on your calendar till 1230. So I'm hoping you're okay with time here.

I'm seeing some nods and thumbs up, a smile online.

Okay, great.

So we're gonna keep going.

But before we move on, I do have one question for Lisa.

In page four of your memo, you summarized what the disproportionately impacted area criteria would be.

And as I was rereading it, and again, I want to thank the work of the mayor's office and FAS for the conversations they've had, the community members who've been talking about how a disproportionately impacted area must be part of the legislation in order for us to specifically focus on undoing the harms caused by the war on drugs.

And as we've heard from public testimony to the folks who have had their businesses not be supported locally, disproportionately in the central district.

So I appreciate that this is in here.

I did just have one question about the criterias, item number one through four.

Item number three.

says that one of the criteria for an impacted area would be area has a high rate of unemployment.

And given the national trend that we're seeing of so many people, not necessarily being unemployed, but being underemployed and thus having to have multiple jobs, I just wondered how that new trend intertwines with these requirements, right?

If there's a requirement for high unemployment, I don't necessarily think that we're gonna see that because so many folks are working two and three jobs.

A lot of them wouldn't be classified as unemployed.

So I'm just wondering if there is an or there, or if we're also looking at different kind of criteria for what employment status might be.

Go ahead, Dan.

Yeah, Dan, please go ahead.

Thank you.

anyone on the call, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this is a list, any one of which would qualify.

If that's not the case, then I stand corrected in advance.

I read the bill.

It is inclusive of all of them.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm sorry to do that on the line here, but I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't it didn't have to be all for right, it does have to be all for the way I read the legislation.

I'd also thinking off the cuff here so I don't mean to throw a wrinkle into our joint discussions here in the.

Really great collaboration we've had with the mayor's office.

I won't say that I want to do that, but would love to talk with you a little bit more, colleagues on council and folks in the mayor's office about how that new trend on employment may factor in.

I'm sorry that I didn't think about it beforehand and appreciate the clarification, Lisa.

Thanks for thinking through that with me over the next few days, colleagues.

I would note that this is lifted from the Liquor and Cannabis Board criteria to the extent that we may not have ability to diverge from this.

Well, that's very helpful.

Okay, well, we wanna do everything that we can in harmony.

And to that point, I think that there's real value in moving something at this stage while the Liquor Control Board is still in its rulemaking processes so we can really be part of those conversations and underscore Seattle's interest and intent here.

So looking forward to harmonizing and also weighing in.

Council Member Herbold, before you move on.

Thank you so much.

I'm sorry I forgot to mention one tiny thing and Amy Gore may have already covered it and I may have missed it.

I know I requested the inclusion of a concept for another amendment.

Too late to get in the memo, so I don't think it was reflected in the presentation, but it may have been verbally mentioned.

There is the section regarding the efforts to work on expungement of cannabis convictions so there's the, there's the, the vacating of judgments which has already happened, the expungent expungement of records another work product that I think is really really important.

And right now the language.

refers to the city being in partnership with King County to work on this effort.

And I'm just suggesting that we replicate some language that's in section five that lifts up that we also want to include communities negatively impacted by the federal war on drugs on that work product as well.

Thanks.

Great, thanks for flagging that.

And a good reminder to our colleagues, if there are other amendments you're considering, central staff does need to know before the end of the day tomorrow.

Okay, let's move on to our last one.

Jasmine, I started to tee up a conversation about workers and what's going on in our local economy, and you are our labor lead on this.

So let's turn it over to you for this last piece of legislation.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

Again, my name is Jasmine Marwaha, Central Staff Analyst, Staffing Council Bill 120393, also known as the Cannabis Employee Job Retention Ordinance.

This bill would require cannabis business employers to take certain actions, which I'll get to in a minute, to increase transparency and reduce job insecurity caused by changes in ownership.

Covered employers are those who own or operate and or control a cannabis business and the cannabis business is defined as a essentially a business license under SMC Chapter 6500. Coverage also includes any integrated enterprises associated with the licensed cannabis business.

This is important because my understanding, I think it's been mentioned as well earlier in this meeting, that since cannabis businesses don't have access to federally insured banking, they must establish separate business entities to pay their employees.

And these entities would be considered integrated enterprises with the licensed cannabis business.

So we want to make sure to capture them in the coverage as well.

And covered employees are those who work for a covered employer for at least 30 days prior to a change in ownership of the business.

Next slide, please.

Covered outgoing employers would be obligated to provide a preferential hiring list to the incoming employer and to post a notice of change in ownership at the job site.

Incoming employers must hire from the preferential hiring list for 180 days after the change in control and must retain employees for at least 90 days unless there is just cause to discharge them.

They also need to post a notice of change in ownership at the job site for 180 days after the change in ownership.

Now all the obligations I've mentioned are consistent with a similar job retention bill for the hotel industry, also known as a Hotel Employees Job Retention Ordinance, which some council members may be familiar with.

This consistency can be helpful for OLS implementation and to help set expectations for the industry.

Next slide, please.

The job retention bill, the Cannabis Employee Job Retention Bill, does differ from the Hotel Employees Bill in one significant way, which is an additional notice requirement to account for the different way that the industry operates.

The bill would require a written notice to employees of the names used by any associated integrated enterprises.

This notice would be intended to be incorporated into the current Notice of Employment Information or NOEI obligations that employers already provide to their employees.

So basically it's just an additional line for cannabis employers to fill in on their NOEI.

There seems to be a justification for this additional requirement given the fact that cannabis employer structures can be a bit confusing, but it is a notable difference from the hotel job retention ordinance that this bill is modeled after so closely.

Otherwise, there's also the standard notice of rights requirements and record keeping requirements that are in the bill.

That's it for the summary of Council Bill 120393. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much, Jasmine.

And on this one, it looks like there's not any amendments that have been daylighted yet.

I think I said end of day.

I'm looking for amendments to go to central staff on starting at noon tomorrow so that folks can really get a chance to get working on those before the weekend.

So Any additional comments or questions?

Any amendments folks would like to flag for the good of the order that you might be considering on this third piece of legislation?

Okay, Jasmine, you did a great job.

And there is apparently no questions on this last one.

I will be happy to entertain questions or comments on the suite of legislation.

Council Member Nelson, apologies for cutting you off earlier, not trying to debate discussion today, but if you had additional comments that you'd like to make on the suite of legislation, you're welcome to do that along with any other council member who might have some comments or questions that they'd like to add on the proposal.

Okay, I'm not seeing anyone come off of mute.

I would want to offer the opportunity to turn it back over to Brianna and to Dan before we close out, but I wanted to just say thank you again.

This is a very important first step today.

I think we have outlined a series of policy proposals and also a commitment from the city, which you see included in the legislation in front of you.

is not only focused on what the city of Seattle can do, but really trying to be an active partner with community organizations, with unions and employers, with folks who've testified over the last year or eight months here in committee, and who've been part of the racial equity toolkit analysis with our finance and administrative services department to push for some of the more comprehensive changes that we know are needed at the state level.

In addition to doing everything that we can right now to be part of the, liquor and cannabis board rulemaking so that our city is well positioned to not only implement a cannabis equity approach in licensing, but to do everything that we can to provide technical support to workers, to employers, for public safety, and to make sure that we are investing in this industry so that more people have true good living wage jobs and opportunity for small business ownership here and that that wealth can really be shared with the folks who are disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs and to make up for some of the lost time that we've had over the last 10 years when that equity approach wasn't applied in the first go-round.

So Congratulations to everybody who helped pull these three pieces of legislation together.

This is a important first step and I think that the mayor's office, the legislative branch, community partners have all called this a first step because we know that there's much more work to do and much more that has been demanded of us.

I look forward to continuing to work with you as we think through that and to continuing to work with you on the amendments that have been outlined and discussed today in concept.

So amendments due tomorrow and thanks in advance to central staff for the work you've done on the three amendments already.

And the two that I think have been teed up in our discussion today in addition.

And if there are any others, we would love to see those tomorrow at noon.

You don't have to share them with me.

That's okay.

Just central staff, that's fine too.

And they will keep your confidentiality and work on it to make sure that we're ready for the next meeting.

Brianna, Dan, again, please extend our appreciation to the team, both within the departments and directly to the mayor for his leadership on this, and I'll turn it over to you for any last comments.

Thank you so much, Chairman Skater, for having us in again today.

As we've all heard and discussed robustly today, this is timely work, this is important work, this is racial equity work, and sometimes that work gets a little uncomfortable and a little testy but we're all here to make sure that we that we plod through and as you mentioned council member we are behind other cities in this body of work and you know Seattle likes to lead so I appreciate the sense of urgency with which we are working through this legislation.

Dan Eater and I remain available to you to ask answer any questions to continue to partner.

You all know where to find us and so thank you for having us at committee again today.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And I see a thumbs up from Dan as well, echoing your comments.

So with that colleagues, very exciting to see this legislation in front of us.

Thanks again for the hustle to get something to us so that we could consider this before we head into September, which is when we dive right into budget and lots to discuss in our next meeting.

Thanks in advance to central staff and you all for working with the team within central staff.

And as you heard, the mayor's office door is open.

to discussing concepts as well.

We would love to have those amendments in front of us for the 17th.

As I look at the agenda, it is pretty packed.

So I might be working with our clerk to see if we can keep this item at the top of our agenda.

And then we would actually do everything related to budget, the forecast briefing, the analysis of Seattle rescue plan implementation.

and then forecasting out for a six-year plan, we might do that as the latter half.

So just to try to bifurcate everything and really continue this conversation over into our next meeting.

So be prepared for this to be at the top of the agenda if all of the presentations align with that timeframe.

Again, we'll have the cannabis final vote, the office of economic revenue forecast, CBO forecast presentation and on revenue and expenses and from our own central staff, a general fund financial planning discussion.

This is a continuation from the May 4th meeting that's been long anticipated.

Thanks everyone.

Today's meeting is adjourned.

See you on the 17th.