Seattle City Council Briefing 7292019

The phone's on vibrate.

Good morning.

Thank you for being here for our regularly scheduled July 29th, 2019 meeting during a nice summer day.

We're joined by Council Members Sawant, Pacheco, Bagshaw, and Gonzalez.

And if there's no objection, the minutes of the July 22nd, 2019 meeting will be approved.

Hearing no objection, the minutes are approved for that meeting.

We'll go around the table and do a preview of today's full city council actions.

And I must say that I'm looking forward to our city of Seattle's little briefing on the 150th anniversary.

So that will be forthcoming.

We do have two executive sessions immediately following this meeting.

So nothing for vote this afternoon from the Governance, Equity, and Technology Committee.

So I'll just stop there and pass it to my colleague, Council Member Sawant.

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 of the committee is scheduled for a special time tonight at 6 p.m.

at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in the Central District.

At tonight's meeting, we will have two items for the committee.

First, we will discuss with the owners and supporters of Saba Ethiopian Cuisine, as many of you know, is an immigrant woman of color-owned small business in District 3. And they have recently been evicted and displaced at the hands of the corporate developers who bought their property, Alchemy Real Estate, and their subsidiary, Centric Partners.

The developers bought the property that Sabah has rented for nearly 20 years to run their small business, where they have served tens of thousands of customers.

And as we know, for struggling small businesses, moving to a new location is very expensive because they not only need to find a new landlord.

A restaurant also needs to invest in remodeling, stoves, fire suppression systems, refrigerators to be installed, and other costly things.

And so they're immediately facing a problem of funds.

And if they don't have those funds, then they will lose the business that they have put so much into.

And the community loses a big part of its heritage and identity.

And there have been any number of customers of Sabah from District 3 and outside the district and, in fact, outside the city who have said that they really want to preserve this community jewel.

So we will be discussing the issues of relocation assistance for the business, but also be bringing up larger issues of what are faced by small businesses.

We will be joined by other small business owners in the Central District and also the Central Area Chamber of Commerce.

The other point on the agenda will be a discussion with representatives of several central area churches and the Low Income Housing Institute about using church-owned land to build social affordable housing.

Seattle used to have something called the Central Area Fund, which had federal funds to build affordable housing in the central area.

But when the housing and urban development budget was being slashed in the austerity in the 80s, the funds started to dry up, but it does show what is possible.

And so we're hoping to open the discussion on what city funds could be available for that.

I also wanted to just add two other points that are important.

One, just condolences to all the families that were affected by the horrific shootings at the Garlic Festival.

And I hope there will be careful investigations into this completely horrific and unacceptable incident of violence.

And secondly, we have the security officers at the Frey Art Museum in District 3 on First Hill who have recently unionized.

It was a courageous effort by the workers, which, as many of you know, was supported by my council office, by SEIU6, by DSA, by Socialist Alternative, and many community organizations.

And these courageous workers who just unionized are going into their first bargaining session today with management, and I wanted to publicly wish them good luck and to let them know that the community stands with them.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

On today's full council agenda from the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts Committee, there is one item.

It is a council bill to lift a proviso on a $150,000 that the council provided in funding during the budget process.

The proviso was required as a way of ensuring that public benefits were granted in exchange for the funding.

from the city.

The funding was provided in order to address some of the late-breaking identified issues associated with their major renovation.

And again, as we said, the funds were added to the 2019 budget and they require a public benefit.

And Town Hall will provide up to 50 hours per year of free use of the reading room by city departments 501c3s and other community-based organizations and community groups for programming related to race and equity.

And this is layered on top of other public benefits that Town Hall currently provides for previous city financial contributions to the capital project.

Other items that I have on my list for this coming week, actually next week we have the Civil Rights Utilities Economic Development and Arts Committee meeting that is on August 13th, so not this week but next Tuesday.

The other thing I wanted to make note of is on Wednesday evening, I will be tending a monthly mixer that the Office of Arts and Culture has.

This month it will be held in District 1. at the Youngstown Arts and Cultural Association.

And it is going to be focused specifically on the question of the future of the Office of Film and Music.

So I'm really excited to hear about the efforts of the Arts Office as well as the Office of Economic Development to engage with the broader arts community around those questions.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

There are no PLEZ related items on the full council agenda today.

The next PLEZ committee meeting is on Wednesday, August 6th, sorry, August 7th.

And just as a quick reminder, to schedule an in-district meeting for constituents, please email our office and Carleen specifically.

For any invitations for the night out block parties as well, please email Carleen as well And then lastly I'll be hosting a lunch and learn next Wednesday with councilmember Bagshaw on Wayfinders at noon here and council chambers, so thank you very good

So I've got two things today.

One is my own and one is Deborah Juarez's information for what's coming up for her committee.

So first of all, with our Finance and Neighborhoods Committee, I know you're excited about this, but we are having a special meeting on Wednesday.

I want to say thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez and Council President Harrell, because I know this was an add-on to your schedule.

But we've got a number of items that we've got to get through this week so that we can vote on them before recess.

So there's one item that we will actually vote on this Wednesday, and that has to do with raising the wages of the hydro maintenance workers, one and two at Seattle City Light.

I'm taking that over for Councilmember Mosqueda.

But then also we've got five supplemental budget ordinances, and these will take a little bit of time.

We're going to get through the exceptions ordinance, the carry forward ordinance, the supplemental budget, the CIP abandonment ordinance, and the grant acceptance ordinance.

We've had a briefing before.

We will not be voting on this again.

We just have to have a second hearing on it.

And then we will vote on that at the following meeting.

So thank you for coming.

Appreciate it.

And we really have to get through all that.

So as my staff said, stop asking questions.

So I will do my best to make sure that we're through with that on Wednesday afternoon.

We also have a special backup meeting that we are holding on Friday.

That's this Friday.

If we don't get through this information, but I think that the threat of having to have a second meeting this week is enough to get us through on Wednesday.

Councilmember Juarez, she has a meeting this Wednesday, July 31st at noon.

It's her Civic Development, Public Assets, Native Communities Committee.

The first presentation is from Outdoors for All, and it's a program dedicated to enriching the quality of life.

It is at Magnuson Park.

We love this and appreciate Ed Bronson and all of his team.

We also have an ordinance regarding the Duwamish Park acquisition, the Christie Park donation, and the Sun Park donation.

And apparently there was an ordinance regarding Steinbrook Park design that was scheduled for the committee, but it required some action from the Historic Preservation Board, Pike Place Market.

Their meeting was canceled because they didn't have a quorum, and so it's coming back again later this year, but they want to get through it.

So from Sound Transit report from Council Member Juarez, she had their first rider experience and operations committee meeting.

The focus was on replacing and increasing a current lease for warehouse and yard space for Sound Transit at Kent.

Why that matters to us is that the space will provide necessary support for the construction and operation of the forthcoming Northgate and East Link extensions, eight-year term, $8.2 million.

And then she also attended a Sound Transit board meeting where they considered major items for the city of Tacoma extension.

She felt that that was important for us to bring up because it was the first meeting for the public stakeholders.

and elected officials, similar to what we did for the Ballard and West Seattle alignment.

So the last two items that she wants you to know about is the Parks and Recreation hosting their big day of play on August 17th.

And that's going to be at the Rainier Playfield and Rainier Community Center, if you've not been there.

This is a blast.

And Parks really pulls out the stops on it.

And then her live in D5 is Saturday, August 10th, from one to four at the Hubbard Homestead Park.

And I'm sure all of you will be hearing about that at least 10 more times between now and August 10th.

So thank you, Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. President and council colleagues.

I am excited to report that there's no items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's full council agenda, but we have been very busy, so there's some items in the pipeline coming.

This Thursday, we will have a committee meeting, and it will begin at 9 a.m.

because we do have a lot of items to cover.

We will cover the hotel worker legislation in the last portion, so we're asking folks who are interested in signing up for the hotel worker legislation to sign up on a separate sheet of paper.

We will get to those after we include some of the other items on our agenda that are also very important.

The two other items that will be on the agenda for this Thursday include the Multifamily Tax Exemption Renewal or the MFTE Renewal and Report.

We will be having a briefing on that.

Not slated for possible vote.

We will do a vote on the next meeting.

We do also have another housing-related item, which is a briefing and possible vote on legislation that I am sending around This is from central staff.

Legislation related to House Bill 1406. We did see an announcement from the executive's office last week that we were happy to join in on, I believe with Councilmember Herbold, as we talked about how we're going to take advantage of these additional dollars that the state has made available to cities and counties to build housing.

And our interest here is in bonding against these dollars to create additional revenue in hand for both housing and then Recognizing we do need some funding for operation and maintenance, but the priority being in building construction and capital This is a one-pager for your review would love to have you all let me know if you have any questions This is an excellent opportunity for us to I think lead in the state and show other cities what it looks like to take this opportunity and to try to build housing and very excited about the possibility of generating upwards of $15 million.

And then as we say that in the same breath, recognizing that is not enough year over year, we would like to see that same amount and we'll keep fighting for additional revenue in hand for housing.

But this is a good addition, a compliment to our housing trust fund and other sources.

So thanks again to legislators who were the prime sponsors, including Representative Nicole Macri and Representative June Robinson, Senator Frocked, as well as the leadership from Speaker Chopp.

Excited to be able to move this forward potentially on Thursday.

So can I ask a quick question, Chair?

Please.

The $4.5 million a year, is that what the city can potentially get as a result of bonding?

Actually, that is the amount that we would get from the state, and then we would bond against that to potentially get around $50 million.

So that is, yes, leveraging those dollars, but basically we could rely on those dollars every year to pay back the bond, and that way we get those dollars in hand now to build housing.

Good job.

Anything to add?

I just want to thank Council Member Mosqueda for her leadership on this.

This is really important that we act as quickly as possible.

The state authority goes into effect in July.

We have some time to exercise it, but I don't think we should use that time.

I think we should act quickly.

and hopefully try to align some of these funds with our notice of funding availability for this year, try to get some of those dollars out the door.

And I think it's also really important to reference and keep in mind the fact that these city dollars will leverage other dollars as well.

So this is really, I think, an important step for an effort that I started a few years ago and the council supported to use our city's bonding capacity for housing like we do for many of our other priority capital projects.

So thank you.

Thank you.

One last point on that just to show our return on investment for every $1 that the city invests we can leverage $5 with federal, county, and state dollars.

So it's really exciting.

Oh well, I think we're moving on up guys.

That's at least according to the last presentation I gave.

So thank you, and we will ask the Council President to hold it for one week, so we will potentially, if we're able to vote this out on Thursday, we will ideally hear it in our full Council briefing on August 12th, Mr. President.

This week, I have the opportunity to speak at the Regional Homelessness Coordination Meeting.

I'm sorry, to attend the Regional Homelessness Coordination Meeting with Councilmember Bagshaw and Councilmember O'Brien.

This is a continuation of the conversation that we had in our Select Committee on Housing and Homelessness where we're trying to make sure that The entities both at the county and our sound cities and the city of Seattle are all working on the same sheet of paper and on the same timeline with the same expectations and goals as we think about creating a regional governance group.

Just wanted to announce that we are going to have our second meeting to make sure that folks know that those discussions continue and to be super transparent about our efforts to make sure we're all on the same page, nobody's getting, you know, sort of pressure to move in one direction or another, that we're moving as a cohort together as we create the regional governance effort.

Tomorrow, I'll be speaking at the Duwamish Valley Affordable Housing Coalition.

On Friday, speaking with the interns at the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO Union Summer Camp.

And Saturday, I'll be speaking downtown to celebrate the 54th anniversary or the 54th birthday of Medicare and Social Security.

So very excited to be down there with our friends.

And I think that's it, Mr. President.

Thank you.

Very good.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

I just have to get myself a little organized.

I apologize for that.

So we have a special meeting of the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee this Wednesday, July 31, at 9.30 AM here in council chambers.

There are a total of six items on our committee agenda.

The first item will be a discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 119589. which we are commonly referring to as the DNA bill.

This particular council bill will conform the Seattle Municipal Code to state law.

for crimes that require the submission of biological samples.

So really what we're talking about is a follow-up on the city's behalf around the ability to be able to efficiently and effectively test backlog and deal with backlogs of rape kits that have existed both at the city but across the state as a result of some lack of funding and some other sort of regulatory issues.

This is a largely technical bill designed to align our city laws with state law in a manner that allows us to move forward and deal with those backlogs.

We have done outreach to King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, to the ACLU of Washington, and to a few other organizations who were closely following this issue for privacy issues and other potential constitutional issues in the state legislature.

and all of them have signaled that they don't have any concerns with the bill.

So my hope is that it'll be a simple conversation and that we'll be able to vote this out of committee so we can go ahead and get going on testing and advancing those kits.

The rest of the agenda is largely dedicated to components that are required by the 2017 Police Accountability Ordinance, including a report from the Community Police Commission and the Office of Inspector General on a presentation of their mid-year report.

We'll then hear from the Office of Inspector General on their intelligence report.

And then we will also hear from the Community Police Commission on their 2018 annual report.

And then finally, we will have a discussion and vote on retiring a couple of clerk files related to the Seattle Police Chief 2018 Annual Report and the Chief of Police Audit Report.

a lot of important dense stuff, but largely largely technical in nature in terms of Compliance with other ordinances that require these reporting issues I also wanted to circulate this proclamation for folks consideration and signature this Saturday August August 3rd at the Seattle Center.

Our Sikh community will be coming together to celebrate Sikh Turban Day.

And this is an opportunity for us to wish them well in their celebration.

So the Sikh community will be celebrating Seattle Sikh Turban Day on August 3rd at Seattle Center to celebrate their heritage and culture.

And we really want to wish them a successful celebration.

I will be attending, representing the City Council on Saturday and presenting the proclamation to the community and really excited for the opportunity to do that.

So that's again at Seattle Center this Saturday from 1 o'clock to 6 p.m.

I had an opportunity to join the Sikh community in Kent.

in April, and it was a complete blast with many amazing food stands.

And for those of you who don't know or aren't super familiar with the Sikh community, they have a tradition of feeding people for free as sort of a fundamental part of their culture to welcome people to their festivals.

and it was some of the most amazing food I've had the opportunity to enjoy.

So I really, it's very family friendly, super fun.

They're gonna be having exhibitions around showing folks how turbines get tied.

It's a real awesome opportunity for us to support our community, particularly in these trying times and to really stand there with them in solidarity, celebrating their culture and heritage.

I think Council Member Schwan had a comment.

I'm sorry?

Yes.

I just wanted to add to that.

I was there at that festival as well.

And in fact, the tradition of serving free food is actually something that they do in all the gurdwaras throughout the world.

And they obviously started in Punjab.

but it sort of came as a social justice concept that nobody should go hungry or thirsty.

And then as a follow-up to that huge event that they had done, which Council Member Gonzalez and I were both at, they also, the women of the community.

recently in Kent at the same location at Show Air.

They organized a women's empowerment meeting recently, I think just a few weeks ago.

And one of the themes was, of course, for the Sikh community and for women from South Asian origin here in the diaspora to raise awareness against women's oppression throughout the world, including in South Asia, and they had really incredible sort of street theater kind of approach to highlighting how horrific female feticide can be and how, you know, both all genders of, you know, children should be should be nurtured and should be encouraged and it was quite a phenomenal event where there were a lot of young girls children who participated in it and I think that was really important for their empowerment as well.

Yeah, thank you for adding that.

It is really beautiful to have an opportunity and a safe space for those types of collective gatherings and actions to take place.

So really encourage you all if you're around to join us on Saturday at this wonderful celebration.

I'm really honored and privileged to have been asked to present the proclamation on behalf of the City Council.

to this community.

Lastly, just wanted to mention that a few of us, three of us down here at the end of this table, Council Member Mosqueda, Council Member Ryan and I had an opportunity to spend some time in Detroit, Michigan last week attending the local progress.

annual convening, I have the privilege of serving on that board, and so spent a little extra time in Detroit to fulfill some of my board duties, and then the rest of us had an opportunity to either moderate or speak on panels, and of course attend a lot of panels on topics related to affordable housing, to criminal justice reform, to police reform, to issues related to climate justice.

I know that Council Member O'Brien spoke on a very well-received panel around climate justice.

And so I also just wanted to acknowledge that one of our very own, Council Member Mosqueda, was the recipient of the Progressive Champion Award named after Ady Barkan, who is one of the founders of Local Progress and one of the original staff members of Local Progress.

He is unfortunately very ill with ALS and has lost his voice and his ability to really move, but he has been a stalwart for many of the things that we have been fighting for here in the city of Seattle, everything from economic justice to climate justice to worker rights to really dismantling institutions that perpetuate racism and white supremacy.

And it is only fitting that our colleague here to my left, Council Member Mosqueda, was the first recipient of the inaugural Audie Barkin Progressive Champion Award, which is a national award.

So I just wanted to have a moment to acknowledge her work.

And she was so gracious to acknowledge all of us in her work by making sure to mention in her remarks that None of this would be possible without staff and without us as council colleagues, and she drug us up with her on stage.

And so I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge her accomplishment.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Great.

Council Member O'Brien.

I'll just pile on a moment, it was really great to see your win at that council, and your graciousness for accepting it.

Great to have an opportunity to see some amazing leaders from around the country there.

Minneapolis stood out, I think almost half of their council was there, and some really great stories.

And Council Member Scatey was going head-to-head with a council member from Minnesota for this battle, and I was excited to see Seattle win that one, bringing the trophy back to the West Coast.

But a really amazing opportunity to hear from a very diverse group of leaders from large cities that we often consider our peer cities.

And also progressive leaders from really small cities, stories of, you know, folks that are council members on a purely volunteer basis, often in very much more conservative cities, and the stories they have about trying to figure out how to fight for climate justice, for immigration, for affordable housing, and environments that are very different than what we're working in, and it's just, it's really, It's amazing to hear the work that people are doing out there with very little recognition that are looking for some help.

Let me ask a quick question on that.

From that particular event, does anybody put together, like, here are the best ideas coming from the various cities?

Because I know we've done that through the all ages and abilities with the work that World Health and AARP are doing.

But then it's a wonderful magazine you can just flip through and see, well, that's something that we could just emulate and do right now.

So those things available.

I'll turn to someone who's on the board of the organization to speak to that.

We do.

We pulled together a book.

It's a policy handbook.

And members who are members of the network have an opportunity to get that handbook.

It's also available online as a resource.

And it lists out the examples of different policies that different cities have advanced, components of those policies are and who was leading on those issues.

And we also have developed some more in-detailed toolkits on particular issues.

So there's some, you know, budget analysis tools to evaluate, for example, how much you're investing in law enforcement approaches as opposed to public health approaches to public safety that could yield better outcomes in terms of really changing and interrupting cycles of violence in our community.

And so I think there's a lot of resources available to leaders at all levels for advancing local level policies that could really make a difference in our communities.

Thank you for representing us.

Yeah, thanks for your service on the board, too.

My pleasure.

I'll add that our former colleague of some of us, Councilmember Licata, was one of the folks that also had a hand in founding the organization.

He was there, so it was great to see Nick for a couple days and have a chance to catch up with him.

He seems to be doing quite well, so that's great to hear.

Switching gears, the Sustainability and Transportation Committee does not have anything on this afternoon's agenda.

We do have a meeting tomorrow, one of those lovely fifth weeks of the month.

And with enough work going on, we've added a special committee that will also be full.

Seven items on the agenda.

Really quickly, we're going to get a presentation from community members on the Green New Deal.

Colleagues probably recall, we all signed a letter about a month ago supporting community efforts to establish the Green New Deal for Seattle.

There have been ongoing conversations happening since then, and so we're going to get a discussion with a few community leaders to talk about what their hopes are for the city and kind of ongoing work that we're doing trying to hopefully bring a resolution forward sometime in the next month or so to kind of lay out a framework and groundwork for where we're going to go.

A couple items related to Children's Hospital, one is accepting an easement and one is finalizing a street vacation that I believe we started a number of years ago.

on their work on their campus in Northeast Seattle.

We'll have the annual RSJI report from Seattle Department of Transportation.

There's a streetcar operations update we'll get.

I'm sure there'll be some attention on that.

Those will be the updated numbers on ridership and it'll also, ridership on the existing lines, so the First Hill line and the South Lake Union line.

And also there'll be discussion about what the mayor's vision is for the Center City Connector, and I believe there's an ask in there for funding to do ongoing engineering and design work based on.

kind of the retooling of that project that we're familiar with over the past couple of years.

We have an ordinance on commute trip reduction.

I believe it's intended to expand the downtown area to include areas around Seattle Center for some of the commute trip reduction work we're doing.

And finally, consider a resolution that expresses the city's concerns for naval testing in the Puget Sound waters and coastal waters up and down the West Coast, specifically the impact some of that testing, I believe sonar related, has on marine mammals, and obviously the condition of the resident orca population in Puget Sound is of utmost concern, along with other marine mammals and how this Navy testing has impacts on them.

That is it from the Sustainability and Transportation Committee.

Very good.

Thank you, Councilman O'Brien.

Mr. President, just one additional item.

I wanted to note for the council colleagues, we do have the handbook from Local Progress that has various case study model policy and legislation in it.

I'm excited to share that around and we'll see if we can get some more hard copies or electronic copies.

We'll send that link around for folks.

I also wanted to say just a few more things I didn't say about the event on Saturday and encourage folks to come.

Congresswoman Jayapal is going to be there along with the band Smokey Brights, which my friend's husband plays in, as well as Washington State Labor Council in Washington, Kan.

I'm excited to be there.

This is the Social Security Works Washington event, and it's the 84th birthday of Social Security and then the 54th birthday of Medicare.

So that's what we'll be celebrating and talking about protecting on Saturday at 1230 at MLK Memorial Park.

Thank you very much.

Thank you council colleagues for all your support in local progress and Councilmember Herbold, we missed you.

I know you were there last year.

I missed being there.

We'll see you there next year.

Okay, let's move into our next agenda item, which is the City of Seattle's events around our 150th anniversary.

Any presenters?

Monica, whoever else will join you, please come forward.

So we thought it appropriate to meet with all the full council just to sort of make you aware of some events, some exciting events that are going on relative to our celebration.

So why don't I stop there and just start with introductions and dive in.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Monica Martinez, City Clerk, and joining me today are members of our City Clerk team and partners from HistoryLink.

I'm Peter Beck with Documentary Media, and we're the book publication arm of HistoryLink.

I'm Marie McCaffrey, co-founder and executive director of HistoryLink.

Anne Frentilac, city archivist.

I would also like to recognize the City Clerk Archives team members that are joining us in the audience this morning.

They're behind me, and that would include Julie Curson, Julie Erick, Jeannie Fisher, Sarah Shipley, Libby Hoppa, and also Ashley Harrison from our Legislative Operations team.

Council members, the City of Seattle is fast approaching the 150th anniversary of its incorporation in 1869. December 2nd will be Seattle's sesquicentennial anniversary.

Say that three times very fast.

Today we are so pleased to share our progress towards the creation of a commemorative publication celebrating Seattle's past 150 years through holdings from the Seattle Municipal Archives.

The book is titled, and it's right above on the big screen, The City at 150, The Story of Seattle in 150 Objects from the Seattle Municipal Archives.

This commemorative publication was made possible through an incredible partnership with HistoryLink and multiple city agencies that supported this project by contributing funds and or planning partnership events leading up to the December 2nd anniversary.

A special 150th anniversary logo was designed to help promote this momentous occasion.

And we look forward to sharing this anniversary logo with all city departments and our elected officials to assist in promoting Seattle at 150, as well as the various community events we have planned.

And that will be beginning starting in August.

So we're already going to have a lot of community event involvement.

In September, a formal announcement and kickoff for Seattle's sesquicentennial celebration will take place and coincide with special anniversary events that Anne will be discussing in a short time.

A quick look at the preliminary schedule list on your postcard, which all of you might have if you flip the other side, will show three upcoming community events where we will have exhibits and activities surrounding the 150. Those events include Light in D5 at Hempstead Park on August 10th, Parks Big Day of Play on August 17th, and SDOT's Parking Day on September 20th.

We look forward to supporting these events and promoting others that Anne, like I mentioned, will be highlighting shortly.

We have plans to work with the city PIO teams and also promote through the city websites, Seattle Channel, and beyond.

We are also excited to collaborate with you, our city council, our mayor, and all city agencies to ensure this special anniversary and the resources published and produced are promoted throughout the community.

And our team is available to assist you in coordinating those opportunities.

At this time, I'd like to turn it over to Anne, who will share the concept behind the city at 150. Anne?

The book we've been working on is based on an idea that the British Museum used in 2014, A History of the World in 100 Objects, which used objects in the museum to tell stories in different time periods and on different themes in books, podcasts, and exhibits.

Seattle at 150, Stories of the City Through 150 Objects from the Seattle Municipal Archives, uses items in the archives to tell the city's history.

The items in the book are all from the archives, which holds the records of city departments and its elected officials.

The objects reflect the complexity of governing, the infrastructure and policies developed to keep a city running smoothly, as well as the voices not only of employees and elected officials, but of citizens interacting with their municipal government.

Each object offers a small story and cumulatively they touch on key themes in the city's history through time.

I also wanted to mention that in addition to support from the executive and the legislative department, we received participation of departments listed here for their support of the 150 project and we're very grateful.

Objects in the book illustrate different functions of the city and a variety of departments.

The stories balance different neighborhoods throughout the city.

The objects show points of conflict as well as important achievements.

Telling individual stories shows incremental changes through time as our worldview evolves along with attitudes and processes.

Pull the microphone a little closer, please.

Thank you very much.

We'll also have an online version of the book, and we'll send out that link as soon as it's ready.

It'll probably be in conjunction with the publication of the book.

HistoryLink has been a great partner.

They've designed a beautiful book.

The book will be able to be enjoyed at a variety of levels.

The launch of the book is October 17 in conjunction with an exhibit that we're doing in SMT Lobby.

Copies will be available then.

There will also be a public event on October 30th in Bertha Knight Landis, where Jeff Schulman from the University of Washington will also speak on the value of archives and telling our stories today.

We hope to see you at one or all of these events.

We're really excited about the publication and looking forward to seeing it when it's ready in October.

I'd like to share the time with Peter Beck and also Marie McAfee from HistoryLink and Docu.

Do you want to start, Peter?

Maria, why don't you start?

So I'm really, really pleased.

This is a great honor and pleasure to work on this book.

Seattle Municipal Archives is a treasure.

You guys should all be really happy and proud of that.

For us, in our everyday work, we use it.

And in this case, it was a collaboration between the History Link writers, of course my partner Peter, and the archives.

So all of us played equal roles in this production.

As the Encyclopedia of Washington State History, I'm really happy that we got an opportunity to do something in this 150th anniversary.

And I want to thank you all for that opportunity, and I hope you love this book as much as we do.

It's beautiful, and it's a great way to sort of crack into the wall of history and approach it from different angles, and then, you know, just dip in here and there.

And I think it's going to be a great asset to the city.

Yeah, I'll just add that Seattle at 150 is a very unique book and not so much telling the story of the city as giving 150 little opportunities to walk away with and knowing more about how a city begins and grows and evolves than you knew before.

So I'm really excited for all of you to read it.

In 1869, I was just in grade school at the time.

The form of archives that took place, what was the physical form?

Was it pretty much just some kind of paper?

What were you converting to show us what will be in the book?

Anne, I'll turn that to you.

Specifically for 1869, we're using the Articles of Incorporation, which are actually held at the state archives.

So we received a copy of those.

Well, it's more talking about more historical records after that period.

In 1873, as an example, what was going on?

How did you, what were you, or I guess, what were the publishers looking at to produce a product?

Newspapers or something?

So you might give just a tiny overview of the Seattle Municipal Archives and It hasn't been around that long.

For the early years, we often use legislation in combination with photographs.

We don't have an object for every year precisely because of that.

Some of the early years, partly because of the Great Fire, there aren't a lot of objects to look at.

So it's primarily photographs and legislation ordinances for the early years.

And one of the tricks in the design and finding these objects is they really are objects that are in this collection, as opposed to going out and finding archives in different collections and putting them in the book.

These are all Seattle Municipal Archive collections.

Question?

Council Member Schaketa?

Thank you.

This is very exciting.

I love this kind of archival history and it reminds me of those books that we can buy by area, by neighborhood in the city.

So having just moved to the West Seattle area, I have mine.

I read all about the Mosquito Fleets.

I know all about the bridges that used to connect our areas and the railways that we used to have.

Is there going to be an emphasis on here and exploring the transit that we used to have in the city?

We've tried to balance all the different functions of the city over time, whether it's social policy, transportation, utilities.

We made a spreadsheet and really tried to give equal space to all the functions.

The city does a lot of work.

I want to put in a tiny plug for HistoryLink here, because we have tons of that.

So if you go on HistoryLink and type in transportation, you can spend the next couple of days reading about it.

Also, West Seattle, or really anything in neighborhoods.

And the other book we're publishing is at the same time is the history of public transportation in the Puget Sound region.

So it'll be a comprehensive history of transportation from the very beginning to now.

In...

uh...

October.

October?

Yeah, we have four books coming out in October.

Yikes.

Thank you for keeping me busy.

Are there any other questions?

Any other questions?

Michael O'Brien.

I really appreciate this presentation and this work, and I, you know, it's great to have these milestones to highlight.

We'll want to bring to the public all the great records that you all are the stewards of.

Often these exercises can be done as a exclusively about cheerleading for our city, and I'm sure there's plenty of that to do, but I really appreciate that there's also shedding light on some of the problematic pieces of our past too, and I think it's critically important as our city continues to evolve that we acknowledge that we've done some great things and some pretty horrendous things, and these are all part of our history, our shared history, and we have to recognize that as we move forward and deal with it.

So thanks for making sure that that was included too.

If there are no other questions, I'd like to thank Anne, Peter, and Marie for joining me at the table.

And I just want to say what has already been said.

There has been an unbelievable amount of dedication and commitment demonstrated throughout this special project.

And I'd like to thank all those who had a hand in making it possible.

With that, council members, I just wanted to ask you to reach out to us.

Let us know how we might be able to support you out in the community as we approach this sesquicentennial event.

And we want to leave you with some sesquicentennial swag.

And again, we'll have a little bit more, but this will help promote.

We plan, again, to be working with the PIOs.

The book will be beautiful as described, and we'll make sure that you are all a part of these special events that we have planned.

Okay.

So it looks like it's at the printer now or something.

It is.

It is.

August 10th is the first reveal, huh?

The first section has been completed.

Yeah, and the book release will be October 17th.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

All right.

October 17th.

We'll keep you posted, and thank you very much.

And Marie, I just want to know if you have been pushing, as I have with WSDOT, to make sure that they restore the clock tower when they put in the new ferry terminal.

Thank you, Sally.

I'll work on that.

Right on it.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you.

All right.

OK, we're going to hold you to October 17th now.

You're going to be posting some of those events.

OK.

Okay, we're going to move into executive session and as presiding officer I'm announcing that the City Council will convene an executive session and the purpose of our executive session is to discuss pending potential our actual litigation as authorized by law and it gives us the chance to discuss confidential legal matters with our city attorneys and However, a monitor from the city attorney's office is always available and present during these meetings to make sure we reserve questions of policy for public open sessions.

So I expect this executive session to last for one hour.

So we'll say to 1119. And if it goes beyond that time, I'll announce the extension and its expected duration.

And so with that, we'll move into executive session.