Good morning.
Thank you for being here for a regular scheduled council briefing.
Um, let's see, I will sort of dispense of a president's report, but I'm going to fill in for councilor Mosqueda on a few items she'd like us to, um, to consider.
And let me announce at the beginning of this briefing that item number four, which was an executive session on pending potential actual litigation has been canceled.
We still will have one executive session number three, but the fourth one will be canceled.
Let's see there are this is from councilmember skater here.
So again, she could not make it this morning But she'd be here this afternoon and there's no items for vote for the Housing Health and Energy and Workers Rights Committee On today's full council action, but she would like us to sign this Proclamation I'd be honored to sign and let me describe this proclamation.
She's gonna present it this afternoon and As many of you know During the week of September 10th is the week of Mexico, where they celebrate Mexico's Independence Day, which is on September 16th.
And the Mexican Council, along with other community partners, put together the Mexam Northwest Festival.
They have several different events throughout the public throughout the week to celebrate and recognize the history and heritage of Mexico.
And so that's what this I will pass that around.
The next meeting is Thursday September 13 at 930. This is a special meeting.
And then there will also be a regularly scheduled meeting on September 20th at 9.30.
And during that meeting, she will have, number one, the Yeschler Terrace Annual Report, number two, the Office of Housing, RSGI Report and Action Plan, and number three, a public hearing, briefing, and possible vote for the confirmation of Debra Smith as the new City Light Manager.
So sort of a two-pronged process for Ms. Smith.
And that's all we have from myself and Ms. Gaeta.
And Council Member Schwant, you have the floor.
Thank you, President Harrell.
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
There are no items on today's city council agenda from the Human Services Equitable Development and Renters' Rights Committee.
The next meeting for the committee is scheduled for the regular time that is tomorrow at 2 p.m.
And at that meeting, we will have a report from the Seattle Department of Construction Inspections on their new Renting in Seattle portal.
This is a web portal they've briefed the committee on earlier this year.
And the portal is intended to be a one-stop place or one-stop shop for renters and landlords to get information about rental housing laws in the city and also a portal where renters can file complaints.
We will also have a briefing from the Human Services Department on their recent funding awards for senior services.
And finally, we will have some appointments for the City of Seattle Renters Commission.
And I was just letting President Harrell know that this last item, the three appointments, one of which is a mayoral appointment and two are commission appointments, inadvertently got left off the agenda last week.
So I will be just walking them onto the calendar this afternoon.
Very good.
Thank you.
Council Member Herbold.
Thank you.
I have no items on today's full council agenda, but I do have a Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee meeting tomorrow.
And on the agenda for tomorrow's committee, we have a bunch of appointments.
We have seven appointments to the Human Rights Commission, three appointments to the LGBTQ Commission, one appointment to the Disabilities Commission, two appointments to the Arts Commission, and one appointment to the Music Commission.
We also are going to have a presentation from the Office of Arts and Culture, who are going to come and join us to talk about the Cultural Facilities Fund expansion and the racial equity toolkit that they've done for that expansion.
And we also will be having a vote on the Domestic Workers Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Ordinance that we have discussed in a previous committee.
This is a companion bill to the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
This is going to be our second briefing and we intend to vote in this meeting tomorrow.
As a reminder, this legislation came from the stakeholder engagement process that was led by Council Member Mosqueda for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.
And it was revealed during that stakeholder process that without a way to deal with potential harassment, discrimination, or retaliation that workers might face within the context of exercising their rights under the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, the ability for workers to take advantage of these new rights would be limited.
And so the way to deal with those issues is with the section of the municipal code overseen by the Office of Civil Rights.
And it relates specifically to that part of the code as opposed to the part of the code that deals with labor rights.
So, the legislation led by Council Member Mosqueda covers both employees and independent contractors, and independent contractors are not covered in the Seattle Municipal Section on Fair Employment Practices as it relates to civil rights enforcement.
So, we'll be making some changes, and basically the changes involve adding the protections for independent contractors.
Finally, we have two ordinances related to Seattle Public Utilities.
One is an ordinance relating to the 2019 Water System Plan, which is a document that provides guidance for planning and managing the drinking water system and the capital facilities necessary for that system.
And then, finally, we have two ordinances relating to drainage and wastewater rates.
Thank you, Council Member Ward.
Council Member Juarez.
Thank you.
Good morning, everybody.
Go Seattle Storm.
Go Stewie.
I almost had a heart attack yesterday.
Feeling better now.
There are two items on the full council agenda from the Civic Development, Public Assets, and Native Communities Committee.
Council Bill 119340 authorizes the Superintendent of Parks and Recreation to acquire real property and property rights within the city's green spaces.
This passed out of committee with a unanimous recommendation.
Second, Council Bill 119343 authorizes Superintendent of Parks and Recreation to enter into a management agreement with the Jefferson Park Law and Bowling Club for the purpose of renting rooms and teaching law and bowling to the public.
This also passed on a committee with unanimous recommendation and I should add Jefferson Park did a phenomenal job.
They had one of the best public benefits packages that we've seen in a long time, so good job to them.
Our second meeting of the Select Committee on Civic Arenas will be this Friday, September 14th at 930. We will discuss and vote on possible amendments and then vote on the transaction documents as amended.
We are aiming for a final vote for full council on Monday, September 24th.
That's it.
Thank you.
Council Member Bakeshaw.
Thank you.
I just want to tip my hat to the good work that you and your office has done, Council Member Juarez.
This has been one of the best processes to bring forward in a scheduled way what's gone on with all of the negotiations, and I just really want to acknowledge that it's been two years in the making, and you and those that have been working on it should be commended, and I really appreciate that.
I want to thank all my colleagues, because after that June 2016 vote, things weren't exactly smooth sailing, but that's the past.
We're moving forward, yes.
Good job.
Thank you.
Good.
We have nothing today from the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee, but I just want to give you an alert for what's coming this week and next week.
two major meetings for the Finance and Neighborhoods Committee, one this coming Wednesday.
And when I say major, we just have lots and lots of agenda items.
So next Monday and then two weeks after that from the Finance Committee, we'll be doing our share.
So this Wednesday, we've got the second quarter supplemental budget.
We have Council Member Muscata's disposition legislation and I want to say thank you to her specifically and to Michael Maddox on her staff and in my office.
My legislative aides have been just super going through this and say thank you to Allison and Deanne and Brian.
and Lena for working with central staff on it.
We also have three director appointments, Andres Matia, Sue McNabb, and Calvin Goings with Department of Neighborhoods, the Human Resources and Finance Administrative Services, respectfully.
And I want to acknowledge all three of those people.
I've known them and worked with them over time.
Sue McNabb is somebody that I've known for quite a long time.
Somebody might ask her about the 40 Camels story.
It's worth knowing.
Also, we've got three appointments to the Community Involvement Commission, which is coming up.
I'm going to be walking on one today so we can add it to the agenda.
We had two that were put forward for our regular and in accordance with the protocols for timing, but we need to walk on one today.
And then there's also going to be a Dunlumber property acquisition.
So to the fun news for today, I'm passing around a proclamation.
And this is for the women's sailing team that won the race to Alaska earlier this summer.
This is pretty impressive.
It's the first time a women-only team has won the race.
It's a 755-mile non-motorized and unsupported race.
from here, from Port Townsend up to Ketchikan.
We'll be acknowledging the women.
Many of them will be here today to receive this proclamation.
The mayor has already signed it, and I want to say special thanks to Dan Strauss in my office for pulling this together and working closely with Team SAIL Like a Girl, which, by the way, is a compliment.
It is not something that one should look at as being disparaging.
So they will be here this afternoon, and thank you for signing the proclamation.
Excellent.
Councilwoman Johnson.
Thanks.
Nothing to report from the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee.
I do have a request from Council Member Gonzalez's office to brief my colleagues about her committee discussion on Wednesday morning.
They will have an early start time of 9 a.m.
There are five items on that agenda.
That morning we'll be discussing and possibly voting on a resolution relating to the Office of Emergency Management's update to the city's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.
will be followed by four briefings, a presentation and final report of the Georgetown Public Safety Task Force, a similar presentation and report on the Chinatown International District Public Safety Task Force, a joint briefing from the Fire Department and the Police Department on the Fire Department's Low Acuity Alarm Program, which you all may know we spent a lot of time talking about, and a joint briefing by the City Budget Office and SPD on the Overtime Annual Report.
We'll have a lot of reports coming out of Councilmember Gonzalez's committee on Wednesday morning.
Finally, just take a moment of personal privilege and say congratulations to all those folks starting kindergarten today.
including my little one who started at Bryan Elementary this morning.
It was a good morning when there are a lot more tears shed by adults on the playground than the kids walking into school, but congratulations to the class of 2031. Thank you very much.
Rail class.
So the Sustainability and Transportation Committee has one item on this afternoon's agenda.
At our committee meeting on Friday afternoon, we passed a resolution out of committee that would oppose oil and gas exploration off Washington's coast.
As folks are aware, the Trump administration has proposed opening up essentially all of our offshore waters up and down the Pacific and Atlantic coasts that have been off limits for a long time, to potentially reopening those to oil and gas exploration.
We are moving to pass a resolution that would say the city is opposed to that, and the resolution, of course, talks about the environmental, economic, recreation benefits that we get from our beautiful coastline and the potential problems with that.
Seattle would be joining, I think, about 75 other cities around Washington that have already passed similar resolutions.
As folks are probably aware, this issue crosses political lines up and down the East and West Coast.
States with Republican governors and Democratic governors are adamantly opposed to offshore drilling in their states because of the potential dangers.
There was a number of other items that came out of committee on Friday afternoon, but those we will hold until next Monday.
I'll ask a quick question about that.
You've been a real leader in this environmental work, Mike, since you've been here on council.
I know you and I have talked about alternatives such as wind energy and wave energy.
Is there anything anywhere where we're investing in that off our coast to such an extent that it would make a difference for our environment?
Yeah, I mean, you know, potentially all that stuff makes a difference.
The wind energy obviously is pretty well developed, and there's a lot of that happening on land in Washington.
There's not offshore wind development.
And I'm not an expert on this, so I'll say for just a couple seconds what I know, but we could also bring in some experts to give us some more information.
The opportunities to develop both wave and tidal energy offshore is there are, I'm aware of various pilots and studies and academic research that's happening and I think some of that is happening in Washington State.
I'm not aware of any technology that has gotten to the level of kind of commercial deployment like we see with solar and wind.
But I know there's a lot of smart people working on, clearly there's a lot of energy in our oceans, but you know, again, putting things in our oceans has impacts too, and so it has to be thoughtful and smart.
But I, what I will say is that the ongoing work around renewable energy sources, predominantly solar and wind today, continues to accelerate, and the cost of those continue to come down significantly, and you know, A lot of us believe that it's only a matter of time and in some jurisdictions we've already passed that point where even when you include all the costs associated in subsidies with things, wind and solar is much more cost effective certainly than making coal plants up to our standards and a lot of the other things.
There's work being done on that, and I'll just take this opportunity to mention that starting on Wednesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, there's a global climate action summit happening in California and San Francisco that Governor Jerry Brown, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who's the special delegate to the United Nations on climate change, and others are leading to talk about what, it's a kind of response to the Paris Accord, You know, President Trump said he was going to pull the United States out of that accord.
But this is an attempt to bring subnational organizations, so states, counties, cities, ports, from the United States and around the world together to talk about what we can be doing locally.
And to demonstrate to the rest of the world, frankly, that most of us or a lot of us in this country are not on board with President Trump's plans.
and are doing other things.
So I'm going to be, I'm going to go down to California where there's a number of things the city is doing.
One, Mayor Durkan has agreed to sign the city on to a commitment with a number of other cities and countries around ocean acidification, and so there'll be an announcement of that.
And Mayor Durkan, I don't believe, is going to be there, so I'm going to be representing the city.
at that announcement and some other things, a lot of other actions happening down there.
And so we wanted to make sure that we could pass this resolution about offshore drilling in advance of that too.
Good job.
Thank you.
Do I have quick two other items that I failed to mention in Belltown that's happening this week?
There is a Belltown 2020 Summit that's been in planning stages now for many months.
It's this Thursday, September 13th at 5.30 p.m.
and this is going to be at the Palace Ballroom.
So it's an opportunity to talk about future initiatives.
Belltown is coming back up.
It's had some issues recently among its leadership, but I'm very excited about this.
So people are welcome to join.
And then also, next weekend, we're having the Battery Street Block Party.
Remember last year, we were looking at opportunities to try to keep the Battery Street Tunnel open, but after much discussion with SDOT and WSDOT, recognized that wasn't going to happen.
The good people in Beltham, the business leaders and residences are looking at what can we do on battery.
So on the battery is going to be part of the street conversation.
First in battery, Saturday and Sunday this week, 12 to 6, both days.
So I'll be there and invite any of you who want to join to join me.
Thank you, Council Member Beksha.
Council Member Bryan.
One other thing I wanted to just mention, Council Member Beksha, signified walk-on for Community Involvement Commission member, was that Chris Maycutt?
Yes, out of your office.
Great, so I just wanted to speak briefly to that.
I'm sorry that that was not able to get to committee, but Chris Maycutt is being nominated as the District 6 representative.
The previous District 6 representative moved to a different district, and he was able to stay on and fill a different role, but we're putting a new one.
For those that don't know Chris, he was the previous owner of Chaco Canyon Cafe.
and has since sold that business and now works at Finney Neighborhood Association and has been looking to get more and more involved in city activism.
And so I look forward to supporting that nomination.
Thank you for walking that on today.
Absolutely.
Very good.
Thank you all for your report.
Should look forward and for briefing us for what's going to happen this afternoon at two o'clock.
Thank you.
Okay, so as presiding officer, I'm announcing that the Seattle City Council will now convene an executive session.
And the purpose of the executive session is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.
And this always gives us an opportunity for the council to discuss confidential legal matters with city attorneys as authorized by law.
We always reserve questions and issues of policy, of public policy, for open sessions.
And I expect this session to end in 30 minutes, which is around, I'll say, 10.30.
And if the executive sessions be extended beyond that time, I'll announce the extension and the expected duration.
So with that, let's go into executive session and turn off the.